Rersearch And Discuss Should Marijuana Be Legalized? (Reaction Paper Sample)

Marijuana should be legal
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u I. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc386413197 \h 3II. Body Paragraphs PAGEREF _Toc386413198 \h 3A. Medical benefits PAGEREF _Toc386413199 \h 3B. It is costly not to legalize marijuana PAGEREF _Toc386413200 \h 4C. Marijuana is more safer compared to other drugs PAGEREF _Toc386413201 \h 5D. Counter Argument & Refutation PAGEREF _Toc386413202 \h 8III. Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc386413203 \h 9References PAGEREF _Toc386413204 \h 9
I. Introduction
A Gallup Poll done last year indicates that for once, majority of American (58%) agree that marijuana should be legalized Gallop.com (2013). The survey indicated that that most American wanted to the government to legalize the use of marijuana instead of criminalizing it. Indeed, 2012 was a remarkably successful year for the supporters of legalization of marijuana since Colorado and Washington states both passes laws that decriminalized marijuana (CNN Money, 2012). It’s against such popular wishes of the people that this paper argues that marijuana should be legalized. This paper will give three reasons in supporting of legalization of marijuana.
II. Body Paragraphs
A. Medical benefits
Marijuana has been used for medicinal purposes for many years dating back to 5000 years ago. Kaplan (1990) points out that conventional medicine acknowledged the attributes of marijuana as a medicinal element in17th century, and by 20th century , doctors has published over 100 academic papers in conventional medical literature supporting the use of marijuana to alleviate a number of disorders such as nausea and glaucoma.
Today physicians agree that marijuana can be used to treat a number of disorders such as nausea, pain relief and glaucoma. Medical orders also have supported it use in increasing appetite particularly for cancer and HIV/AIDS patients when they are undergoing chemotherapy.
Discovery Health Article also supports use of marijuana as in alleviating a number of ailments. The article points out that marijuana has been very successful in treating nausea, and this is positive news for those patients who loss of appetite from their illnesses. This point restates that first point discussed above. This understanding that medical marijuana is effective is what has driven a number of states to legalize the use of medical marijuana. Indeed, some countries such as Canada have also permitted the use of medical marijuana. ProCon.org in its September 2012 also underlines this point by stating that since states and some countries are allowing medicinal marijuana, it is a high time that the drug should be legalized at large. PorCon.org goes on to argue that marijuana is good as a medicine and can be used daily to alleviate migraines, ADHD and even help in prevention of Alzheimer’s. More importantly, there are no medical drawbacks that have been established to be cause by marijuana.
B. It is costly not to legalize marijuana
Not legalizing marijuana is more costly, a lot of money is being spent on fighting marijuana it yet, and more marijuana is entering into America. The fight against marijuana has not been successful. This is clearly seen from the high number of cases of marijuana and the volumes of marijuana that is nabbed each year. This has promoted economists such as Jeffery Miron to carry out survey in which he established that supposing the government legalized marijuana; it would have earned about $13.7 billion in 2013 (Miron, 2012). This is good amount from one source in trying to fill the $1.5 trillion deficit that the government had during the same year (Miron, 2012). From such figures, an honest debate on legalization of marijuana would conclude that there is need to rethink the current laws on marijuana.
It is estimated by Wolff Madeline that America uses nearly $68 billion each year to sustain prisoners in jail, a good percentage of them serving jails terms because of marijuana offence related. According to Wolfe Madeline, America can save up to $11.5 billion each year that is used to take care of those imprisoned due to marijuana related offences (Wolff, n.d). However, legalization of marijuana is bound to reduce crime rate, since offenders of marijuana related crimes will not be incarcerated, instead, the government can earn large sums form legal marijuana, in terms of taxes.
The government would be able to collect a lot of money if it legalized marijuana through taxing. Miron (2005) argues that people who support legalization of marijuana would assist the government to earn more through the taxes that they would pay when consuming the marijuana from legalized outlets. Indeed, the can use taxes to regulate the consumption of marijuana. It can as well control the distribution and sell of marijuana. In addition, more revenue can be obtained from hemp, which can be produced from marijuana. Indeed, Wolff, (n.d) explains that hemp can be produced and exported to other countries thereby creating jobs, thereby contributing a lot toe economic recovery.
C. Marijuana is more safer compared to other drugs
Available data indicates that other legalized drugs are more harmful than marijuana. For example, in 2006, it is estimated that 85,000 died due to alcohol related causes. While in 2000 tobacco was attributed to cause 450,000 deaths (http://drugwarfacts.org). However, as stated earlier, no single death has been attributed to marijuana. Nonetheless, some studies have linked marijuana with short term memory loss and when regularly used it can slightly interfere with the working of the lungs. Though the effects caused by marijuana cannot be compared to those that are caused by alcohol and other drugs.
In 2010 a study reported in Lancet indicates that marijuana was less harmful than alcohol and tobacco (Nutt, King & Phillips, 2010). The results of these findings are displayed in figure 1, below. As seen in the figure alcohol is the leading harmful drug on the list. However, alcohol is very much legal yet it is the most harmful. Therefore, if an alcohol can is legal and yet much harmful than marijuana, then, it beats logic why marijuana should not be legalized. It is important to note that there is no conclusive study to show that marijuana when abused could result in bodily harm. This is because in the medical history, no death has ever been reported to have occurred due to marijuana. However, like any other thing, there is need for moderation in its use.
Source: Nutt, King & Phillips (2010)
The negative stigma attached to marijuana is a merely a preconceived idea that people have brought up to belief. The mere fact that those found smoking marijuana are viewed as criminal who have broken the law, has resulted in them being referred to as “pothead”. However, as noted by Kaplan (1990) these are merely preconceived ideas that people have been brought up with. More so, marijuana has found not to be addictive many thinks. This is supported by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who one of his articles titled “Why I changed my mind about weed”, points out that people have over the years been “systematically misled” about marijuana. Gupta goes on to states that findings show that only 9-10 % of cases of marijuana results to dependence , while cocaine’s dependence level is 20%, and heroin is 25% (Gupta, 2013).
D. Counter Argument & Refutation
It likely that legalizing marijuana would result in increased use of other hard drugs as marijuana increases the risk of using these hard drugs. A lot of people including Wenger, Moldrich & Furst (2003) argue that legalizing marijuana will result in abuse of other drugs. Indeed, some scholars have noted that marijuana is a “gateway drug” that when used will highly increase the possibility of abusing hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin. A good number of current hard drug users started with marijuana and graduated to hard drugs as they searched for something more hard.
The medical use of...