A prohibitionist stated to me that this article does not explain why marijuana usage should be legal. It does not seem to me there needs to be a required argument legalizing marijuana other than it should not be illegal. Since I knew this would not go over well with a closed mind, I decided to boil down 8 of the reasons evident in this article of why marijuana should be legal.
1)
Marijuana prohibition was founded on racist lies to benefit special interest greed. As a “free” society, we should not allow this kind of behavior from our government. To do so is not only promoting an erosion of our own freedom, it is doing so to line the pockets of fear mongering hate spreaders, and private companies. Doing away with this law illustrates how we will not, and should not stand for this.
2)
Enforcement is charged with upholding these laws, so their propaganda is widely spread, biased, largely unfounded, and will undoubtedly say anything to accomplish their desired end result. Our government in general has an effectiveness largely determined by public sentiment. Look at any war. Obvious exaggerations and out right lies publicly spread using hard earned tax dollars is not the way to garner positive opinion. It has worked in the past, but is quickly losing it’s credibility with regards to marijuana. Removing the prohibition would restore at least that faith of just causality in the government for a vast group of people.
3)
Legal substances, alcohol mentioned here – also things like water and aspirin – kill more people per year, marijuana being a historical 0 death rate. The amount of danger involved with using this plant speaks to my previous point. It also means, with effects less than that of other unscheduled already legal substances, it can only be a law dictated from opinionated hyperbole. Justice is supposed to be blind. If a judge is to rule on these issues, by proxy they are forced to peek underneath the blindfold with unfounded bias in their eyes. Repealing laws influenced in this way restores blind justice.
4)
The addiction, according to most studies, is the same kind you would get if you were addicted to TV or food.. It is in your head, and not a trait of marijuana. With no threat of physical addiction, we are supporting a system of behavioral control. That is against a founding principle of the United States of America. Dropping this kind of legislation ensures personal choice over draconian laws.
5)
Propaganda largely addresses lack of responsible behavior which is not a trait of marijuana. Social awareness programs that address responsible decision making is the tool best suited for this issue. There is a gateway issue here though. It is the doorway to criminality. Public health policies enforced by incarceration of non violent, responsible adult participants, is known to create criminals out of otherwise law abiding citizens. The institutions responsible for holding marijuana offenders perpetuate further criminal endeavors substantially. Legalizing marijuana will drop crime while enhancing public safety and health.
6)
The punishment for possession is cruel and unusual punishment by the government’s own definition, i.e. it is the first step of use and scheduled as the worst. While this is another example of the government “protecting” our safety from our own behavior using persecution, it also denies the Bill of Rights. Marijuana should not be scheduled at all. Obvious signs of this is that same inability to define the plant one way or the other. Without this prohibition we will empower personal restraint as well as responsible behavior.
7)
The gateway drug theory has been time and again disproved with personal behaviors and prohibition being the real culprits. Just as my last point states, personal behavior should not be dictated by law when possibly avoided. Scientific disapproval in most cases will usually point mostly to a few possible factors explaining the true gateway effect. The substance being illegal actually thrusts the individual at the criminal element, the link of harder drug usage could be drawn between other examples of comparable numbers, (say cigarettes,alcohol, .. or ice cream), people that have addictive personalities tend to not need a physical addiction to be addicted, and while in jail any individual is far more likely to pick up other criminal habits as well as a criminally enabling self image. Ending the war with this plant will drop drug usage, crime, and deny junk science.
8)
Current laws are unjustly forcing a prison state – not working – costing us vast amounts of money in lost possible tax revenue, as well as the cost of punishment, enforcement, and propaganda etc. I have personally heard public officials say marijuana will kill you. They are corrected and accept the correction. Further stating that they are not aware of any individual that ever died from marijuana use. These employees are on our payroll. They are to be representative of the people.
Prisons are over populated and it is very expensive work to care for inmates. Year to date, the federal spending for enforcement ends up around $20,000,000,000 , state and local being around $30,000,000,000 , with total drug arrests at 1,743,767 , ones related to marijuana 827,000 , and 10,244 of those imprisoned this year laughs in the face of budget crisis. Combining enforcement budgets and averaging cost comes to $28,674 per arrest, and 47% of the total arrests are for marijuana.
Using this per arrest average, $23,500,000,000 this year on marijuana arrests. There is a conservative $21,000 a year average for an inmates imprisonment that comes to $215,124,000 added this year alone for marijuana inmates. Considering a 6 year average turn over, there is a $1,290,744,000 annual bill to be paid. Disregarding any appeals or cases taking several days to complete we can say each court case would likely be more than $3,000 each on average. For a year of court cases against the possession of a plant, $2,481,000,000 is spent at least.
Taking surface numbers of just enforcement, inmate housing, and court costs alone, comes up to $27,271,744,000 this year.
Total marijuana prohibition financial costs are far greater than this. Getting rid of the marijuana prohibition can save substantial money, as well as provide tax revenue for real social health programs that successfully educate about marijuana, create jobs related to the market, and prevent the horrible atrocities that happen to these non violent people while in jail.
Thank you again for publishing this.. Still fighting ignorance on all fronts about this issue.
Your spelling is appalling.
Interesting subject. The marajuana users in my group like to talk about this.