Why Marijuana Should Not Be Legalized
As more and more baby boomers are coming of age, the cry for legalization of not just marijuana but all outlawed controlled substances has become louder. recently In an article published by the Los Angeles Times, Norm Stamper, a recently retired chief of police in Seattle Washington, said due to the billions of dollars wasted on the war against drugs, and the tens of thousands of people incarcerated for drug offenses in our prison system, these drugs should be legalized. His idea is to legalize it, charge taxes for it, and regulate it, not unlike a state liquor store. While I am sure that this right would be seriously abused, in time the abuse might taper off and we might possibly have a drastic reduction in both violent crime and theft.
I am diametrically opposed to this for several reasons. First, for several years we have been hearing what cigarette companies have been doing to their product, the addition of nearly lethal chemicals to tobacco has cost millions of people their very livelihood. I am not so jaded to believe that the tobacco companies once given the green light to commence growing operations wouldn’t conduct business any differently with marijuana than they have with tobacco.
I am in agreement that smoking marijuana can, and does cause an increased likelihood that young adults might try harder drugs. But is this due to our social structure where all people that smoke marijuana are identified with all the other drug users, putting them higher at risk through interaction with these people. I also agree that marijuana can cause serious motivational problems and can be an impediment to learning capabilities. I however cannot for any reason think of a redeeming value for the recreational use of crack cocaine, meth amphetamine, or heroin. The addictive nature of these drugs being both chronicled and substantiated, have shown that serious medical problems and eventual death is in store for these users. Not to mention open access to these drugs would create tens of thousands of new addicts. Health providers would subsidize the costs of these additional addicts onto the consumer. While in a few years the in-house treatment boom might cause a rise in employment if this legalization ever occurs, the social costs would outweigh this benefit.
What should happen is a decriminalization of marijuana, which would leave enough control to local and federal governments to go after those that pose a threat instead of the individual casual consumer. Holland and British Columbia have decriminalized marijuana with no harsh effects. Millions are attracted to Amsterdam yearly in search of legal hashish bars; Vancouver’s gas lamp district has become a Mecca for thousands in search of super-pot bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenues for the Canadian government.
The billions of dollars wasted on incarcerating tens of thousands of people for simple possession could be spent on standardizing healthcare in America. The billions of dollars spent on adjudicating these charges could be spent on eradicating our need for fossil fuels. Perhaps some of these funds could be used to address our deplorable public school systems, cure cancer or eliminate hunger in the world. Not being a proponent of legalization all I can say is I wouldn’t mind having to pay a stupidity fee if I was stupid enough to get caught smoking marijuana in public, but me being no more credible than the hundreds of other people that have championed this cause, I doubt the government will listen to me.
