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Legalization of Marijuana
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Legalization of Marijuana
The debate over the legalization of marijuana has heated sides with some of the parties opposing the legalization. Marijuana is one of the herbs that have been used by a large number of people for an extended period with some of the people taking marijuana for recreation purposes. In some of the countries, marijuana has been made legal meaning that the citizens cultivate, sell and consume marijuana without any harassment from the government. However, in other counties marijuana is illegal and being in possession of the herb calls for penalties such as serving a jail term. The supporters of marijuana have their reasons and those opposing as well have their reason and each side term themselves as being right.
The supporters of marijuana legalization claim that marijuana is used for various medical problems such as to relieve chronic pain, nausea, and loss of appetite, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis (Parmar et al.). Besides marijuana for medical use can be used in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and also in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. According to studies, the legalization of medical marijuana in health institutions will help reduce the opioid painkiller deaths and therefore medical marijuana can be used to aid in fighting the opioid epidemic and this is achieved by replacing marijuana to treat chronic pain to which the opioids are used. Medical marijuana does not cause deadly overdose unlike opioids, and therefore it is one of the reasons as to why it should be realized.
Marijuana is relatively a safe drug compared to other substances. The reason is that there are no known deaths that result due to the use of marijuana or even the overdose of marijuana. Many people die of other overdoses of drugs that are legal such as the opioids, but no legal action is taken to ban the use of drugs. Besides, substances such as alcohol contribute to a significant proportion of deaths in a county but also there are no restrictions on their use. However, questions do arise as to why marijuana that is considered safe and that has no reported death incidence due to overdose cannot be legalized.
Most of the people who against the legalization of marijuana claim that marijuana is associated with crimes, but this is not enough evidence as to why the herb should not be legalized in the US. The reason why the evidence is not enough is that a lot of people who commit crimes, on the other hand, do not use marijuana and do not commit the crimes due to the influence of marijuana. Committing a crime is a personal behavior that should not be generalized to all the users and people might be committing crimes to make the use of marijuana seem harmful and not safe for consumption. Marijuana has been legalized in other countries such as Canada has legalized the use of marijuana, and there has been no evidence of vices such as crime that is a result of using the marijuana (Caulkins et al.), and therefore the criminalization of marijuana does not prevent the criminals from committing offenses.
Parties against the legalization of marijuana claim that marijuana distorts the memory of a person and therefore affects their decision making (Stolzenberg et al.). The alterations in the decision making the person indulge in unwanted behaviors such as rape and theft. These altered decagons and behaviors make those against the legalization of the pot have the belief that marijuana is the drug behind the unwanted behaviors.
The critics of the legalization of marijuana claim that the legalization of the herb will be a gateway to the use of other drugs that are illegal (Goode). People who use other drugs will also initiate the claims that their drugs are also safe and that they do not lead to committing of any vices or crimes and that they also need to legalize the drug. The critics also claim that the legalization of marijuana will lead to misuses of the drug from the intended reasons and therefore the legalization will not have achieved the desired objective.
In my opinion, marijuana should be legalized as more benefits accrue from the use of the herb while there are few harmful effects to which are just mere speculations that have the intentions of criminalizing marijuana. Marijuana is a safe drug that is used in hospitals for medical purposes to relieve pain and aid in the treatment of PTSD. Besides, the legalization of marijuana will be a source of revenue to the government. Pot has no known incidence of deaths that result from the overdose of the drug, and therefore there is no need to decriminalize the drug.
Work Cited
Caulkins, Jonathan P., et al. Considering marijuana legalization: Insights for Vermont and other jurisdictions. Rand Corporation, 2015.
Goode, Erich. Marijuana. Routledge, 2017.
Parmar, Jayesh R., Benjamin D. Forrest, and Robert A. Freeman. “Medical marijuana patient counseling points for health care professionals based on trends in the medical uses, efficacy, and adverse effects of cannabis-based pharmaceutical drugs.” Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy 12.4 (2016): 638-654.
Stolzenberg, Lisa, Stewart J. D’Alessio, and Dustin Dariano. “The effect of medical cannabis laws on juvenile cannabis use.” International Journal of Drug Policy 27 (2016): 82-88.
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