Marijuana Prohibition : Why The United States Should Prohibited The Use Of Marijuana

Thesis: There is a significant amount of attention in today’s world on weather or not to legalize marijuana. The prohibition of marijuana is holding up the improvement of social and economic developments.

Thesis Statement: Marijuana has been regarded as a harmful plant that can endanger lives and is thought to be nothing more than an extra problem to be dealt with in today’s society. However, based on its economic value and medical benefits, the cannabis has proven to outweigh its negatives with numerous other positives.

Ever since marijuana’s introduction to the United States of America in 1611, controversy of the use and legalization of the claimed-to-be Schedule I drug spread around the nation. While few selective states currently allow marijuana’s production and distribution, the remaining states still skepticize the harmlessness and usefulness of this particular drug; therefore, it remains illegal in the majority of the nation. The government officials and citizens of the opposing states believe the drug creates a threat to citizens due to its “overly-harmful” effects mentally and physically and offers no alternate purposes but creating troublesome addicts hazardous to society; however, they are rather misinformed about marijuana’s abilities. While

While such popular and potent drugs (alcohol and nicotine) are legally available to the public, there is fallacious logic in outlawing a drug less exponentially less dangerous and far less addictive than these two easily accessible drugs. Alcohol and nicotine are infinitely more harmful to the human body than marijuana, cannabis simply not toxic enough to kill (In Pot). Marijuana is demonized by the government and much of the media as a dangerous drug, while the deaths of roughly 50,000 people in The United States per year can be contributed to alcohol and 440,000 to tobacco. All the while, marijuana has never directly caused the death of anybody in the entire history of mankind (Jillette). While some would expect marijuana to be at least as carcinogenic as tobacco, recent medical journals have found no link between smoking marijuana and lung cancer (Boyles). One example given in one study was that two-pack-a-day cigarette smokers saw a 20-fold increase in cancer risk when compared to non-smokers, while no elevation in risk was observed in even the heaviest (22,000+ joints smoked in lifetime) smokers of marijuana (Boyles). Any consistent person that believes marijuana should stay illegal should also believe alcohol and cigarettes should be made illegal, by the same reasoning.

There was no science backing this claim, and when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true. It does not have a high potential for abuse, leading to a dependance in around 9 to 10% of it’s users. By comparison cocaine, a schedule two substance" with less abuse potential than schedule 1 drugs" hooks 20% of those who use it. Around 25% of heroin users become addicted. The worst being tobacco which has an addiction rate of around 30%.

Possession and use of cannabis, also commonly known as marijuana, is considered illegal. For years marijuana has been an illegal “drug” in most countries. In today’s world a few countries have legalized cannabis while others are still progressing toward it. In particular, small amount of marijuana have been allowed in places such as Europe, North America and South America. In the United States in particular, states such as Washington and Colorado have also legalized the usage of marijuana for medical/recreational purposes. On the other hand, numerous penalties are enforced pertaining the use or possession of cannabis where it is not legal. The chance of the penalties being small are seldom; offenders often receive severe punishments. Possession of small quantities of marijuana is not punished the same way as possession of large quantities of other illegal narcotics. In this essay, there will be an in-depth argument on the reasons why cannabis should be legalized, and why it should not.

The purpose of this essay is to provide an argument for the legalization of cannabis for both medicinal and recreational use, and to bring to light some of the negative consequences that the war on drugs has caused by demonizing cannabis for over 100 years, and to show how communities are both positively affected by making cannabis legal, and negatively affected by the continued perpetuation of ignorance that has gone on for far too long. That being the illegality of the possession and consumption cannabis.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse writes that an estimated 9% of marijuana users will eventually become dependent on marijuana (National Institute, 2014). The American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as “a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors” (American Society, 2011).

Marijuana is a contrast to tobacco and alcohol when addiction characteristics do not show with the use of marijuana while addiction shows with legal tobacco and alcohol. It shows that less than one in ten marijuana smokers convert to consistent consumers of the drug, and most intentionally terminate their use after age 34, by comparison, 15 percent of alcohol users and 32 percent of tobacco smokers display indicators of drug dependency. Cannabis withdrawal indicators are uncommon and do not need replacement medication to stop the habit. When smoking marijuana comes to an end of an intake, the vast majority of smokers do not feel subjected to uncomfortable withdrawal indicators commanding restarting the use of marijuana.

Living in the 21st Century, a majority of the laws and regulations that guide our daily lives have already been legitimized and written decades ago. Although a large portion of these laws still exist today, there is always need to revise and rewrite laws. In this article I will talk about the myths and beliefs of marijuana and compare them to reliable sources to form an opinion on whether or not marijuana is a relatively safe drug for medical and recreational use along with the physical and social effects to the user and their environment. Regard, this paper will not focus on any other associated topics such as the price of prisons, annual marijuana dispensary revenue, drug trafficking or law policy’s. However many of the used articles compare and contrast the use of alcohol to cannabis.

In addition, as I mentioned in my initial post, the text mentioned that marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug (Fisher & Harrison, 2013). With this being said it is very foolish to think that people could not have an addiction or

Cannabis is becoming increasingly widespread and increasingly common in modern-day society for both recreational use and for medication. The article by Craig Reinarman, ‘Criminalisation, legalisation and the mixed blessing of medicalisation in the USA’ generates many controversial issues of cannabis.

Within today’s society, Cannabis is seen as a harmful substance of such negative controversy. Marijuana is a very prominent and controversial issue in society today. Despite many malicious allegations have been made regarding marijuana today, the truth of what marijuana’s real dangers are are beginning to come about again. Sadly, these facts have been held under considerable judgement because of what people stereotype a pot smoker as. This has been brought under heavy criticism due to the stereotypical view of what people view as the typical “pot smoker.” This image society has of a lazy and unambitious America has all been the result of almost one hundred years of false propaganda and stereotypes gossiped by certain private individuals trying to keep weed illegal for their own personal benefit.

Like alcohol, marijuana consumption can also lead to diseases and disorders. Marijuana is especially harmful to youth as it affects brain development due to exposure to THC, the key ingredient in marijuana. One key issue with marijuana consumption by adolescents is the risk of addiction. Approximately 9% of those who experimented with marijuana became addicted and the probability increases to 1 in 6 if smoking began when the individual was a teen1. Researchers have found that individuals who smoked marijuana as adolescents had a neural impairment in the brain, specifically in the areas responsible for self-conscious awareness, memory, and habits, which may explain why frequent use has been seen to result in declines in IQ1. Much like alcohol, it is difficult to establish causality between marijuana

Arguments constantly go back and forth on whether cannabis is a dependant drug or not. Most of the statistics point toward it not being an addicting drug, except in a small percentage of people. However, even with the small percentage, it was nowhere near as addicting ad some of the other narcotics that are prescribed by doctors today in