Decriminalizing Marijuana

Decriminalizing Marijuana

The paper maintains that marijuana laws are costly and ineffective and its decriminalization will allow for a more judicious allocation of funds. The paper argues that decriminalization will undermine the black market and will not precipitate the increased consumption of the narcotic by young people. The paper concludes that positives of decriminalization certainly outweigh the negatives.

Since the early 1900’s the possession of marijuana has been illegal. Supporters of legalizing marijuana believe that the drug should have never been prohibited. According to Ethan Nadelmann, one of the reasons that marijuana became illegal was because the people in the western states were prejudiced against the Mexican migrants who planted and smoked marijuana when they came to the United States. Making marijuana possession illegal was used as tactic to intimidate the Mexicans because they did not want them here. California was the first state to put laws in place to prohibit marijuana. The law simply said “no preparation of hemp or loco weed” with hopes that they would leave. On the east coast racism played a role in the prohibition as well. People of color that smoked marijuana were viewed by the whites as a people that should not use the drug because they felt it made them be disrespectful and do things that were against societal beliefs. They felt that when black people used marijuana it caused them to look at white women twice, or to look a white man dead in the eye. These were things that were extremely out of the norm for black people to do and were considered disrespectful.

The debate over whether the possession of marijuana should be legalized has been going on for decades. The issues raised have primarily been about the dangers of the drug. Most documentation says that marijuana is safer than other drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes and has many positive effects regarding healing certain diseases or ailments. In comparison to alcohol, it has been said by medical professionals that you can drink yourself to death; however with marijuana no matter how much you use you more than likely will just sleep. According to Dr. Lester Grinspoon, one negative aspect of using marijuana would be the smoke from the plant. In that it has five times more toxins than tobacco smoke.

People that are against legalizing marijuana believe that people that smoke marijuana while they are pregnant produce children with low IQ scores, and have behavior and memory problems. They also believe that marijuana causes low white blood cell counts. Because marijuana slows the central nervous system and impairs a driver, just as alcohol does, those that oppose the decriminalization of marijuana believe that marijuana would cause secondary deaths as does alcohol when people drive after indulging.

If marijuana is decriminalized it would have