Argument for Do Not Legalizing Marijuana - Coursework Example

Marijuana This paper provides a critical analysis on the controversial issue of Legalization of Marijuana. The main goal ofthis paper is to analyze the arguments of pros and cons of legalization of Marijuana.  For this paper, the consideration of different articles relevant to the topic has been considered. The keywords used for this paper include marijuana and its legalization/non-legalization. In this paper, the argument is the issue that whether marijuana should or should not legalize. Like other drugs, marijuana has its benefits as well as harmful effects but the facts that do the benefits outweigh the harmful effects needs to be thoroughly discussed. INTRODUCTION: Marijuana which is often called as slang words namely, pot, grass, reefer, weed, herb, Mary Jane, etc. Is basically a mixture of greenish or grayish dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of Cannabis Sativa which is the ‘Hemp Plant’. All forms of Marijuana contain THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) which is the main active chemical in Marijuana along with about 400 other chemicals. The Marijuana affects the people depending on the potential or strength of the THC which it contains. Since the 1970s, the potency of the Marijuana has increased, however, its been almost constant since the mid-1980s. There are chronic as well as medical ways of using Marijuana. The Chronic ways are smoking marijuana through ‘joints’ in hand-rolled cigarettes; using pipes or water pipes called ‘bongs’; Marijuana cigars, or blunts, are also famous which are made by slicing the cigar, then removing some of the tobacco and putting marijuana instead and mixing it with the remainder; sometimes people mix Marijuana into foods or use it in brew tea. The medical ways are when Marijuana is used in butter or cooking oil, normal oil, tinctures and tonics or as a Vaporizer. (Mational Institute on Drug Abuse 2010) METHOD: This paper will be descriptive in nature as it tries to describe and analyze a specific topic. Qualitative analysis will be considered as it provides qualitative data that can be used to provide detailed description of the entire topic which is about legalizing and non-legalizing of marijuana. This paper will consider qualitative research method since it will attempt to determine whether Marijuana should or should not be legalized and what are the pros and cons of Marijuana. From this research method, qualitative factors will also be analyzed. Work of this paper is collected from various studies conducted. ANALYSIS: ARGUMENT ONE: This argument discusses that Marijuana should be legalized as firstly its not as harmful a drug as tobacco and alcohol which are legal drugs and are readily consumed by people. And secondly, its legalization will boost the economies of the governments as it is true and a fact that governments lose a lot of revenue as they cannot collect taxes on drugs which are illegal. In Fraser Institute, an economist Stephen T. Easton conducted a study to find out that how much revenue, the Canadian government would collect if they legalize Marijuana. The study by Stephen estimated that a 0.5 grams (a unit) of marijuana on average is sold for $8.60 while its cost price is only $1.70 making a profit of $6.90 which in a local market as a legal drug would not last long. The reason would be that when the entrepreneurs will notice that the drug is making such great profits they would increase the growth of the drug, thus making the selling price of the drug to fall to a lower level but when the drug is illegal, the entrepreneur would think twice before starting a growing operation for the drug because of the prospect of jail. Unfortunately, those who are taking the risk of growing an illegal drug and selling it are becoming wealthy due to its huge profit. Stephen T Easton despite such facts argued and found a way of getting profits to the government by legalizing Marijuana. According to him, if the tax on Marijuana cigarettes is equal to the difference between the cost price and the selling price, that way all the revenue and profit instead of going to the producers and marketers (many of whom are related to criminal businesses), it would go directly to the government, making a profit of $7 per unit gram of the drug, excluding all the marketing and transportation issues. If the government puts this tax on every cigarette, then it could gain revenue of about $2 million. The article very rightly states, that when a drug is illegal, the drug laws target both the seller and the consumer because the consumer takes a risk when he buys the drug. However, if the drug becomes legalized then the risk would be eliminated, and the demand for the drug would increase eventually. Well a single economic study cannot be the basis of Canadas public policy decisions, but Eastons research concludes that Marijuana’s legalization has economic benefits. What the writer completely ignores is the fact that though Marijuana would boost up the governments economy, the health and the social issues regarding the drug is taken very casually. So many issues need to be analysed before legalizing a drug like Marijuana. (Moffatt, M. 2013) ARGUMENT TWO: This article is written on a debate club by Morgan Fox who is the communications manager at Marijuana Policy Project which is a non-profit organization working on reforming marijuana laws on state and federal level, so he clearly is for the legalization of Marijuana because he feels that prohibition of Marijuana is not