There are obvious arguments both ways.
Pro:
Alcohol is legal and it is more harmful than marijuana. People should be free to make their own choice about what they do with their bodies. The law isn't enforced, and can't be enforced, and is a costly way to bring justice into disrepute.
Against:
Marijuana really is a gateway to worse drugs. The legality of alcohol is unfortunate but so deeply part of our culture that it can't be eliminated -- but one bad idea doesn't justify another. Laws against marijuana do keep usage down and without limitation impaired driving would skyrocket.
And I am sure there are as many more arguments one way or the other as there are readers of the post.
I am inclined to legalization but recognize both sides of the argument are cogent.
One thing I do know is that our marijuana laws are a mess and do no credit to our justice system.
One in three Canadians admit to having used marijuana and 17% used it recently; is there any other crime so commonly accepted amongst Canadians? The marijuana trade (and this is a very serious crime) is a major economic engine in British Columbia. The Court's rulings on whether the criminal ban of marijuana is legal are confusing, to say the least.
And this means a serious re examination of the law, perhaps by an all Party committee, with some expert assistance, coming to joint (no pun intended) conclusions for a focused way forward is needed.
It can be done.
Marijuana is a public health issue and all Parties can agree it needs control -- the question is how best to control and that's a technical issue. Legalize but regulate, criminalize more strongly and add resources to crack down, just let the ban go and tax sales like cigarettes, anything that looks likely to work!
Whatever the answer, we can't continue like this.
6 comments:
Some people that have Marijuana for medicine, I am sure have bee given a few hard drugs that do not work or are full of side effects. I do not see anything wrong with a person in pain growing some in pots, although the government does.
I should hope one of these workers doesn't have an accident, or look out, poor fellow .You have had it.
This is ridiculous..I think it should be legal with laws, like alcohol
Marijuana really is a gateway to worse drugs
Really?
Any facts to back that up?
anonymous - google it. There have been many studies suggesting that.
Most people who use more serious drugs started with marijuana. Of course, this does not mean that all who have ever used it (myself included) will move on to more serious drugs.
Here's one piece from teens.drugabuse.gov
Does Marijuana Lead to the Use of Other Drugs?
"It could. Long-term studies of high school students and their patterns of drug use show that very few young people use other illegal drugs without first trying marijuana.
For example, the risk of using cocaine is 104 times greater for those who have tried marijuana than for those who have never tried it. Using marijuana puts children and teens in contact with people who are users and sellers of other drugs. So there is more of a risk that a marijuana user will be exposed to and urged to try more drugs.
To better determine this risk, scientists are examining the possibility that long-term marijuana use may create changes in the brain that make a person more at risk of becoming addicted to other drugs, such as alcohol or cocaine. While not all young people who use marijuana go on to use other drugs, further research is needed to predict who will be at greatest risk."
aka kathleen - Oh come on. The US Government as a source for the gateway theory? All of the studies supporting the gateway theory have confused correlation with causation.
I also don't buy this suggestion that legal alcohol is somehow just an unfortunate historical reality. People should be able to do with their bodies as they wish... its the "liberal" way. I don't care if we could ban alcohol and be 100% effective in the enforcement in that law it would STILL be a stupid idea.
Paternalistic nonsense.
The old gateway theory is utter bunk. Yes, researchers have rightly noted that people who have try marijuana are statistically more likely try other illicit drugs. This gave raise to the theory that there was something about marijuana that encouraged drug experimentation. Marijuana, it was alleged, is a gateway drug. This, in turn, was given as one more reason to keep the drug illegal.
However, the gateway drug theory has until recently fallen on hard times for lack of an intelligible mechanism. The problem was that there was no coherent explanation for why marijuana would lead people to experiment with other drugs. Without this explanation doubt was cast on the relationship being more than mere correlation.
That said, in recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana’s pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana’s illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged blackmarket relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug.
A recent adjunct is the argument that marijuana illegality can lead serve as a gateway to criminality in so far has proven to be a tempting to teenagers what to make an easy buck serving as low level dealers.
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