
For decades, marijuana has been illegal in the United States. A drug known for the high feeling it gives off when burned, “weed” has been used for medical purposes for centuries. Without justification, marijuana was thrown into a category of drugs that include cocaine and heroin during the War on Drugs. I believe that this classification was made during a time when not much was known about the drug, and the fact that it remains illegal to this day does not make seem logical. Marijuana should not only be legalized medically, but also for recreational use throughout the United States.

Not surprisingly, there are several people who believe marijuana should remain illegal. Citizens and lawmakers in favor of keeping marijuana illegal say that it is an “extremely” addictive drug. They say that weed is terrible for a person’s physical health. Others also claim that weed somehow destroys the lives of people who use it, and ultimately makes those people complacent and lazy (Hawkins, Townhall.com). Even the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, believes that weed is terrible for player health and he even suggests that marijuana contains “compounds” that are not good for the body. These are the arguments of people who refuse to see marijuana for what it really is. Even if these knocks against marijuana were true, they are also true of both cigarettes and alcohol, which are both legal in the United States. 

However, unlike alcohol and cigarettes, marijuana has health benefits for people who use it. THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the main ingredient in weed and is the substance that causes the “high” associated with the drug (Loria, BusinessInsider.com). THC is not only the reason some people smoke marijuana, but is also a helpful healing remedy for many common ailments. When used medically, the THC in marijuana assists with problems like pain, mild insomnia, and loss of appetite, among other ailments. Weed can be used as a substitute to over-the-counter drugs, which are also used to relieve these pains (Loria, BusinessInsider.com).

These health benefits include how marijuana can also be used to treat glaucoma, a vision impairment that several Americans have trouble with. Glaucoma is an ailment that increases pressure in the eyeball, damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of vision. Medicinal marijuana decreases pressure inside the eye when smoked. The “high” effect experienced by the user may slow the progression of glaucoma, preventing blindness (Loria, BusinessInsider.com). 

There are even studies that have been performed to show that marijuana can improve lung health when smoked. This study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, proved that marijuana use did not harm the lungs, and in fact, even increased lung capacity in users. The study tested the lung function of over five thousand young adults over a twenty-year span. The test involved a group of adults smoking tobacco products, including cigarettes, and a group of adults smoking marijuana. The tobacco smokers lost lung function over the set span of time, but the individuals from the marijuana group showed an increase in lung capacity (Loria, BusinessInsider.com).

Marijuana has also shown in studies to be effective in temporarily treating epileptic seizures. Epilepsy is a chronic disorder that causes recurrent seizures, which are sudden rushes of electrical activity in the brain. An experiment was conducted on rats suffering from epilepsy where the rats were given marijuana extract and synthetic marijuana and then observed to see how long the marijuana would rid the rats of epileptic seizures. The marijuana samples relieved the rats of the seizures for about 10 hours, the study shows. When burned, the THC released from the marijuana controls seizures by binding to the brain cells responsible for controlling excitability and regulating relaxation. Although this study was performed on rats, the same science applies to humans (Loria, BusinessInsider.com).

With all the important healing powers that marijuana has, I believe one of its best attributes is the ability of it to reduce some of the pain and nausea from chemotherapy for cancer patients. Patients treated with chemotherapy go through periods of extreme nausea along with vomiting and a lack of appetite for food. The side effects from marijuana use contrast with the side effects with chemotherapy, with positive results. Marijuana’s high helps to alleviate pains in the body during chemo, and decreases nausea in patients. Weed even serves as an appetite stimulant, which is one of its natural benefits. The medical goods that marijuana has for those who use it outweigh the bad damages that rarely occur from usage (Loria, BusinessInsider.com).

I could go on for days about the benefits that marijuana has health-wise, but let’s face it: the majority of people that smoke weed do not smoke it for the health benefits associated with it. Weed is the drug of choice for many youth and adults alike because it gives users a laid-back feeling and relieves any stress from the mind. Being relatively cheap and easy to find, its hard to find a person my age that has not at least tried marijuana. There are a variety of ways that people choose to smoke weed. Some users prefer to smoke a blunt, which is marijuana rolled into a cigarillo. Others prefer a joint, the more natural selection that is simply weed rolled inside of rolling paper. There are even instruments created for the sole purpose of “getting blazed” and these include bongs, bowls, bubblers, and vaporizers. The more expensive the instrument, the better the quality of the smoke. Who knew weed could have its own specific technology? 

