Legalizing Marijuana According to the

Legalizing Marijuana According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), "marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States." Most Americans at least know someone who has used marijuana, if they haven't used it themselves. The drug's main psychoactive compound is called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, more commonly known as THC. When a person smokes or eats marijuana he or she experiences a "high," which is the main reason why individuals choose to smoke pot.

On the other hand, large numbers of people smoke pot because, like many legal drugs, marijuana has medicinal benefits. In particular, pot can be used to control pain related to anything from AIDS to migraines. Pot has also been shown to significantly alleviate nausea, which can be immensely helpful for patients undergoing chemotherapy. In fact, the medical uses for marijuana would probably be better understood if the drug were not already classified as a banned substance.

Furthermore, as a federally banned substance, marijuana is only available to a select number of individuals living in states that have approved the use of medicinal marijuana. Even then, obtaining medical marijuana can be difficult. Contrary to popular belief, keeping pot illegal helps organized crime syndicates thrive. Pot is no panacea for the world's ills; like all drugs there are side effects that users should be aware of. Abuse is always a concern, as it is with any drug.

Still, pot's problems have been significantly blown out of proportion by the American government and its war on drugs. Pot is no more dangerous than legal drugs like alcohol, and as a natural substance, pot can in fact be considered healthier than even a lot of the foods we eat. Like alcohol, pot should be treated with respect and care, used by responsible individuals who are aware of its side effects. For the sake of the freedom, health, and safety of our nation's citizens, marijuana should be decriminalized.

The pot prohibition marks a severe and unnecessary restriction of civil liberties. It makes no sense to ban a substance like marijuana while at the same time permitting the distribution of similar substances. Alcohol, a popular mind-altering drug, is a leading cause of death in the United States. Not only can a person die directly due to consuming too much alcohol, but alcohol-related deaths ranging from car crashes to liver disease are not uncommon. Yet anyone of legal drinking age can voluntarily drink him- or herself to death.

If law offers individuals with the free will to drink, then the same law should also protect the rights of citizens regarding their choice to smoke or ingest marijuana. Furthermore, no one has ever overdosed on marijuana: it would be nearly impossible, as "you would have to consume 40,000 times as much marijuana as you needed to get stoned," (Hager). On the other hand, countless overdose deaths occur directly from legal substances like alcohol and to legal but controlled substances like prescription drugs.

Smoking cigarettes causes a range of deadly diseases but the government has not stepped in to protect its citizenry from the harmful effects of processed tobacco. Even if some of the same harmful substances found in tobacco smoke can also be found in marijuana smoke, marijuana should be treated more like tobacco and alcohol in the law. The government tried banning alcohol, even going so far as to amend the constitution in the name of temperance. That prohibition didn't work and neither does this one.

Therefore, the prohibition pot makes absolutely no sense and the United States should immediately revise its paradoxical drug laws. Civil liberties aren't the only reason why pot should be legalized. Marijuana also has immense potential for improving the health of people with terminal, chronic or acute illnesses. In California, where medical marijuana has been approved by referendum, patients with AIDS and cancer are availing themselves of the medicinal benefits of pot. Smoking marijuana can reduce nausea and increase the appetite.

Its appetite-stimulating properties benefit victims of wasting diseases like AIDS and cancer, as well as those suffering from eating disorders like anorexia. Marijuana has been shown to reduce many types of pain, including the debilitating pain resulting from migraines. New research is underway examining the effects of marijuana on multiple sclerosis and stroke victims, which is one of the key reasons why more funding, and fewer obstacles, for research are needed.

Already, twenty-one states have opened the door to potential research, but only six states have launched research campaigns into the medicinal benefits of pot: California, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, and Tennessee ("21 States"). Federal legalization would ensure that more research on marijuana's health benefits will be completed. Because marijuana is illegal, citizens who want it must turn to criminal avenues of distribution unless they are one of the few living in California who can acquire medical marijuana.

Many of the existing illegal avenues of distribution are run by organized crime networks. In order to protect their interests, such criminal organizations will stop at nothing, including murder. The violent crime that is related to the marijuana trade results largely from the fact that individuals cannot grow their own plants or purchase marijuana from a respected vendor. If marijuana were legalized, organized crime would certainly not stop.

However, in a recent United Nations report entitled "Drugs: Cash Flow for Organized Crime," author Antonio Maria Costa states plainly, "drug dollars are the cash cow on which Transnational Organized Crime relies. It uses the profits from drug trafficking, estimated at 30 billion per year, to bankroll terrorists, capitalize other illegal enterprises, expand criminal markets, and to subsidize war, violence, anarchy and lawlessness." Therefore, even if for no other reason, marijuana should be legalized to take one product away from the real criminals.

Keeping pot illegal also promotes negative stigmatizing and labeling that can lead to more detrimental forms of deviance. For example, if a nineteen-year-old drives across a state border with an ounce of weed, he or she could be sent to a federal penitentiary. From there on, the individual will be forever ostracized from his or her community. Finding a job could be difficult and making his or her way back into mainstream society could prove impossible. Once labeled a criminal, the person might turn toward illicit and potentially dangerous professions.

Time spent in prison could have fostered interest in other, more dangerous drugs like heroine or crack. Keeping marijuana illegal creates an artificial category of crime that is contributing to the overcrowding of the American prison system. It is painfully unfair to imprison people for smoking.