SHOULD MARIJUANA BE LEGALIZED?

Children may dream of reaching into the cookie jar, always looking
forward to the reward. However, parents do not give their children
free reign over their eating habits. As a result, the cookie jar is
not dipped into often and remains more of a dream than a reality.
With few exceptions, the cookie jar is outlawed, and to keep the
child's expectations in order, the rules must be upheld.

If marijuana were to be legalized, the demand for it would skyrocket.
Its market would flourish as all present users and distributors could
step out into the light, having no more reason to worry about its use
being illegal. Unfortunately, as with children being given free
rights to as many cookies, wherever and whenever they want, people
would take advantage of their right.

As with other drugs, marijuana should be available for medicinal
purposes. Its addictive properties are shared by many medications on
the market and to establish its boundaries for medicinal purposes is
the logical choice.

It is not extraordinarily comforting to think that there are already
more harmful drugs than marijuana that are legal, alcohol and
nicotine being the prime examples. Also, the abuse of prescription
and over-the-counter medications is just as detrimental. But, in this
case, these negatives do not make a positive. Acknowledging that some
legal drugs are harmful gives no reason why another one should be legalized.

With few exceptions, marijuana should remain illegal, and to keep the
population's expectations in order, this decision must be upheld.
More importantly, the issue at hand should not be whether or not to
legalize something else that is harmful, but to more strictly limit
the flow of those legal drugs that cause an equal, or greater, amount of harm.

I haven't paid much attention to marijuana. My life experiences have
not been such that I was brought into contact with it, and other
drugs receive more media attention.

My immediate reaction was that the government must have a good reason
for opposing it, so I believed that marijuana shouldn't be legalized.
But, you can't adequately oppose anything without a working knowledge
of it, so I did a risk-benefit analysis and came to the conclusion
that the benefits of legalizing marijuana outweigh the risks.

The main argument against marijuana is that it is a doorway drug,
meaning that those who use it tend to experiment with other drugs.
However, there is some controversy about this issue.

On one hand, it is argued that the attraction to other drugs is born
of the desire to experience a stronger high. On the other hand, some
say that those who try marijuana are naturally curious and would have
tried other drugs anyway. Most likely it is a combination.
Neutralizing this negative argument is the fact that marijuana has
not been proven addictive and is less dangerous than alcohol as it
causes few deaths. Marijuana is also useful as a medication as it
relieves pain, increases appetite and reduces muscle spasms. This is
useful in treating AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis.

The legalization of marijuana would also reduce the time and money
being spent in the battle against it. As a legal product, its sale
could be taxed and the prison space used to hold dealers could be
used for more dangerous criminals. There is also speculation that
since marijuana is not hard to grow, its legalization would result in
self-production and collapse of its market.

So it comes down to a simple question: Is the danger posed by the use
of marijuana greater than the potential benefit of no longer
including it in the war against drugs? In my opinion, no.

Legalizing marijuana has been often debated with some believing it
should be legalized, but such an action would be a grave mistake.

The negative effects this drug has on users should be enough to keep
it illegal. The National Institute on Drug Abuse's research report
series shows the extensive research that's been done on both the
short- and long-term effects accompanying the use of marijuana.

While intoxicated, marijuana users have poor short-term memories and
other mental functions like attention, reaction time and judgment are
also impaired. They are also at higher risk of having heart attacks.

In the long-term, marijuana smoke can greatly damage respiration and
lead to cancer and other respiratory problems. Depression and anxiety
are also common. These consequences are extremely hazardous to
people's overall health, so we should not make the source of such
problems legal.

Other negative effects go beyond one person's physical health. Along
with other effects, the decrease in reaction time of those under
marijuana's influence presents a significant danger. If they decide
to drive, there could be an increase in the number of car accidents.

In the workplace, those who use this drug tend to be absent more
often and get into more accidents. So, this could hurt production
rates and, ultimately, our economy, if marijuana use occurs on a larger scale.

Children will suffer from inattentiveness and a decrease in mental
ability if their mother exposes them to marijuana during pregnancy.
This demonstrates how one person's decision to use this drug can
extend far beyond himself or herself to negatively impact many others.

The facts are clear. Marijuana is a hazard to those who use it and to
others as well. It must remain illegal to protect the innocent from
the poor judgment of others and the drug users from themselves.