Legalizing Marijuana Pros and ConS

Legalizing Marijuana Pros and Cons



Legalizing Marijuana Pros and Cons

Introduction

Currently, pharmaceuticals stay high on the list of anxieties of political leaders, and pharmaceuticals are considered one of the foremost problems influencing our country. Stories are on 10:00 news every evening about persons being killed on the roads because of drugs. Many people think that drugs are only an inner-city problem, but in reality, they affect all of us; non-users and users. Drug regulations have created corruption, aggression, increased street misdeed, and disrespect for the criminal justice system. Besides that, people should be allowed to enjoy what they like to do responsibly and law enforcement could focus their attentions to other more serious crimes.

Analysis

Marijuana comes from the hemp vegetation, which can gladly be grown on fields over the territory and was cultivated heavily in the colonial period. After 130 years of being able to augment and consume marijuana, the promise problems of marijuana were brought into the public eye in 1932. Harry J. Anslingler, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, authored the book Marijuana: Assassin of Youth. Anslinger portrayed images of Mexican and Negro criminals, as well as young boys, who became killers while under the influence of marijuana(Kevin Zeese, 1997).

There are a number of myths associated with the use of marijuana which people who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana repeatedly cite. One of these is that Marijuana determinants mind damage. People who are opposed base their claim on a study by Dr. Robert Heath of the rhesus monkey in the late 1970's. Heath's work was criticized for its insufficient sample size of only four monkeys, its failure to control experimental bias, and the misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as damaged. Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users have shown no evidence of damage to the brai (Cartwright, L. 1983).

Another myth is that marijuana damages the reproductive system. This is based on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented with tissue units isolated in petri dishes. The cells were dosed with near lethal levels of THC. The scientific community rejected Nahas's connections between the petri dishes and human beings because the data was invalid. Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely affects the reproductive system (Caswell, A. 1992). Acontinual myth about marijuana is that it is a gateway pharmaceutical, which is a ...