Aside from the fact that everybody smokes it, studies show that marijuana is the least dangerous recreational drug. A report published by Scientific Reports states that marijuana tested to have a lower risk of mortality than any other drug in the study. A few of the other drugs tested along with marijuana were alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy. The risk of mortality was measured by comparing the lethal dose of each substance with a commonly used amount of each substance. Marijuana not only benefits users considerably more than alcohol and tobacco does, but is also safer than the latter two which are both legally distributed in the US (Ferner, HuffingtonPost.com).

Despite being beneficial and less dangerous than its contemporaries, weed was criminalized with the War on Drugs. Legislation was passed, laws were made, and marijuana was suddenly illegalized. According to the Controlled Substances Act, the US has five schedules for drugs and the chemicals used in the creation of such drugs. Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug, along with heroin and LSD. Schedule 1 drugs are said to be the most “dangerous” drugs and have the highest potential for abuse. Alcohol and tobacco are not included in the CSA. Marijuana is a natural substance and is proven to be less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, and therefore does not deserve the classification of a Schedule 1 drug. 

Regardless of if you think it should be legal or not, marijuana is the only substance suitable for constant, repeated usage. Granted, too much of anything is never a good thing, but it is physically impossible to overdose from using too much weed. This alone separates weed from the other Schedule 1 drugs it is classified with and even alcohol. Excessive amounts of alcohol can shut down the body and will lead to death if the user does not get medical attention quickly. Unlike alcohol, there is no hangover the next day after using large amounts of marijuana, and there is no such thing as “weed poisoning”. Weed does not give users a “strung out” feeling after long periods of usage, either. This is accredited to marijuana being a natural substance with no chemical process needed to create it.

However, constant and repeated usage of cigarettes will lead to cancer. On every cigarette box and ad there is in America, there is a Surgeon General’s Warning that states that the use of cigarettes can and will lead to cancer, yet they are still legal for use and sale throughout the US. The science behind cigarettes is alarming. Smoking cigarettes not only causes cells in the body to become cancerous, but also prevents the repair of these cancerous cells, further developing the cancer inside the body. Cigarettes are composed of chemicals, such as nickel and arsenic, that cause damage to the genes in DNA responsible for the protection against cancer. The cancer then spreads willingly throughout the body to other cells (“How smoking…”, CancerResearchUK.com). This is not the case with marijuana. Weed is an all-natural substance and has no serious long term effects on the body.

Certain states in the US have already taken the liberty to legalize marijuana, and it has proven to be as beneficial to the economy as it can be health-wise. Colorado is one of the few states to legalize weed, and thus, the Centennial State has improved and has even seen a surplus in revenue over the past year (Roberts, Collective-Evolution.org). With legalization comes taxation, and marijuana is just another taxable commodity for the state of Colorado. In one year, marijuana alone generated over $2 billion dollars towards the state’s economy (Pyke, ThinkProgress.org). Colorado used this added revenue to improve public schools and the state’s overall infrastructure. Weed also created several jobs in Colorado. Over 18,000 jobs were added in the months after legalization due to there being people needed to perform research, cultivate and harvest, and work dispensaries and other stores that sell marijuana (“Marijuana Legalization…”, DrugPolicy.org). This same economic “boost” that Colorado experienced can also occur throughout the US with legalization at the national level. 

Additionally, legal weed has proven to reduce crime and mayhem in the areas where it is decriminalized. The numbers are not drastic, but any decline in crime and mayhem is improvement. Denver, Colorado’s largest city, saw a two percent decrease in violent crime and a nine percent decrease in property crime in the eleven months after weed was first legalized in the state. Also, the number of traffic fatalities in Denver dropped by three percent in the same period of time (“Marijuana Legalization…”, DrugPolicy.org). In the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., the number of arrests for possession of marijuana has decreased by 98 percent in one year of legalization. These numbers will translate to a national scale if marijuana is decriminalized (Birr, DailyCaller.com).

