Legalization of Marijuana (Essay 4)

Pro-Cannabis Points:
1. Marijuana is less dangerous and addictive than cigarettes and scientists have not been able to link it difinitively to cancers like tabacco has been.
-Even if marijuana did cause health problems, which has not been able to be proved, the majority of people quit early in their adult life which proves it is not addictive. (Health Central)
-A small minority of Americans - less than 1 percent - smoke marijuana on a daily basis. It is more of a thing done occasionally. (DrugPolicy)
-Exposure to smoke is generally much lower in cannabis than in tobacco cigarette smokers, even taking into account the larger exposure per puff. Existing studies do not support a link between the use of cannabis and heart disease, the leading cause of death in many Western countries.Furthermore, cannabis does not contain nicotine, a chemical contained in tobacco that is addicting and contributes to the risk of heart disease. (Health Central)
-Link between cannabis and death is still not established. (Health Central)
-The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.
The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.
Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.
They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.
"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect." (Washington Post)
-Marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.  (Washington Post)
-While no association between marijuana smoking and cancer was found, the study findings, presented to the American Thoracic Society International Conference this week, did find a 20-fold increase in lung cancer among people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.  (Washington Post)
-There are zero reported deaths from marijuana alone. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined. (CDC) Cigarette smoking is estimated to cause the following:

• 443,000 deaths annually (including deaths from secondhand smoke)
• 49,400 deaths per year from secondhand smoke exposure
• 269,655 deaths annually among men
• 173,940 deaths annually among women

Cigarette use causes premature death:

• On average, adults who smoke cigarettes die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.
• Based on current cigarette smoking patterns, an estimated 25 million Americans who are alive today will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses, including 5 million people younger than 18 years of age. (CDC)

2. People convicted with possesion or distribution of marijuana and are sent to jail crowd these facilities when more dangerous people should be locked up.
-American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That's according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. (Now Public)
-According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot. (Now Public)
-Several hundred thousand more Americans are arrested each year for violating marijuana laws, costing taxpayers another $8 billion dollars annually in criminal justice costs. (Now Public)
-According to the most recent figures available from the FBI, police arrested an estimated 786,545 people on marijuana charges in 2005 -- more than twice the number of Americans arrested just 12 years ago. Among those arrested, about 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only. The remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses, even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.
These totals are the highest ever recorded by the FBI, and make up 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. Nevertheless, self-reported pot use by adults, as well as the ready availability of marijuana on the black market, remains virtually unchanged. (Now Public)






3. Marijuana use has positive attributes, such as its medical value and use as a recreational drug with relatively mild side effects. (Alternet)
-Marijuana can treat a wide variety of illnesses and medical problems including glaucoma, the side-effects of cancer chemotherapy, muscular spasticity disorders, the "wasting syndrome" associated with AIDS, epilepsy, and more. (FAQ)
-Marijuana is not addictive like other prescription drugs. Any addiction to it is "socially addictive"; it does not cause chemical dependency. (Hub Pages)-Marijuana as a drug treatment is something natural while prescription drugs are something created in labratories. It does not have fatal side affects like some prescription drugs; a natural plant that has been used as medicine for centuries is banned while drugs that cost up to or over $100 a pill, and can damage the kidneys, liver, heart, or even cause death. (Hub Pages)-It causes less deaths (zero reported deaths from marijuana alone) than cigarettes and could provide an acceptable alternative to those who smoke cigarettes. (CDC)
-Scientific studies show that marijuana is not toxic to humans, and the "overdose" amount is so unrealistic as to be laughable. As in 1,500 lbs. in 15 minutes. Smoking that much pot is impossible. Alcohol and tobacco are both more addictive and dangerous than marijuana and you can essentially overdose and die from both.(Hub Pages)
-Marijuana has been used for its medicinal properties for centuries, and has shown incredibly effective pain killer (and appetite stimulant) for cancer and AIDS victims, offering a much higher quality of life as well as more life after suffering from these ailments. Aside from that hemp can make an incredibly efficient form of bio diesel that doesn't cut into the world's food supplies. (Hub Pages)
-As a recreational choice for adults, marijuana is far less harmful than tobacco, and tends to have a calming and mild effect, while alcohol makes many adults violent and verbally and emotionally abusive. (Hub Pages)


Legalizing Marijuana separates it from the real problem drugs, and allows society and law enforcement to concentrate on them. Marijuana is nowhere close to being in the same league as LSD, PCP, crack/cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, or meth. In fact, tobacco and alcohol are closer to most of those drugs than marijuana is. Meth and crack/cocaine absolutely destroys communities, people's lives, and brings violent behavior and crime. Marijuana does not.  (Hub Pages)


Possible Opposing Viewpoints:
1. Marijuana is a gateway drug. (Radical Parenting)
Defend with: A regulated, legal market in marijuana would reduce marijuana sales and use among teenagers, as well as reduce their exposure to other drugs in the illegal market. (Alternet)


2. Marijuana is perceived as socially addictive.“Under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug on the basis that is has “a high potential for abuse.” (Radical Parenting)
Defend with: Most people who smoke marijuana smoke it only occasionally. A small minority of Americans - less than 1 percent - smoke marijuana on a daily basis. An even smaller minority develop a dependence on marijuana. Some people who smoke marijuana heavily and frequently stop without difficulty. Others seek help from drug treatment professionals. Marijuana does not cause physical dependence. If people experience withdrawal symptoms at all, they are remarkably mild. (DrugPolicy) However, someone can become dependent on alcohol, a legal drug, in many different ways.
Alcohol is an addictive drug and you can become psychologically and physically dependent on it. In the UK, around nine in 100 men and four in 100 women are dependent on alcohol.
Alcohol dependence - or 'alcohol dependence syndrome' (formerly known as alcoholism) is a pattern of routinely drinking excessive amounts of alcohol over a long period of time, which results in addiction. It can be associated with psychological and physical health problems and can seriously affect your relationships with family and friends. It can also affect your job. (Bupa)


3. Marijuana is harmful to one's health.  (Radical Parenting)
Defend with: Alcohol and cigarettes, legal drugs, cause more deaths than marijuana considering there have been zero reported deaths from marijuana use alone. A combination of marijuana and alcohol can be deadly but it makes no sense to outlaw one and not the other. Alcohol in combination with many legal perscription drugs such as narcotic pain relievers. (Methods of Healing)

Intro Info:
Marijuana is a green, brown, or gray mixture of dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers of the hemp plant. You may hear marijuana called by street names such as pot, herb, weed, grass, boom, Mary Jane, gangster, or chronic. There are more than 200 slang terms for marijuana.

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