We Should be Allowed to Smoke

In The United States of America today, marijuana is illegal. According to an article by Tom Head on About.com, the top four reasons this country’s government claims that it is illegal is that it is addictive, has no accepted medical use, is historically linked with heroin, and associated with unfashionable lifestyles. Because all of these can be disproven, marijuana should be legalized.

First of all, marijuana is not physically addictive. Some try to say they cannot sleep or eat without it, but that does not mean that it is physically addictive. It means that they probably have a disorder that makes them that way. Marijuana addiction is all in a person’s head. Withdrawals are not felt if one does not smoke it for a few days.

It has no accepted medical use? That is obviously disproven by the great state of California. Marijuana is legal for medicinal use there. One has to have a prescription to obtain it legally, but it is prescribed for many things. Glaucoma, cancer, nausea, sleeplessness, and anxiety are all reasons these prescriptions have been written in the past.

Yet another reason that was used is that it is historically linked with heroin. In 1914, marijuana and cocaine were linked with heroin as narcotics. Traditionally, a narcotic was described as something that contained opium derivatives. Marijuana does not contain opiates. It is a natural drug that is all cannabis.

It was also associated with unfashionable lifestyles. This is completely ridiculous. People usually think of hippies or people that are lazy and do not work. This is something to think about. In this day and age, it may be matched with those kinds of people, but that is because the ones with higher paying or governmental jobs do not openly admit to smoking it due to the criminal implications.

If marijuana was legalized, the crime rate would be significantly smaller. According to legalizationofmarijuana.com, more than 734, 000 people were arrested in 2000 for marijuana offenses alone. Laws are meant to protect us, so why were all these people arrested? Marijuana does not endanger anyone. It may make a person lethargic or really hungry, but it does not put anyone in immediate danger.

Alcohol, which is legal for adults to consume, is a lot more dangerous. Alcohol makes people mean, blurs vision, causes accidents, shortens tempers, and causes liver damage. Tobacco is also legal. It causes blood pressure to rise, breathing problems, and heart disease. Both of these legal drugs are addictive and people do suffer withdrawals if they go too long without them. Marijuana has not been proven to cause any of these problems. Alcohol and tobacco annually cause an average of 500,000 deaths each year. Marijuana annually cause zero.