CORE WRITING ASSIGNMENT #3: RESEARCHED ARGUMENT
A Case for the Legalization of Marijuana as a Recreational Drug for Adults
Yousef Al-Meteb
Virginia Commonwealth University
The thought of the word marijuana conjures up images of dirty hippies living in
communes, or of crazed maniacal people. However these are all the products of hollywood
imagination. Most recreational marijuana users are regular people that sometimes even hold high
office like 44th president Barack Obama. Marijuana has been greatly misrepresented in the media
and in the society. The criminalization of marijuana has led millions of young people to jail, has
led to the deaths of thousands of Mexican citizens from the war on drugs. One of the most
decisive issues of today’s political arena is the war on drugs. Over the course of the last ten years
the legalization of marijuana has increasing become a possibility in the United States. Currently
only two states, Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana for recreational use and
twenty-one states have legalized it for medicinal use. Seventeen states and the District of
Columbia have decriminalized the possession of marijuana for personal use. Twenty-one states
permit the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Public opinion on the issue is shifting rapidly as well. Currently three-quarters of
Americans support decriminalization for personal use of marijuana; another 58 percent favor
legalization (Denning 2015). It seems like the tides of the change are washing over the marijuana
debate. The United States appears to be close to a tipping point in the debate over legalization of
marijuana. As great as all this sounds it has not been without controversy. There are several law
makers that continue to emphasize the supposed dangers of marijuana use as reasons to not
legalize the drug nationwide. There are also tobacco companies that seek to lose an enormous
amount of money once marijuana is legalized. The opposition has gone as far states like
Nebraska and Oklahoma filing law suits and asking the Supreme Court to intervene and stop the
legalization of marijuana in Colorado. One must ask why there is so much opposition to the
legalization of marijuana, despite an increasing body of evidence that proves that it is not
harmful.
The history of Marijuana in the United States goes as far back as the earliest colonization
of James town by English settlers. Since then, there has been as constant battle between
proponents for the use of marijuana and staunch opposition to its use and legalization. The
opposition against marijuana started in the 1930s. One of the most instrumental people in the war
against marijuana was Henry J. Anslinger. Anslinger became the first commissioner of the
Federal Bureau of Narcotics (Denning 2013). He essentially set the precedent for the fight
against marijuana with terrifying public service announcements, and wild exaggerations about
the dangers of marijuana use.
In 1970 the U. S. congress passed the Controlled Substances Act abbreviated as CSA.
This law classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug. This meant that the production, sale, and
possession of marijuana was a crime punishable by fines and possible jail time. Since then they
has been a declared war on drugs especially marijuana because of its pervasive use. After over
thirty years of the war on marijuana, millions of lives were ruined by increased sentences for
petty offenses like possession of an ounce of marijuana. However, with more states willing to
consider legalization, the tides are truly beginning to change. In 2013 the Department of Justice
put out a memorandum that promised to permit state legalization experiments to continue as long
states “policed themselves and minimized spillover effects in other states (Denning 2015).
Marijuana should be legalized for recreational adult use because evidence has proven
time and again that it is not harmful to humans. Several studies have disputed the commonly
cited fact that marijuana is more harmful than tobacco or alcohol. Statistics show that tobacco
and alcohol together cause more than 560,000 American deaths annually (Barcroft 2015).
Contrary to that there has not been a single death in the U.S. directly caused by or related to the
use of marijuana. Unlike alcohol, marijuana isn’t a neurotoxin, and unlike cigarettes, it has an
uncertain connection to lung cancer. Unlike heroin, marijuana does not present the risk of sudden
death (Barcroft 2015). The effects of marijuana use are generally less severe than those of
alcohol and tobacco. Although there has been a connection of marijuana smoke inhalation and
lung cancer, this fact has never been proven there fore it is another baseless accusation to further
demonize its use. There has been extensive research on the benefits of marijuana use in the last
ten years. One of the most promising uses of marijuana is in alleviating the effects of chronic
pain and other debilitating neurological illnesses.
