Well, I have over 15 years experience with both alcohol and marijuana (and 9 years smoking cigarettes before I quit).
Marijuana is by far and beyond the least harmful of the three, and while I don't advocate all drugs should be legal, its pure hypocrisy that the least harmful of the 3 (physiologically, psychologically ,and socially) is illegal purely due to misconception and economic/political reasons.
I believe that the "criminalized" status of marijuana is more of a hindrance than a benefit to society. I take this stance for a multitude of reason such as, but not limited to:
- it empowers criminals and especially organized crime.
- it not only eliminates a potential cash crop, but also drains tax dollars in so many wasteful ways
- is it really logical to give someone a life long criminal record that could prevent them from practising law/medicine or even from traveling abroad for the rest of their life because they smoked a joint in first year college?
-it drives people to drink, a much worse substance, by eliminating marijuana as competing product/alternate substance
- its illegal status actually makes it MUCH easier for minors to obtain!
Lets look at some of the common misinformation/myths spread about marijuana
Myth #1: Marijuana is a gateway drug
Fair enough, but no more so than tylenol. Numerous clinical studies research have shown that A) The vast majority marijuana users who advance to "harder drugs" began by drinking alcohol, so you cant isolate the blame to marijuana and
its shown that alcohol is far more likely to be a "gateway drug" as it actually alters your mind and inhibits your decision making process in a manner than marijuana does not.
Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction published the following
"As for a possible switch from cannabis to hard drugs, it is clear that the pharmalogical properties of cannabis are irrelevant in this respect. There is no physically determined tendency towards switching from marijuana to harder substances. Social factors, however, do appear to play a role. The more users get integrated in a environment ("subculture") where, apart from cannabis, hard drugs can be obtained, the greater the chance they may switch to hard drugs. Separation of the drug markets are therefore essential."
Or in a sentence or two "Marijuana can only be considered a gateway drug in the context that to access marijuana, due to its criminalized status, you need to expose yourself to the subculture of illegal drugs. Legalization and regulation would eliminate this factor, and thus any ability for marijuana toeffectively act as a gateway drug."
In personal experience, I know of many many people who use hard drugs such as cocaine/ecstacy, who completely abstained from marijuana use until after they had developed those coke/ecstacy/alcohol addictions. I do not know a single person who smokes marijuana only (doesn't drink liqour) and has "graduated" to harder drugs. Marijuana has a calming/relaxing effect while people going after drugs like coke are trying to find an "exciting high or rush". Some people may suffer from slight paranoia after indulging in marijuana use, but that paranoia is usually 100% related to a fear of being caught with an illegal substance and the potential damage, such of loss of job/welfare benefits or even life long criminal record, if marijuana use is proven.
Myth #2: Smoking marijuana causes permanent damage to the brain
Even long term heavy use of marijuana
by adults has, at most, a negligible residual impact on cognition and memory skills. It can have an "subtle effect" on developing brains(adolescent usage), but no where near as damaging as the effect alcohol has on developing brains.
Harvard Medical School researchers performed magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of long-term cannabis users (reporting a mean of 20,100 lifetime episodes of smoking) and controls (subjects with no history of cannabis use). Imaging displayed "no significant differences" between heavy marijuana smokers compared to non smokers.
An October 2004 study published in the journal
Psychological Medicine examined the potential adverse effects of marijuana on cognition. It reported
"an absence of marked long-term residual effects on marijuana use on cognitive abilities". Likewise a 2002 clinical trial published in the
Canadian Medical Association Journal determined
"Marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligences".
Now a handful of studies have reported that current marijuana users sometimes score slightly lower than non users on certain cognitive tests, these same studies also report that cannabis consumers score the same as nonusers once they have abstained from the drug for several days or weeks.
Actually, far from damaging the brain, it appears that many of the active components in marijuana may, in some instances, actually be good for it. Scientific studies indicate that cannabis' ingredients can prevent against brain damage due to stroke, traumatic brain injury, and ironically enough, alcohol poisoning. Researches at the University of Saskatchewan reported that the administration of synthetic cannabinoids in rats stimulated the proliferation of newborn neruons (nerve cells) in the hippocampus region of the brain. The results stunned investigators, who noted that
virtually all other psychoactive substances (including alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and opiates) suppress rather than promote nuerogensis. Team investigator Xia Zhang quoted
"This is quite a surprise. Chronic use of marijuana may actually improve learning memory when the new neurons in the hippocampus can mature in two or three months."
Now I noticed someone here say
t i think its irresponsible to post things like 'alcohol is far more dangerous than cannabis' when for some people it clearly isn't.
To be blunt, bull sh*t.
Physically its no question, alcohol abuse leads to a vast multitude of medical problems marijuana does not contribute to, including death itself. Marijuana use alone has not been found liable for a single death world wide, alcohol abuse in the USA alone claims tens of thousands of lives on a yearly basis.
