Marijuana and its legalization

2009.05.11

Answer to the question ‘why marijuana should be legalized’ is ‘why it shouldn’t be?’ People in a free society have rights to make their own choices unless their choices and actions will harm others. Government should ban, or limit, only those choices of an individual which are the cause of problems for others. And this is surely not the case with the marijuana. Marijuana is the product of the hemp plant, cannabis sativa. Since long it has been used as pain killer and recreational drug. But still there are people who forbid the legalization of marijuana, claiming that impairment level could be high in case of intake of marijuana. As per their theory, marijuana is a dangerous drug. But there are number of reasons why marijuana should be made legal?

Medical use: Marijuana is very beneficial for medical purposes. It is proved to be a great pain reliever for chemotherapy patients and is proved to be very helpful in nausea prevention. Legalization of marijuana would certainly lead to further investigation for medical purposes.

Demotivate the drug dealers and ruin their empire: Buying an illegal drug through a drug dealer is very costly. Drug dealers make lots of money selling illegal drugs. But because of its several benefits people around the world are spending their money for marijuana. Legalization of marijuana will surely drop the price of the drug and it will be easily accessible to all at lower price. This will ruin the empire of drug dealers. The saved money can be used for other useful purposes.

Save Government’s lot of money: Government spends large part of its money to prevent the use of illegal drugs. A large part of resources is used to catch those who buy and sell illegal drugs into the market. Legalization of drug would automatically stop the smuggling of the drugs. If the drug is beneficial, and people are buying it even at the higher price from the drug dealers, then the government should legalize the drug. This way government can save its money and can use it for other useful purposes.

Legalizing the marijuana and then taxing it would create another way of getting revenues for the government.

Prohibition of the drug doesn’t work: Prohibition of the drug doesn’t help in reducing its use. Marijuana is available very easily but at higher price. And because it is illegal more and more youths attract towards it. People feel less attraction for legalized drugs like alcohol. Alcohol intake has more dangerous effects than smoking marijuana. So, if alcohol can be legalized, why not marijuana? In fact legalization of marijuana would also prevent the youth from taking other harmful drugs like heroin, cocaine, etc. Legalization of drug would definitely reduce the drug offense in the country.

Stop the crime: Legalization of marijuana not only stops the cutting of useful hemp plant just for paper production but it also stops the terrorists from smuggling it into the country. Legalization of marijuana would definitely reduce a large part of the money flow from the US economy to international terrorists’ bags.