Marijuana contains substances called cannabinoids. They have been shown to interact
with the specific neuroreceptors in brain cells and immune cells that work in pain management
(Barcroft 2015). It has also been shown that the human body produces its own cannabinoids
similar to those in marijuana and they also work in pain management (Barcroft 2015). Another
compound found in marijuana is Tetrahyrdocannabinol also known as THC. This is the main
psychoactive ingredient that produces the supposed hallucinogenic effects associated with
marijuana. However THC in combination with cannabidiol has been shown as an effective
treatment for neuropathic pain, disturbed sleep and spasticity. Cannabidiol is another compound
found in marijuana. Of all the compounds found in marijuana it has been proven to be the most
beneficial. In animal studies and in studies of children who suffer from the debilitating epilepsy,
it has been shown to decrease and in some cases stop seizures entirely (Barccroft 2015).
Scientists are now hailing it as an antiepileptic agent because of its proven success with epilepsy
patients. There are currently many clinical studies investigating the benefits of marijuana for
neurological illnesses. However the inherent fear that people have of the drug and the decades of
prohibition and misinformation has continued to shed a negative light on the drug that have
continued to thwart research efforts.
There has also been an extensive amount of research aimed at disproving the commonly
held beliefs that marijuana causes aggression, hallucinations and maniacal behavior. A study
was conducted in 2013 by Philip H. Smith and colleagues of the State University of New York .
It was conducted to find a correlation between marijuana withdrawal and aggressive behavior.
The results of the study showed that “marijuana withdrawal symptoms were not significantly
associated with either general aggression or relationship aggression after adjusting for marijuana
use Q×F, age, gender, education, household income, antisocial symptoms (other than
aggression), alcohol use disorders, and drug use disorders (other than marijuana (Smith 2013)”.
The study only found aggressive behavior among users who previously had a history of
aggression prior to marijuana use. Smith and colleagues stated “withdrawal symptoms were not
associated with relationship aggression among those with no history of aggression (Smith
2013)”. This further proves that marijuana use is not the cause of aggression in users.
Sabotage from tobacco companies fearful of marijuana taking over cigarettes as a
preferred drug has also been instrumental in its continued criminalization. When marijuana was
deemed illegal in the 1970s it was primed to be a top revenue generator and tobacco companies
knew they would suffer irrecoverable losses if marijuana use became mainstream. Tobacco
company executives were well aware of the fact that the use of tobacco would falls drastically
immediately following marijuana legalization, as people would be more keen experiment with
the drug. Tobacco companies then began frantically lobbying congress to criminalize marijuana.
Some even went as far as saying communists and left wing liberals were trying to push
marijuana to bring communism to America. A tobacco company executive was quoted in a
private recording saying “they’re trying to destroy us (Barcroft 2015), referring to communists
and left wing liberals. Top tobacco producers like Philip Morris USA paid for advertisements
that worked by instilling fear in the public. It financed Hollywood movies like Reefer Madness
which depicted marijuana smokers as crazed, murderous, maniacal individuals. Again there has
been no evidence found proving that smoking marijuana induces this type of behavior. On
contrary as tobacco companies fought a public war with marijuana, they were secretly trying to
find a way to add it to cigarettes to increase their profits. Documents reveal that since at “least
1970, despite fervent denials, three multinational tobacco companies, Philip Morris (PM), British
American Tobacco (BAT, including its US subsidiary Brown &Williamson [B&W]), and RJ
Reynolds (RJR), all have considered manufacturing cigarettes containing cannabis (Barry
2012).” This again further provers tobacco companies were instrumental in the criminalization
of marijuana all in the name of profits
Another reason why marijuana remains illegal is because the government has not spent as
much effort in finding out the facts about marijuana as it has done for other drugs like cocaine
and heroin. Over the course of the last forty years since it criminalization, the strategy of scaring
people has proven to be more favorable than research pursuits. Under the federal law, “all
marijuana use is considered ‘drug abuse,’” its Schedule I classification “reflecting] the view that
marijuana is dangerous and lacks any redeeming qualities. “There are a number of ancillary laws,
too, criminalizing various activities associated with marijuana production or transfer (Barry
2012).”This has led to the increase negative connotation associated with marijuana use.
