Hey everyone,
I've been reading through this whole thread here, and I have to say, there have been a lot of good points that people have made on the matter. I wanted to comment on a few things people have said, and throw in a couple ideas I have myself. I am a biopsychology student at a university, and have been involved with some research into the effects of marijuana and have done a lot of reading on the topic.
Firstly I would like to comment on the posts where people indicated that marijuana could be physically addictive, and cause users to have a need to continue smoking. This has been disproved in many studies, and the fact is that though some people think they are addicted to marijuana, that is a mental addiction (sometimes as a result of an addictive personality), and there is no real physical reason behind it. Other instances of addiction have been because of certain additives to the marijuana in question (perhaps mentioned as "skunk" in other posts, which i gather is the name given in the UK). By subsidizing the growth and sale of marijuana by the government, the purity of the substance could be closely monitored. This would keep incidents of impure marijuana leading to adverse effects from ever happening. That leads me into my next point.
A lot of "problems" that people see with marijuana are as a result of the black market drug culture that surrounds it now because of its illegality. Some people have mentioned marijuana as a "gateway drug", and others have said that this may be because of drug dealers pushing harder drugs on people. This has often been the case, and even though a dealer might not try to force someone to try other drugs, by being in contact with people in the black market, there is ready access to those drugs which may cause some people to decide to experiment some. By legalizing the drug and having the main source of availability be through government sanctioned selling sites, people would not have to be in touch with the drug culture, and therefore would not be tempted to try other drugs.
I also wanted to comment on the posts stating that use of marijuana may lead to serious mental illness. The news articles that claim that a "single use" of marijuana may "increase the risk of schizophrenia by up to 42%" have to be taken with a large grain of salt. OK, so even IF (and that's a big if, there are no references to scientific studies) there is that much of an increased risk, the risk an individual has to become schizophrenic (or other serious mental disorders) is in the fractions of a percent in magnitude. Increase that by 42%, and guess what? You're still at a fraction of a percent, but just a little larger. The media and the government are quick to bring out and over inflate the extremely rare cases where an individual IS affected by mental illness, and if the individual had any contact with illegal drugs, they are quick to pin the fault on drug use.
As you can probably tell from the rest of this post, I am very much for the legalization of marijuana, however, I think there are several restrictions that should be put in place to help make sure the drug is used and not abused (however you can never be sure that this will happen, as is very evident by the current problems that face our culture with alcohol). Here are a couple of my ideas:
1.) The growth and sale of marijuana should be subsidized and overseen by the government, and sold in highly maintained authorized selling sites (a store owner would be required to obtain a permit to sell marijuana at his or her establishment, much like with alcohol today).
2.) There should be taxes put in place on the drug, much like with alcohol and tobacco. (The government has room to profit from these taxes as is shown in the original post, and not suffer losses through all of the money used in trying to enforce drug laws in relation to marijuana and in jail space taken up by sellers and users of marijuana).
3.) Similar laws to those currently in place for alcohol should also be set in place for marijuana. There should be an age restriction for sale of the product (18 or 21, I am sure there will be many a debate surrounding which one it should be). There should also be laws against driving while under the influence of the drug, as though it does not hinder driving quite so much as alcohol, there is enough of an impact to justify this law. There should also be laws against being under the influence while at a job, especially if that job entails using heavy machinery or dangerous tools. As for the detection of those under the influence, there are already devices on the market, some of which police officers are starting to carry with them. Having those units become a standard thing for patrol officers to carry with them would be something necessary to be done.
All of those laws would be necessary, especially at first, and I am sure that with time, relaxation of those laws might occur within reason.
4.) Those seeking to make money by reselling the drug on the black market to youth should be penalized, similar to the consequences to buying tobacco or alcohol for those underage.
With those basic restrictions in place, it would be a lot easier to justify the legalization of marijuana (especially in the minds of many politicians, and people who are against the drug in general).
This post has gotten a bit longer than I had at first anticipated, but I really wanted to get a lot of my thoughts out there so that people could respond with what they think. Thanks for sticking with it and reading through!
- Stellar