effective at all. His article is concerning with one issue only regarding Marijuana that even though marijuana is termed illegal by the government yet its usage by the marijuana users is not becoming less, instead its increasing. Morgan Fox states that the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Federal Bureau of Investigations collected a data which shows the current laws are not accomplishing in their goal of eliminating the use of Marijuana because in 2011, about 27 million people used marijuana which has remain constant for several years; though the number of arrests for the use of marijuana keeps fluctuating but the fact that people despite of being arrested for this non-violent behaviour do not stop using this harmful drug. Morgan states that Portugal and Netherlands are the two countries which removed the threat of arrest for possession of the drug marijuana in small amounts, and both these countries have a much lesser using rates of marijuana as compared to United States which have many laws regarding this. By stating this with proper facts, Morgan is proving that the laws in United States for the prohibition of marijuana are not effective at all. Morgan Fox is not wrong in saying that no government is yet successful in eliminating the use of marijuana completely despite of all the laws so the marijuana market will remain and it’s up to us to decide whether we would let the criminals take all the profit and endanger public safety through the marketing of this drug or we would let legitimate, licensed business to get all the profit but the fact that he is also not paying attention to the harmful effects of marijuana makes him not completely right as he is just analyzing a single issue that prohibition and laws for marijuana do not work. He needs to look at both the pros and cons. (Fox, M. 2012) ARGUMENT THREE: This article is also written on a debate club by Alison Holcomb who is a drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington State and campaign director for Washington State Initiative 502. The lady is concerned with the arrests of people who use marijuana as the users are saddled with a criminal record which poses barriers on them for better employment, housing and education. Like Morgan Fox, she also feels that despite of the increase in marijuana users arrest, the usage rate has still not gone down, so the laws are of clearly no use. Alison talks about a more pragmatic approach to the use of marijuana, something which others did not talk about. The lady does not completely ignore the fact that marijuana has public health issues which need to be analyzed as well, like for instance, the public health strategies that we have for tobacco, we can have the same for marijuana as well. We can advertise in social and multimedia about the public health issues related to marijuana so that people become aware of its harmful effects. Alison talks about looking at the marijuana issue with a different approach which is not completely wrong. So far, Alison is the only one who has thought about giving a practical approach on this issue despite stating the obvious facts which she and many others believed in that its prohibition is of no use. (Holcomb, A. 2012) CONCLUSION: To solve the issue of whether marijuana should or should not be legalized all the state governments need to analyze each and every aspect of this issue extremely carefully because there is no need of the drug to boost economy if the people are suffering because of it. Sometimes people overlook the harmful effects, specially the youngsters which is wrong. They need to look at both the pros and cons of the drug. A practical approach need to be considered in this issue looking at both the merits and de-merits of marijuana. Everyone has an opinion on marijuana legalization. We can disagree about whether or not legalization would benefit us or harm our society, but revealing only half-truths is no way to have a reasoned debate on this issue. REFERENCES: Institute on Drug Abuse. (2010, November 27). Marijuana - What Is Marijuana?. Alcoholism - The Alcoholism Home Page. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/pot/f/mjkids_faq01.htm Audience. (2010, September 1). What is marijuana? | National Institute on Drug Abuse. National Institute on Drug Abuse. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/marijuana-abuse/what-marijuana The Chronic Ways to use Marijuana. (n.d.). TRIPOD. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from Gieringer, D., & Cavanaugh, J. (2009, August 28). What are the non-smoked ways to use marijuana medically? - Medical Marijuana - ProCon.org. Medical Marijuana ProCon.org. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000223 Moffatt, M. (n.d.). Should Governments Legalize and Tax Marijuana?. Economics at About.com. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://economics.about.com/od/incometaxestaxcuts/a/marijuana.htm Fox, M. (2012, October 30). Stop Wasting Time Pretending Marijuana Prohibition Works | Debate Club | US News Opinion. US News & World Report | News & Rankings | Best Colleges, Best Hospitals, and more. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-marijuana-use-be-legalized/stop-wasting-time-pretending-marijuana-prohibition-works Holcomb, A. (2012, October 30). Marijuana Use Should Not Be a Crime | Debate Club | US News Opinion. US News & World Report | News & Rankings | Best Colleges, Best Hospitals, and more. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-marijuana-use-be-legalized/marijuana-use-should-not-be-a-crime Read More