The Great Debate over whether marijuana should be legalized and alcohol deemed illegal has taken affect in the United States over the last century. Alcohol has been popular in America ever since its founding, and alcohol was predominately produced through moonshiners until the Whiskey Rebellion in the very early 1800s. Since then alcohol has been taxed and regulated heavily but still remains legal to all individuals over the age of 21. Marijuana, however, has always been considered illegal and has been frowned upon throughout society because of the ignorance of people who believe smoking anything leads to illness and eventually death.
Even though I do not condone the use of marijuana, I believe it would be more beneficial to society if it was legal rather that alcohol because of the provided reasons below. 1. Marijuana is generally less harmful than tobacco or alcohol: Marijuana can be smoked or consumed and its chemical, THC, is released into the body causing a sense of “high”. From what I have seen and heard, marijuana users have said they feel great while smoking and even after smoking. They are less stressed and find many things funny, often laughing uncontrollably.
I also know the harmful effects of smoking tobacco. Tobacco is highly addictive because of the chemical nicotine. Tobacco smoking leads to lung cancer, black lungs, oral cancer, and bad breath, while marijuana smoking does not contribute to these illnesses. Smoking in general is bad for you but when marijuana and tobacco are compared hand-in-hand than marijuana is considerably better. It is said that it take up to 8 marijuana joints to get the same effects as one cigarette. Alcohol impairs your sense of judgment, impairs vision and makes people more aggressive.
Drunken driving incidents are also linked to the top 10 causes of death in the US, while marijuana smoking is not. Marijuana makes you laugh and happy while alcohol makes people aggressive and fight. 2. If the government were to make marijuana legal they could tax the crap out of it, gaining close to 200 million dollars in tax revenue in one year. If it were legal, people would also be less likely to use it because it is no longer “cool” because it is now accessible to every person in the United States.
You could also limit the amount of marijuana a person could have on themselves and limit the amount of intake you could take. Hundreds of thousands of people a year are arrested, jailed, tried and sentenced each year because of possession of marijuana. If marijuana were legal it is estimated that the US could save close to 100 million dollars in legal fees and jails. It would also free up room in prisons and jail cells for actual criminals who hurt others. It seems like it would be better to arrest people who would break the governments limit intake of marijuana rather that if they possess it.
Drug related crime rate would also decrease because now that marijuana would be legal, people and gangs would not have to argue, steal or kill because of marijuana. It would also create jobs in America because you could designate specific people and farms to grow marijuana plants and to distribute these. This would help stimulate the economy. 3. Marijuana has a positive effect on cancer patients. Cancer is one of the top leading causes of death in the United States. People who are going through chemotherapy, a cancer treatment, often lose their appetites and this brings them closer to death.
People found that if you smoke marijuana during your chemo treatments, you regain your appetite and are able to eat, possibly saving your life. The THC is marijuana makes you hungry, or what stoners often refer to as the “munchies”. If marijuana was legalized in more states across the country for medical purposes, I would not be surprised to see a decrease in deaths related to cancer because people now want to eat and can survive longer. Marijuana is also said to take away some of the pain that these treatments cause so that is also beneficial to the patients.
Even though I am arguing for the legalization of marijuana, it is appropriate to say why it shouldn’t and why alcohol should remain legal. Marijuana is considered immoral and inappropriate to the mass of America. Alcohol is considered a social norm, and a vast majority of Americans (adults) drink a form of alcohol. Alcohol has been legal for hundreds of years and although it impairs your senses, it helps make people more social, which is why it is served at parties. Marijuana, on a long term bases, can cause brain cell damage, paranoia, delayed development in pre-pubic children, and blood vessel blockage.
Even though alcohol is legal, it was once deemed illegal, although there were many loopholes in the amendment which basically considered it useless. Although alcohol is legal and marijuana is illegal, I believe that it should be reserved. Alcohol makes people aggressive and millions of alcohol related deaths have been documented in the past century, while little to no deaths have been accredited to marijuana usage. Marijuana makes people less stressed and happy, could help stimulate the struggling economy and help save the lives of our cancer patients. It makes more sense to legalize marijuana rather than alcohol.
