Jack Bond is a junior English major from Marion.
Marijuana began to be widely used in the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century and was outlawed in 1970 by the controlled substances act. Ever since the start of the war on drugs, marijuana has been seen by the public eye as a tool of the devil. While it certainly has adverse health effects that should be warned against, the logic behind the prohibition of this drug does not hold up.
One of the main arguments for the legalization of marijuana is that alcohol and tobacco are just as, if not more dangerous than marijuana, and they are both legal. While marijuana does have serious health repercussions, they are not nearly as severe as tobacco or alcohol. You can easily kill yourself by overdoing it with tobacco or alcohol; however, an overdose of marijuana does not directly lead to death. In fact, it has been discovered that the lethal amount of marijuana is impossible for a human being to consume. It can still be incredibly dangerous to overdo it, but significantly less so than with the legal drugs.
Furthering this, marijuana actually has some benefits that tobacco and alcohol do not. One thing you hear all the time is that marijuana helps with anxiety. Recent studies have shown this to be true. In a 2016 study of 1429 medical marijuana users, 58.1% reported using it to relieve anxiety with all of them generally agreeing that it did reduce symptoms. It can even be used to reduce nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients.
Medical purposes are not where the law should stop though. Recreational marijuana should be the end goal, and the main reason for doing so to reduce crime. Since the drug is illegal, the lengths that people have to go to to get it can be incredibly dangerous. And since the underground world has no legal regulations, violence is used to protect illegal businesses, leading to turf wars and shootouts. Nobody should have to risk getting shot for something that can take the ease off a stressful day of work. Simply instituting dispensaries reduces the need for any of this by a lot. A 2021 study by Appalachian State University found that counties where medical marijuana laws were implemented reduced annual violent crime by 29 cases and those that share a border with Mexico by 61 cases. The study also saw property crimes reduced by 180 cases.
And before you say anything, yes, marijuana is overall bad for you. In terms of health, the risks outweigh the benefits. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have a whole list of reasons not to do it on their website. The most convincing (to me at least) is that long term marijuana usage is associated with a greater risk for developing schizophrenia. According to the CDC, it can also cause cancer and heart disease, and it can even hurt brain development in people 18 or under.
I am not by any means recommending that people try marijuana or even stating that it is an overall good thing to try or that society would be better off if everyone just had some pot on standby. I am saying that the legalization of it would alleviate a lot of problems that keeping it locked by the law causes. With the demand to legalize it growing in recent years, it’s high time to let the people get some high time.
Categories: Opinion
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