Socially, alcohol again takes the cake. According to a 1994 report by the US National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse(CASA) 95% of all campus(post secondary) assaults are alcohol related, and 90% of all campus rapes involve a victim or an assailant who has been drinking alcohol.
Well maybe thats only on campuses! Here's a direct quote from Norm Stamper, former Chief of the Seattle Police Department (major city in the USA where marijuana is very illegal)
"Over the past four years, out of a general interest in this subject,(effects of marijuana vs alcohol on society) I've been asking police officers throughout the U.S.A (and Canada) two questions. First: "When's the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana?" (And by this I mean marijuana only, not pot plus a six pack or a fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause; they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask "When's the last time you had to fight a drunk?" They look at their watches. It's telling that the booze question is answered in terms of hours, not days or weeks.
Heres a fun fact, when certain groups/politicians were pushing for the federal criminaliztion of marijuana in the USA before congress, the American Medical Association (AMA) was actually the most vocal opponent of criminalization citing it would hamper physicians ability to utilize marijuana's therapeutic potential. Some of the biggest pro crimilization groups? Lobbyist hired by alcohol companies. Why? Simply put, marijuana is a competing product....
Now I touched on how criminalization does the following IMO: Wastes tax dollars, benefits organized crime, denies a potential cash crop, ties up our legal system....and these are all related in my view.
First of all lets touch on empowering organized crime. I mean I can sit here and tell you that prohibition doesn't work, its plainly obvious, and how the only choice is not "if" people will smoke marijuana (World Health Organization studies show over 45% of Americans have used marijuana) but "who will profit from it". The choices are clear (and so should the answer, but apparently not) organized crime, who will reinvest in other illegal activities and the weapons/personnel to carry them out/protect them, or government, who will reinvest into the tax paying communities. As we saw with liquor prohibition in the USA during 1920-1933, this did not stop (otherwise) law abiding citizens from enjoying the substance, it merely drove them to the black market to obtain it. This had a few effects. First it stopped all "regulation" of the product, meaning there was no safety check to make sure this was a "safe" product to consume, I don't think I need to explain the dangers here. Secondly, as stated, it drove consumers to the black market to obtain the product and this denied tax revenue to be collected from it and placed the profits solely in the hands of organized crime. Thirdly this increased the value of the product, which does 2 things....increases the profits organized crime makes and thus can reinvest in other illegal activities (how much? The US domestic retail market value of marijuana is estimated to be worth $113 billion, as compared with liqour at $130 billion...of course the marijuana market is all tax free/unregulated and profits criminal organizations) as well it increased "turf value" and this drives up violence to protect/obtain new "market shares" for the OC syndicates. Just look at the spike in urban murders during alcohol prohition of which a large percentage are 100% related to the prohibition of alcohol.
Now I also mentioned how its criminalized status makes it easier for youths to obtain the drug. This I can vouch from personal experience, it simply is much easier for a 15 yer old to buy a quarter of weed than it is to buy a beer or pack of smokes. Why? Because cigarettes and alcohol are legalized and regulated, this means that their are able to be mass produced and sold at a cheaper cost than what organized crime can usually afford (this is changing with cigarettes due to heavy taxation), also it means that a citizen can conveniently and legally purchase it in a licensed venue and escape the hazard of having to interact with a "drug dealer" who is selling an unregulated product. These factors combine to make a black market mostly ineffective, and thus lower the chances of a "dealer" trying to peddle these commodities.
How does this make it harder for youths to obtain? Because if we eliminate black market sources potential consumers have to go to a lisenced venue to purchase the products, who are legally obliged to check for ID. If we criminalize a substance and thus eliminate legal/regulated venues in which it can be purchases, we empower the black market and make it profitable for criminal elements to enter it. I can personally tell you, as someone who has purchased marijuana from the age of 14, that never once has a "drug dealer" asked me for ID. They simply dont care who they sell to or whats in the product, they only care about making as much money as possible and not getting caught.
So in conclusion I feel marijuana legalization will provide a host of positive benefits ranging from:
A safer product for those who consume it.
Increase tax revenues and elimate a hug chunk of organized crime proceeds at the same time.
Make it less accessabile to minors.
Save countless billions through ineffectual law enforcement, court, and penal costs.
Allow a safer alternative than alcohol.
Of course I'm not advocating it to be a miracle drug that everyone should do, indeed there are many people who should refrain from using it. However, I strongly feel that is a choice adults should be allowed to make, not the government for them, especially when we allow that choice for two substances that are far more "dangerous": alcohoal and tobacco. I feel it would have to be a highly taxed and regualted substance, much like alcohol and tobacco. The current system is a hypocritical failure and I fail to see any benifits of prohibition other than a blissful ignorance (fostered by serial campaigns of misinformation)of thinking "its the right thing to do". It is not.
