Marijuana is a hard drug that has both short and long term effects on the user. It is illegal to smoke it not only in the majority of the United States’ of America but also in many other countries. In recognition of the potential harm of marijuana use, various governments have put prohibitive laws in place to restrict its use. Nevertheless, scientific studies have shown that marijuana has some medicinal value. The primary consequence of its legalization will be an increase in its users. Currently, its users fear the law enforcement agents but in case it is legalized, it will have been abused without fear (Evins, Green, Kane, & Murray, 2013, p.74, 4). The decline of marijuana users from 24million Americans,' twenty years ago to 11 million consumers today is a clear evidence that the prohibitive laws and regulations are working. That decline may be attributed to the drug awareness programs, the harsh sentences to the offenders and the officers on the streets. As the proposers of marijuana legalization argue that cases of violence and crimes would decrease if marijuana is legalized, statistics proves them wrong. According to the research, majority of the violence and crime offenders fails drugs test at the time of their arrest. It shows that if marijuana is legal, it will be readily available, and this move will only propel other people into the life of violence and crime. Another argument by the proponents of marijuana is that if marijuana is legal, government can impose taxes and create revenues that can fight other crimes or plug the states’ budget deficit. However, taxes means an increase in the cost of funding the drug habit and there is no guarantee that the black market will disappear. The abusers will opt for the drug gangs who will supply it at a cheaper cost while avoiding taxes and, in the end there will be no revenues for the state. In addition, the pushers will have an easy time to get youngsters hooked to the marijuana just like the cases of alcohol and cigarettes (Wall, Cerdá, Keyes, Galea, & Hasin, 2011,p.715). The medicinal value of marijuana are well documented and widely studied in some cultures, consequently it is known as the safest therapeutic substance known in the medical field. Its greatest advantage in medicine is its remarkable safety since it has little effect on major physiological functions, and it is less addictive. Since it does not need an industrial processing to be ready for use makes it easy to abuse (Callaghan, Allebeck, & Sidorchuk, 2013,p.1817).With the enormous public support for its medical use, the government should create legislation that may guide the professionals in the medical field in administering marijuana to their patients. It should be within a legal framework that would require the patient to use it as prescribed by the doctors and not just to legalize everyone to use. Marijuana legalization cannot be a rational policy and if effected it would advance a nonjudgmental attitude about hard drugs to the youngsters. As people seek to have marijuana legal for medical use, they should also seek to maintain the regulations that makes it illegal for abuse. Other than its good side of being therapeutic its short term effects are both physical and psychological reactions. The psychological reactions consists of changes in the feeling and thoughts of the user, including memory losses. The biological effect of marijuana abuse can be a decrease of sperm count and erectile dysfunction to male while, for the females, it can lead to irregular menstrual cycle or low fertility. Marijuana was criminalized because of its effect on the individual abusers as well as the society and nothing much, has changed in its contents. It continues to make people violent, criminals, and zombies and infertile, it should remain illegal.
References
Callaghan, R. C., Allebeck, P., & Sidorchuk, A. (2013). Marijuana use and risk of lung cancer: a 40-year cohort study. Cancer Causes & Control, 24(10), 1811-1820.Wall, M. M., Poh, E., Cerdá, M., Keyes, K. M., Galea, S., & Hasin, D. S. (2011). Adolescent marijuana use from 2002 to 2008: higher in states with medical marijuana laws, cause still unclear. Annals of epidemiology, 21(9), 714-716.Evins, A. E., Green, A. I., Kane, J. M., & Murray, R. M. (2013). Does using marijuana increase the risk for developing schizophrenia?. The Journal of clinical psychiatry, 74(4), e08-e08.
