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The legalization of marijuana has recently been a rather controversial issue, although there should be no issue at all. Marijuana should be legalized. Prohibition was once tried with alcohol and it was proven that it does not work in any manner, and it should soon be proven again with marijuana. Some reasons why marijuana should be legal include there are numerous medical benefits, its creates a very harmful underground society, and prohibition costs very much money. There is very much proof that shows the legalization of marijuana would have more of a positive impact on society than a negative one.
This includes the elimination Of the underground society, which mostly consists Of drug dealers and consumers. There is also money involved, which is the money spent on trying to prevent the use of drugs and prosecute drug offenders. Medical reasons should also be accounted for which include the need for medical marijuana for patients to live without pain. One significant unfortunate consequence of the increasing war on drugs is not allowing sick people to use marijuana as medicine.
Prohibitionists insist that marijuana is not good medicine, or at least that there are legal alternatives to marijuana that are just as good. Those who believe that individuals should make their own decisions, not have their decisions made for them by politics and the law, would simply say that it’s a decision for patients and their doctors to make. There is even good medical evidence about the therapeutic value of marijuana, despite the difficulty of doing sufficient research on an illegal drug.
A recent National Institutes of Health panel concluded that smoking marijuana may help treat a number of conditions, including nausea and pain. It can be especially effective in improving the appetite of AIDS and cancer patients. The drug could also assist people who for some reason do not respond to usual treatments. More than 70 percent of LLC . S. Cancer specialists in one survey said they would prescribe marijuana if it was legal, and almost half said they had urged their patients to break the law to get hold of the drug.
The British Medical Association says that nearly 70 percent of its members believe marijuana should be available for therapeutic use. Even President George Bush’s Office of Drug Control Policy criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for closing its special medical marijuana program and leaving users to resort to the unsafe underground society (Boas). The prohibition of marijuana has created an underground economy that feeds off violence and greed. This economy seems to offer satisfaction and riches for those who decide on joining it, although it leaves more people dead or in jail than not.
Total drug arrests are now over 1. 5 million a year. There are about 400,000 drug offenders in jails and prison now. Over 80 percent of the increase in the federal prison population from 1 985 to 1995 was due to rug convictions. Drug offenders made up 59. 6 percent of all federal prisoners in 1996. Which is up from 52. 6 percent in 1990. Drug dealers become the most clearly successful people in these communities. They are the ones with the money, clothes, and cars. Social order is turned upside down when the most successful people in a community are criminals.