For decades, the criminalization of marijuana has disproportionately affected people of color. Millions of African Americans have been imprisoned for marijuana over the years, and the numbers show that more black people are arrested for weed than white people each year. The numbers also show that blacks and whites use marijuana at about the same, yet black people are almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people (Matthews, WashingtonPost.com). Trends in police arrest records show that many officers target urban areas to arrest users, and this is racist and unfair (Williams, NYTimes.com). A marijuana arrest really does more harm than good for everyone involved. If you have been charged with possession of marijuana, there are many jobs that will not hire you simply because of that. It is already difficult enough for black people to get ahead with a clean record, let alone a record with a drug arrest on it. A marijuana possession arrest also harms the economy in a costly manner. It costs close to $300 dollars to pass one of these cases along judicially, and enforcing the law costs the nation over $3 billion dollars a year (Williams, NYTimes.com). This is a huge price to pay for a law, and the law has not even slowed the use of marijuana at all. The War on Drugs proves to be a discriminatory movement that wants to keep black people down, but is unsuccessful because the costs outweigh the benefits and black people have the will to overcome anything.

Well, I am a black man and I enjoy smoking marijuana. Throughout my life, it seems to me that the combination of the two have led to most of my conflicts with the law. Racial profiling is real in this country and I have had the misfortune to witness it firsthand. On separate occasions, I have been asked to step out of my car by a police officer and afterwards the officer would proceed to search my car on the suspicion of weed, to no prevail. I do not smoke marijuana in my car for the simple fact that police can search your vehicle because of probable cause, and therefore I have yet to be arrested for possession of marijuana. However, I find it frustrating to always have to worry about where the police are, and I feel like this is a problem that only black men such as myself are forced to deal with. Even when we are not doing anything wrong, we are still treated as such by the police.

Several Americans question how the process of legalization for marijuana should be handled. Should the power be granted to the states or should the federal government make the final decision? The way I would solve this debacle is to legalize the medical use of marijuana at the national level. My reason behind this is that some states, many of them Southern, simply do not wish for things to change at all. They would put down the legalization bill regardless of the health benefits associated with weed. By legalizing weed at the federal level, states have no choice but to follow the law. This is similar to what the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage did throughout the country. I would leave the right to decide whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use up to the states. In states where recreational use is illegal, the punishment for possession of marijuana would be lessened significantly. The maximum punishment for marijuana should be a ticket at the most. There would be less damage done to the arrested party’s reputation, and it would be much easier for police to spend timing finding the real criminals.

With the recent election of the Trump administration, you would think many Americans who did not smoke weed before would at least start. Not only has Trump managed to turn the US upside down with his unthoughtful rhetoric, terrible policy, and controversial travel ban, but his administration is adamantly against the legalization of marijuana. A member of Trump’s cabinet, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is an anti-drug Conservative who continues to spread false information to the public about marijuana. Sessions insists that marijuana usage ruins lives and that good citizens should steer clear of the “life-threatening” drug (Baca, DenverPost.com). It is clear after listening to 30 seconds of one of Sessions’ rants on weed that he has not attempted to do any research on the drug. His arguments against weed are all baseless and sound like what a middle-school teacher would tell their class on D.A.R.E. Day. The sad thing is that he is spreading his lies to the people who actually vote in this country, the middle-aged to senior-citizen Americans. With Sessions spreading lies about weed added to the current state of the country, marijuana legalization may not happen in the foreseeable future.

In conclusion, I believe that the health benefits associated with marijuana alone are enough to legalize it in the US. The drug is harmless compared to the drugs it is compared to, and weed only has a bad rap because of the image that was placed upon it during the War on Drugs. I believe that legalization will occur, but it will not occur until the Trump administration is out of the White House and the impact of the Baby Boomers on voting for legalization is minimized (when the generation dies out).
ch 2017.
