Marijuana is Less Dangerous than Other,
Legal Drugs
Richard Kennedy
Editorial Page Editor
Marijuana may seem like the hip new thing for many adolescents,
but the fact is, the plant has been used as a drug for thousands of
years. Many cultures and groups have used marijuana for various purposes
since the first civilizations began to emerge. However, as the world
entered into the 20th century, the use of marijuana was outlawed in
most places around the world.
 The United States has waged a “War on Drugs” since President
Ronald Reagan, in an attempt to eradicate the United States of
the perceived evils of marijuana and other substances. However, it
has
become evident that this war has failed. Take, for example, the
fact that the United States pours billions of taxpayer dollars every
year
into drug enforcement, while only about 10% of all illegal drugs
shipped into the United States are ever discovered. Why should
taxpayers be
forced to pay billions for a system that works only 10% of the
time?
If alcohol and tobacco are drugs, why don’t we see guys selling
them on corners in the city? It is because they are legal; when
a drug is legalized, it allows the free-market to take hold, and
competition
helps to drive prices down, running out those illegal sellers who
can
no longer make a profit off of the drug. Because marijuana is illegal,
an entire section of crime has developed around it, complete with
guns and drug cartels. Without the free-market to put these illegal
sellers
out of business, the dealers resort to violence to protect their
drugs. If marijuana was legalized, entrepreneurs would quickly
spring up to
take a foothold in the new market and wage wars with capital instead
of guns.
20% of all prisoners in the United States prison system are in
jail for non-violent drug possession charges, and pose no threat
to the
general population. With the current overcrowding issues in prisons,
it is only reasonable that the United States uses its limited prison
resources to house those members of society who pose a risk the
lives and property of others. If marijuana use was legalized, over
one million
prisoners would be freed from the American prison system, freeing
up overstressed guards and extra funds to help secure the most
dangerous
prisoners.
Every year 5,000 people die from overdoses of alcohol. In that
same year, not a single person will die from an overdose of marijuana,
and
in fact not a single person has ever died from an overdose of marijuana.
It requires around 5 times the alcohol needed to get drunk to kill
the average person. For marijuana, the average person would have
to ingest 40,000 times more marijuana than it took to get high
to kill
them, a near impossibility. The government claims that they are
trying to protect us from the harm that marijuana causes, but it
is blatantly
obvious that alcohol is a much larger killer, yet it remains legal
due to the capital it creates. If marijuana was legalized and allowed
to be sold, the government could derive millions in tax revenues
from it, as well as have the ability to regulate its sale.
Some have argued that marijuana use harms not only the person that
uses it, but those around them, and possibly people who just happen
to be in the wrong place. However, it is often overlooked that
alcohol induced fatalities and problems effect far more Americans
than any
affected by marijuana use. The same could be said about tobacco,
due to second hand smoking, yet once again, the powerful tobacco
lobby
continues to keep this product legal under the guise of personal
liberties, which are disregarded when it comes to marijuana.
The strongest reason to legalize marijuana is that people should
be free to put whatever they want into their own bodies. It is
the government’s
job to warn people about potential dangers of the actions they take,
but it is not their job to make sweeping legislation to try and ban
something that people should be allowed to make their own choices about.
There would be riots in the streets if the government tried to regulate
what people eat to try and combat obesity, yet many American’s
support bans on marijuana, a drug that kills far fewer people then
obesity. Whether or not you think that the use of marijuana is
right, it is hard to justify the belief that people should not
be free to
do whatever they wish to their own bodies, no matter how much harm
it may cause. Return
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