LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

Marijuana originates from a natural plant called cannabis mostly found in forest zones. Marijuana thus is a preparation made from the dried flower clusters and leaves of the cannabis plant, usually smoked or eaten to create euphoria. The debate of whether to legalize it has created political brew. There are roots that ancient civilization used it in medical practices, many has deemed that because of its inherent medical value it should be legalized at the federal level but others have illusions and stereotype of marijuana being harmful to human health and may have adverse side effect. Just like other drugs abusing marijuana is harmful for human health but using it for the rightful purposes is rightful as it is! Marijuana is not harmful as many perceive it to be. Research has shown that other drugs under depressant category have hazardous side effect than marijuana. For instance a cigarette which has more than four thousand chemicals in it and yet still legalized is a fact that there is no scientific proof that marijuana is harmful. This alone is a clear indication that marijuana has received huge criticism compared to other narcotic drugs from the non-users and the law enforcers. Studies have shown legalization of Marijuana will at least reduce the crime rate in society and also reduce its consumption among the youthful citizens. When marijuana is made illegal the sellers can sell it to anyone irrespective of the age and this promotes the abuse of this drug at very tender ages among the youths. However if cannabis was made legal like other drugs then the government could come up with a way to control its consumption just like it has been done on alcohol. Though this will not prevent total consumption of this drug amongst teenage youths it will go a long way in reducing its consumption. The long term effect of this is to reduce crime rates in the society as the smoking of weed has always been associated with crime and other related issues in the society. Legalization of Marijuana will not only benefit the users and traders but also will go a long way in earning the government some revenue which goes uncollected. Marijuana sellers operate in a black market and as such do not pay any taxes to the government and thus keep all the supernormal profits they make to themselves. Revenues collected from marijuana sales could be used in improvement of other sectors of the economy. It should also be noted that legal prohibition does not stop sellers from selling it or the users from buying and consuming it. It just but creates another problem of black markets. This makes the price of the final product to be high. The government may think its prohibiting the use of an illegal drug but in real essence it is losing exorbitant sums of money to the traffickers by not collecting revenues in form of taxes. Prohibition of marijuana should also be weighed against the loss of personal freedom and will. An individual has the right to choose when to and not to use a drug. The government may prohibit a drug but it does not have the power to prevent users from abusing drugs. This is

because it is through an individuals will to avoid using drugs. Studies show that banned drugs give the users less will to avoid them than legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. It is always true that forbidden fruit tastes sweeter. Any good thing must have its bad side. Just like other drugs, continuous use of marijuana is harmful to health of the users. Marijuana has a variety of health effects ranging from addiction, loss of memory, obesity to reducing the life span of the user. Long term use of cannabis can also lead to pulmonary effects and damage of the brain cells. Just like tobacco marijuana also causes respiratory problems due to the variety of organic and inorganic substances it contains. Worst of all marijuana can cause death through cannabis poisoning. However there has been no scientific research to show the effect of marijuana on the overall risk of lifespan of a person or death. The long term use of soft drugs such as marijuana can lead to use of hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. This is explained in the Gateway theory which states that continuous use of less deleterious drugs leads to use of hard drugs. Legalizing bhang therefore may cause such problems to the users. It should be noted that this theory however is not the case with all hard drug users. Legalizing drugs will send a message to the young generation that use of drugs is acceptable. This is not a good basis upon which a nation should be built. Children should grow up knowing drugs are not an essential part of the society. When a drug like marijuana which is considered to be immoral by a large proportion of the population is legalized, such a nation will be considered not to be protecting its citizens. This is because the goal of any nation is to protect its citizens and not to produce and distribute a substance that will expose them to risks. Legal drugs are easy to access thus making marijuana legal will ease its availability thus creating new users rather than restricting the existing ones. This will disadvantage the government even more. Many drug users in a state risk increasing crime rates and other social effects to the society like rise in the health care costs, neglect of children by parents who smoke, violence associated with the use of drugs and other third party effects. This does not only affect the marijuana users, it now becomes a social problem. Drugs have serious impacts on economic issues of a country. It will influence a workers attitude, productivity and effectiveness in their jobs. Marijuana users may have a negative impact on productivity of a nation since drugs users have always been associated with below par performances. When most of the working population is made up of such individuals the GDP of a country may suffer from this. This in turn undermines the growth process of an economy. Excessive consumption of any drug finally leads to addiction. Addiction creates a condition to drug users where they cannot control their willingness to abuse. This is a psychological effect and its the most dangerous of the effects. Addiction eliminates the users ability to think rationally and us such they cannot disseminate themselves from taking drugs. Legalizing a drug

like cannabis creates a scrap society and thus before legalizing it the government should consider its impacts to the users and the society as a whole. Considering the pros and cons marijuana should be legalized medicinally at the federal level but legalizing it recreationally is an entire issue unless there are guiding rules on its legalization process.

REFERENCES legalizationofmarijuana.com/pros-and-cons-of-marijuana.html legalmarijuanasociety.com