LEGALIZE IT

America should follow Canada's planned decriminalization of marijuana

People have debated the worth of marijuana for years, and the argument is
still going on. Of the many questions asked are: Should marijuana be
legalized in the United States? Is marijuana addictive? How harmful is
marijuana to the human body?

Recently, the debate has heated up because of America's neighbor to the
north, Canada. According to Canada Online, Canada's Justice Minister Martin
Cauchon has made it apparent that he will introduce legislation sometime in
2003 that will decriminalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use
during the upcoming session of Parliament. This could be interpreted as a
step toward legalizing marijuana, one that the United States should follow.

According to Canada's Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs, "Marijuana
is not a gateway drug and should be treated more like tobacco or alcohol
than like harder drugs." Treating these two drugs differently makes no
sense.

At the close of the U.S. national anthem, it is stated that America is the
"land of the free." Everyone knows that it is impossible for people to enjoy
perfect and entire freedom and still have an organized society, but people
should be free to make choices about their own health without the government
telling them what is right and wrong.

Canada's Special Committee on Illegal Drugs states that, on average, 30,000
people are arrested each year for simple possession of marijuana. It also
states that each imprisoned individual costs $50,000 per year. When the math
is done, the costs amount to $1.5 billion per year to imprison people
arrested for possession of marijuana. Instead of wasting this money on
incarcerating people possessing relatively small amounts of marijuana, the
Canadian government could spend it to combat legitimate crime and educate
the public.

The decriminalization of marijuana does not mean that people should be able
to smoke it and get behind the wheel of a car or participate in any other
activity that could injure another person. Just like with alcohol, driving
and certain other activities performed while under the influence should be
illegal. However, smoking marijuana shouldn't be banned just because people
can possibly go out and harm others after smoking. Many people can and do
harm others without marijuana being involved at all. Alcohol consumption,
which was once illegal, still results in death and injury.

No one is saying that marijuana is a harmless drug that only hurts people
when other factors, such as driving, are compounded with it. In fact,
according to "Health and Fitness: A Guide to a Healthy Lifestyle," a book
used in health classes on Texas A&M's campus, marijuana smoke "may be more
damaging than cigarette smoke."

However, even with this information, California State University
Northridge's college of health and human development reports that "every
year, 40,000 die as a result of tobacco usage and more than 150,000 people
die from alcohol related causes yet not one person has ever died from
smoking marijuana." Still, tobacco and alcohol are perfectly legal to use
and abuse, and marijuana is not.

If marijuana was treated like its legal counterparts, many Americans would
have a lot less to worry about. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports
that there have been "more than 10 million marijuana arrests in the United
States since 1970," which adds up to more than 300,000 arrests per year.
These are people who now have criminal records which will follow them for
the rest of their lives.

All of these unnecessary arrests also make American taxpayers use their tax
money for something that is obviously not achieving its goal. The Marijuana
Policy Project, a lobbying organization, states that "taxpayers spend nine
billion dollars annually to hunt down, arrest, try and incarcerate marijuana
consumers." This money could be spent chasing legitimate criminals or
terrorists.

If people really want to stop or slow the use of marijuana, then they are
going about it the wrong way. All the money that is wasted on the criminal
aspects of marijuana could be pumped into educating children at an early
level of development about the truths of the drug. Education would allow
Americans to make better decisions about what they want to do with their
bodies.