However with the new promise of scientific research showing that benefits of the compounds
found in marijuana, there is renewed hope of nationwide legalization.
With all the evidence showing that marijuana is harmless there are still those who
continue to claim the drug is harmful to humans. There is research showing that the drug can
cause enormous damage to the developing human brain in users under the age of twenty one.
Although the drug seems relatively harmless in adult humans, it can cause issues like memory
loss, chronic procrastination and fatigue in those under the age twenty one whose brains are still
developing. According to Jodi Gilman, a Harvard Medical School researcher who has been
studying the brains of human marijuana users, “it has a whole host of effects on learning and
cognition that other drugs don’t have,” (Barcroft 2015). Initiation of use at a younger has also
been shown to lead to more severe psychoses, including schizophrenia, for that part of the
population with a genetic predisposition to certain mental illnesses (Barcroft 2012). This is
precisely why proponents of legalization continue to demand an age limit on individuals who are
allowed to use. If marijuana is legalized the age limit for its use should be twenty-one just like
alcohol. This probably safer than the current legal age for tobacco use, which has shown its many
adverse effects. As shown with alcohol and many other drugs, any use of a substance that
disrupts brain development at an early age can and will cause damage, and marijuana is no
different.
Addiction is another often cited concern to the legalization of marijuana. Studies have
shown approximately 9% of those who experiment with marijuana become dependent, and a
proportion of that increases to 1 in 6 if and when users start and an early age, especially during
the teenage years (Barcroft 2015). This again further proves that the only harm seen in marijuana
use is in the young brain, and this is the same for alcohol and tobacco which are currently legal.
A recent study was conducted by Anne Day at Brown University. The study was aimed at
determining marijuana-related problems in chronic users. The results showed that the median
number of problems in users was 3, with a range between 1 and 13 problems (Day 2013). The
most commonly reported marijuana related problem was procrastination. Participants most
frequently reported that marijuana caused them “to procrastinate” (53% of the sample) and “to
have a lower energy level” (42.6%) (Day 2013). One can argue that procrastination is a common
occurrence in everyone. Even the most highly organized individuals from business executives to
the average college student are all guilty of procrastination. Furthermore procrastination has
never been shown as a direct cause of death anywhere in the world, whereas impaired motor
skills caused by the use of alcohol has led to thousands of deaths around world. Also marijuana
has not led to terminal illnesses like lung cancer and emphysema as seen with tobacco, yet both
these substances continue to remain legal while marijuana is illegal. The argument that marijuana
causes procrastination is essentially irrelevant when looked at in comparison to the effects
produced by alcohol and tobacco. Overall the evidence against the use of marijuana is not strong
enough to warrant its continued criminalization and punishment of users and manufacturers.
Although states like Colorado and Washington have set the precedent for
legalization of marijuana, the path toward widespread legalization is still not a clear one. The
tenacious and discriminatory attitude of the federal government toward state powered
legalization continues to aggravate the situation. The continued criminalization of marijuana is a
social travesty that has left its mark on those most vulnerable in society. Marijuana convictions
account for the highest non-violent offenses among people in jail and federal prison. There is no
reason why a person’s entire life should be ruined by having an ounce of something that has been
proven time again to be completely harmless. Most people arrested for marijuana possession are
adults on the fringes of society. They are an already vulnerable population that become even
more vulnerable when they are unable to get a job or doing anything because of a petty
marijuana possession conviction. America was built on the premise of liberty and justice for all
and there is no reason why someone’s liberty should be taken away because of something that
does not harm them or anyone else. Marijuana should be legalized in all fifty states because there
is a ton of evidence that proves that it is not harmful to adults as shown in the preceding
paragraphs. Legalization does not mean access to everyone especially, not to those under the age
of twenty one. There should be strict regulations on sale, use and transport between states. One
remains hopefully that congress and the Supreme Court will consider the plethora of emerging
evidence in support of the benefits of marijuana and make the right decision.
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