Pros – Arguments For Legalization of Pot
- There are many health benefits to pot use, especially for pain reduction, many of which aren’t covered by medical prescription laws.
- Limiting its use intrudes on our personal freedom.
- The drug generally is not more harmful than alcohol, tobacco, or many over-the-counter medications & supplements.
- Police, court, and jail resources would be freed up for more dangerous crimes.
- Legalization of any drugs would mean lower prices; therefore, related crimes like robbery used to raise money would be reduced.
- Drug dealers, including some terrorists, would suffer a major loss of revenue.
- Street justice related to drug disputes would be reduced.
- Legalized pot could be taxed, which would bring in badly-needed tax revenue.
- The FDA or other oversight bodies could regulate the quality and safety of the drug.
- Like alcohol, sex, and cigarettes, pot is one of life’s little pleasures that should be available to those who seek it.
- Aside from recreational and medical use, Cannabis has several industrial and commercial uses. Over 25,000 products can be made from the crop.
- Research studies related to the use of marijuana cannot be completed due to its illegality, so both positive and negative effects cannot be ascertained.
- In America, people should be able to do whatever they want provided it doesn’t hurt or infringe upon the rights of others.
- Drug convictions often trap young people in a flawed justice system that turns them into lifelong criminals. A harmless conviction is stamped to their permanent record which hurts them in the job market.
- It’d be fun to see what commercials and ads companies come up with to sell pot.
Cons – Arguments Against Legalization of Pot
- Marijuana is often uses as a stepping-stone drug, leading to harder drug use such as heroin and cocaine.
- Legalization increases the chances the drug will fall into the hands of kids.
- Stoned driving and other dangers would increase.
- Use of the drug can lead to damage to the brain, heart, and lungs.
- Widespread use would increase the dangers of secondhand smoke to bystanders.
- Legalizing pot is a slippery slope that may lead to calls for legalization of more dangerous, addictive drugs.
Recommended Solution
- Legalize pot at the federal level for both medicinal and recreational use; applies only to adults in private or designated public locations.
- Remove all banking/financial restrictions for producers and sellers.
- Allow use by minors in limited medicinal cases if approved by both a parent and a physician.
- Levy a small national tax on producers, sellers, and buyers.
- Allow states to set age requirements and any other restrictions.
- Harshly punish use of pot while driving or engaging in any other activity that threatens public safety.
- Make it a federal crime to sell marijuana to a minor.
Final Message from Mr. Mackey
Written by: Joe Messerli
Last Modified: 3/3/2019
Sorry, when your first “con” is based on complete fantasy, you’ve lost the argument before it begins. There is absolutely NO evidence of the “gateway” fantasy (you site a government website? Seriously? You know that THEY make more money off the war on drugs than anyone…right?). In fact, in states where it is now “fully legal” (yes, in quotes on purpose), use of pain killers and other PHYSICALLY-ADDICTIVE substances has declined significantly. There are addictive personalities. That these folks may have progressed from trying cannabis (one of the easiest illegal drugs to obtain) to trying other things (some of which might create physical addictions), does NOT prove causation, only correlation. Additionally, when one must deal with the restricted black market, one has a choice of only what is available. If one is looking to get high, an absence of cannabis might encourage someone to try something else. A fully legal, open and competitive marketplace in ALL drugs, would have allowed free choice of whatever someone wanted. Do studies on THAT market and get back to me. Studies in the Netherlands, where anyone 16 or older can legally purchase cannabis, have shown that cannabis use among 16 year olds is LOWER than in the US where it is illegal. Another completely failed argument. Drugs are far more accessible in schools from friends than they are for adults in the working world of drug testing, etc. If you don’t think that people drive stoned now, you are sorely mistaken. Study after study shows that stoned drivers are FAR LESS risky than those under the influence of alcohol. Shall we try the failed experiment of Prohibition again?? Are you aware of how much damage alcohol consumption causes to all of those organs, or prescription drugs, etc.? Second-hand smoke? Seriously? Vaporizers are another mechanism that the marketplace invented to virtually eliminate all smoke and allow the user a “safer” inhalation of the product. Smoking in public places should still remain restricted as everyone has to breathe the air (but businesses, like restaurants, are private property, and should always be treated as such). In private, the risk is no higher than with cigarettes, and edibles make up a significant portion of the cannabis market too, with zero smoke produced. And as for “harder” drugs, indeed, THAT is the best argument FOR legalization. The government-created black market in all drugs (that aren’t produced and fund bigPharma), fuels violence in the streets, rampant judicial and police corruption, funds black-ops operations by the CIA in foreign countries, corrupts politicians, harms users, and so, so, so much more. ONLY a fully legal marketplace in ALL drugs will ever hope to restore sanity to our society. People will always continue to want to alter their reality. It has been that way since the beginning. Insects and other animals routinely consume fermented fruit, etc. for the buzz. But rather than maintain a situation in which dangerous drugs are manufactured in hazardous conditions in apartment buildings, where users are forced to purchase products tainted with all kinds of additives that they might even be injecting into their veins, and all users must deal with a criminal in order to fulfill a need that others can fulfill by going to a safe supermarket, let drugs be legally manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and others, be sold with labels that clarify potency, purity, content, etc. and allow the consumer the right and freedom to once again OWN their own body. Unless we believe that people have the right to own and control their own bodies, we ultimately believe that they are owned by the STATE. And high taxation of the item, heavy regulation of the industry, etc. is NO BETTER than prohibition. In fact, in all the states that have supposedly legalized, but really have just created a new tyranny, the black market is still thriving because of massive regulation and taxation. Sorry, I support freedom and so should everyone else.