Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

Cannabis, also known as marijuana (from the Mexican Spanish marihuana), is a preparation of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug and as medicine. The legality of marijuana has been a hotly debated subject for decades. Until the government of many established countries outlawed it is use, smoking marijuana had been a widespread activity for thousands of years. The question is, why not legalize it? Drinking and cigarettes are legal and as far as I know, they kill a lot of people. I haven't even heard of related deaths. People simply just don't like it because it is illegal. In moderation, it has no bad side effects. That’s why, I totally agree with the legalizing of marijuana.

All the studies used always that marijuana "may" or "should" cause lung cancer. But it has never been reported that someone had lung cancer solely from using marijuana. But smoke is harmful because of the proprieties of smoke. Any smoke could harm your lungs. But nothing in the cannabis plant ever caused lung cancer. A study has been made and showed the tobacco smoke is more harmful than marijuana smoke. Tobacco kills more people than all illegal drugs combined with accidents and aids per year. It causes over 450,000 deaths per year. Even knowing that tobacco is being the number one killer in the country, the government still plants it and sells it.

Then we got alcohol. It is responsible for the death of over 85,000 people per year. Then we got caffeine which cause from one to 10,000 deaths per year. Even aspirin causes from one to 7500 deaths per year. What about marijuana? People believe it kills from 50,000 to hundreds of billions per year. In fact no single case of death has been attributed from using marijuana in the history of the human kind from thousands of years. You have to smoke 15,000 joints in 20 minutes to die from marijuana which is almost impossible.
 
The U.S government did an experiment on monkeys to determine and see if marijuana kills or causes any damage to the brain or brain cells. The monkeys died. Six years later, it was finally released how the experiment was made. They pumped astronomical amount of smoke on monkeys. The smoke and the lack of oxygen made the monkeys suffocate and die. The dead brain cells were from the lack of oxygen and not from marijuana. Thus, the experiment results were invalid. In fact, in 2005 a study showed that marijuana could stimulate the growth of brain cells on the brain. Many studies had been done and never actually found something in marijuana that could push user to go for "hard drugs" (such as cocaine, heroin, etc...)

Because of the current status of marijuana, users are forced to deal with the black market. Prohibition could be the reason of marijuana being a gateway drug. Many black market dealers now tend to go for harder drugs. Why? It is easier to carry pills and powder that could be easily hidden. Marijuana is harder to hard and to sell. It has a strong smell so it makes it harder for dealers to carry it. But, people in some states in US and in Canada could get a medical marijuana card if they have been checked and proven by a doctor that they qualify for a card. That card helps the patient against any arresting for possession of marijuana.

Prohibition it’s also in fact has never worked. Prohibition has never stopped people from using marijuana. In 1937, it was estimated that there was 15,000 marijuana users. Now, it is estimated to be 15,000,000+ marijuana users. But marijuana being more potent now won't change its effects it had thousands of years ago. For it being more potent will just take fewer amounts from a user to get high thus, inhaling less smoke. Only 3% of the patients on the rehab system went voluntarily from being independent on marijuana. The others were either told by a judge or a guardian. Some people get the choices either going to jail or you go to a treatment. Everyone chooses to go to a treatment. They consider these people addicts. Marijuana is known to be less addictive than coffee. There are no severe withdrawal symptoms after stopping the use of marijuana. Its use can be discontinues easier than any other drugs.

Any kind benefit of Cannabis is it can be hemp. It is the most durable natural soft fiber on the surface on this planet. Since thousands of years, hemp always had many uses on the industry. A lot of medicines and clothes were made from hemp. It is said that the famous movie "Reefer Madness" caused marijuana to be illegal. It was believed that marijuana caused the user to be violent but many politicians later opposed that myth. In fact, marijuana calms and mellows the user.

So with all of that evidence, I guess marijuana is one of the most useful, if not the most useful plant known to mankind and it should not be illegal while keeping tobacco and alcohol legal. Using marijuana in comparison to using tobacco and alcohol is probably the safer and healthier choice. Tobacco is known to be highly addictive and harmful but is legal and at the same time, governments all over the world spend billions of tax payers dollars on trying to get people to quit. What a joke! What a bunch of hypocrites! At least marijuana has many beneficial uses. Marijuana use is not limited to low socioeconomic, unmotivated people. I think governments are just too lazy to revise laws and of course the powerful religious sects of the world (some of which are known pedophiles) would also have opinion about it.

Quote for today: "Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route."