Marijuana: Should It Be Legal?

I'm going to look at Marijuana in two ways:

1. Should it be Medically legal?
2. Should it be generally legal?

Should Medical Marijuana be legal?

Pro:
1. There are legitimate diseases that it helps with. It makes a real difference in improving people's lives for:
                       a) Multiple Sclerosis
                       b) Cancer
                       c) HIV
                       d) Seizure disorders like Epilepsy
                       e) Crohn's Disease
                       f) Glaucoma
                       g) nerve pain

http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/medical-marijuana-uses

http://norml.org/component/zoo/category/recent-research-on-medical-marijuana

2. "Like all medicines, medical marijuana may cause certain effects. However, marijuana side effects are much milder and more manageable than those that come with traditional medicines. And unlike thousands of other medicines, there has never been a death attributed to marijuana overdose."

http://www.evaluationtoday.com/news_medical_marijuana_sideeffects.html


Con:
1. When Marijuana is smoked, the chemicals interfere with the brain's natural ability to naturally influence pleasure, memory, thinking, concentration, movement, coordination, and sensory and time perception.

2. It's not FDA approved because
                             a) there haven't been enough clinical trials.
                             b) because of all the chemicals in the plant it makes it hard to be consistent in well-defined and measurable ingredients
                             c) side effects include worsened respiratory symptoms (when smoked), impaired short-term memory and motor coordination slower reaction times, altered moods reaction time and judgments, and possibly cause severe anxiety and psychosis.

The con list is from:

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana-medicine
                   
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/

That is a good site for finding the pros and cons. I am for medical marijuana being legal because it does make a difference. NJ does have legal medical marijuana and in the case of one girl it helped her epilepsy once she got two doctor's notes. Then I read about a boy in Pennsylvania with epilepsy who needed the same medication but couldn't get it. It's the exact same form of epilepsy but he suffers in pain while she is able to get relief.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/chris-christie-medical-marijuana_n_3909162.html

When I look at the side effects I just kept thinking "well, not all forms of medical marijuana are smoked and the rest are things that are side effects of other FDA approved medications." I understand why they want there to be more trials before formally approving it. As far as what they say about consistency, I can understand that too. But most doctors are very careful when prescribing medical marijuana. They start with very low doses to lessen the risks of these negative effects. With proper research there is a way to stabilize marijuana into more predictable form.

Chances are there are people who legitimately need medical marijuana and when they can't get it they do buy it off the streets. But when you are doing that you are judging for yourself how much to take and are more likely to take more then you need to relief increasing the risk of those side effects. I would much rather they be able to get it from a doctor who is monitoring them while they take it so the effects are minimal. With the right low dose of medical marijuana you can safely live a normal life without putting other's lives in danger minus the suffering from before. But I agree for this to work it has to be a heavily monitored field with enough doctors who prescribe it so those who need it don't turn to the streets.


Should Marijuana in general be legal?

Pro:
1. It's already sold on the streets. It's already very commonly used. If it's legal we save a lot of money by releasing non-violent criminals in prison for selling or using marijuana. If someone does something else illegal while under the influence, then they can attach an intoxication charge to the crime like they do with alcohol related crimes.

Cost to tax payers imprison marijuana offenders:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/54803/this-is-how-much-marijuana-prohibition-costs-you-the-taxpayer

Sentences:

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Marijuana#Law

2. The Government can regulate how much to sell each person and collect tax money on it. The same way they do alcohol. It becomes another source of much needed income. Just like there is a legal limit for alcohol there can be a legal limit for marijuana. Create a roadside way to measure it and strengthen the sentences for DUIs.

3. Income tax collection: marijuana dealers can go legit! That means they can openly do what they are already doing but now have to pay income taxes. A license is required to sell marijuana making it still a crime to sell without a license. That's how it is in the two states who legalized marijuana use.
 
Con:
1. Making it legal would require careful wording to eliminate all possible unforeseen loopholes. That makes it hard to negotiate something reasonable.

2. More studies need to be done on how to determine what the legal limit would be and how it can be measured roadside similar to a breathalyzer for alcohol.

http://www.mpp.org/reports/marijuana-and-dui-laws-how.html

Strengthening the sentences for DUIs means more people will be more careful about marijuana use. With freedom comes responsibility. If you want to be able to legally smoke marijuana then you will have to agree with an age of accessibility for non- medical purposes (probably 21 like alcohol) and that the punishments will be stronger then now. They can monitor purchases like the monitor purchase quantities of some medications like Claritin-D. With Claritin-D, you have to provide a driver's license to the Pharmacists to buy it. The license goes into the system and at a certain point, no matter what drug store you go to, you can't buy any more. This is to limit OTC drug abuse.

As that report shows, blood tests are the only reliable way to tell when and how much marijuana is in a person's system. Perhaps Police can start with a breathalyzer test to rule out alcohol levels and a roadside sobriety test. Drunk driving is still a big issue that needs to be addressed so maybe this is a good time to include mandatory blood testing for failed breathalyzer and sobriety tests if there are other physical signs of substance use. This would be tricky to implement. Perhaps if they created a paper and finger prick test like they use for diabetes monitors it would work.

I'm surprised I didn't have more cons in this category. Starting this post I felt Medical Marijuana is helpful if the patient is carefully monitored but it shouldn't be available for general use. The undeniable truth is this. There are a lot of people making a lot of money selling marijuana. There are a lot of people buying marijuana. If it's legal that means a lot more tax income for the government for both the sales tax and income tax. But legalizing it would have to be done very carefully to work and the punishment would need to be much higher for illegal use and distribution if it can be obtained legally.  I would support it being generally legal if the law was written right. It's all in the wording.