Being an exploratory research; a preliminary study of some unfamiliar problem (the legalization of marijuana) which I have little knowledge about, it had to take the form of a pilot study. The research was undertaken in three stages namely the exploration of the phenomenon, the description of the phenomenon and the experimentation of the relationship between marijuana, the livelihood of people and the economy.
In exploring the effects of legalizing marijuana, I found the following journals:
- Regulation, with an impact factor of 4
- Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice , with an impact factor of 7
- New Scientist, with an impact factor of 1
Among the five journals, I skimmed two articles seeking an understanding of the phenomenon. The first article, “The Economic Case for Marijuana Legalization in Canada”, by Larissa Ducatti offers an analysis of the economic impacts of legalizing marijuana on the economy; particularly the Canadian economy. It is a simple paper on the review of existing literatures on the benefits of legalizing marijuana. The paper offers information, and a framework required for rational deliberation of the issues on the legalization of marijuana. The article offers a solid background on the current policies in Canada relating to the production and consumption of marijuana, the laws and the proposed strategies. The paper presents an analysis of scholarly journal articles with respect to the existing policies and the projected costs to the community, along with the proposed initiatives for the legalization of marijuana. Lastly the analysis presented in the paper indicates that the legalization of marijuana would boost the economy since it legalizes the trade in marijuana would result in new revenues to the government; while controlling it would offer greater safety for consumers making sure that the tools of quality control, licenses and sales restriction are in place.
The second article titled “The Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Program: An Exploratory Study” by Charles Alexandre also uses a simple English as a language though it is a detailed study. It is an exploratory program evaluation of the Rhode Island medical marijuana program used the Conceptual Model of Nursing and Health Policy to ascertain how the Rhode Island medical marijuana program has met or failed to meet its objectives. The article states that although the medical marijuana program Rhode Island does not seem to have an immediate impact on the nursing as a practice, it influences the assessment of government policies. The article states that the sanctioning of marijuana use is inevitable in order to alleviate annoying symptoms of debilitating conditions or diseases. Based on the research findings, the identification of common themes such as access to marijuana and medical marijuana and the mitigation of symptom and freedom from indictment are discussed.
Last but not least, I also found the news article “Poll: Support grows to legalize medical, recreational marijuana in New York, which offers a self-explanatory model on the concepts and methodologies on how marijuana legalization has taken toll in the American States, is outlined. It explains that some respective US state governments have gone to an extra mile of underground legalization of marijuana. This has had a profound support from the media fraternity through advertisements. States like Colorado and Washington use the media to advertise a marijuana as a herb and not an illegal drug, hence; this give it an advantage over the other states thus leading to more and more abuse of the illegal drug.
A proposed measure to cut down the abuse of this drug and legalize it has attracted debates from the federal governments in America, among them, Ohio and Minneapolis. The obvious reason being the long-term effects on the use of the drug. Scientists and medical experts are strong opponents to the legalization efforts. They believe that it will attract large scale abuse and with a majority being the infants. Legal experts have also expressed their worries concerning the framework that the federal states are using to craft the possible penalties in case of abuse of marijuana. The Obama administration is against any proposal to amend any law that will support the legalization of this drug. The senate has had several debates to debate against any possible legalization of this drug in all the U.S. States.
In conclusion, marijuana legalization across all the federal states of America has received criticisms from all walks of lives, especially the clergy and the parents association. The main concern is about the well-being of the future generation and the state of the economy in the future. Due to this, marijuana can only be used under special requests by the medical experts and not by the general public. The government is working closely with all the relevant regulatory arms to curb any steps that might lead to abuse of marijuana. Therefore, marijuana remains an illegal drug across all the states in America.
References
Alexandre, C. (2010). The Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Program: An Exploratory Study. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice, 12(2), 104–113.
Ducatti, L. (2012). The Economic Case for Marijuana Legalization in Canada. Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 5(1), 96-100
Durkin, E. (17 February, 2012). “Poll: Support grows to legalize medical, recreational marijuana in New York. The New York Daily News. Retrieved 17 April 2014, from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/poll-support-legal-marijuana-gaining-new- york-state-article-1.1617325
