Scientific and medical texts dating back thousands of years argue the medicinal properties of marijuana. More recent studies, including six supported by U.S. states in the 1970s and 1980s, validate that smoking marijuana decreases nausea and lessens pain and discomfort for countless patients, particularly the patients facing cancer chemotherapy and glaucoma. Thousands of patients and their families and doctors have experienced and witnessed the medical benefits of marijuana. Those who argue against the positive evidence of this drug clearly miss the point. There is simply no reason at all to subject medical patients who use marijuana for legitimate health purposes to the risk of arrest, fines, and public exposure. Scientists without a doubt should be permitted to further pursue conclusive data on the properties of marijuana. There is an extremely unblemished consensus of science that the drug marijuana is much less damaging to our wellbeing and human health overall than most of the other illegal substances and far less harmful than the exceedingly addictive but legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco. Marijuana has not been proven to ever cause a lethal overdose. Very little evidence demonstrates that the drug causes cancer. The addictive properties within marijuana are very minimal and the falsehood that the drug leads users to hard drugs has been disproven long ago. The downsides of marijuana simply aren’t reasons to impose felonious consequences on its possession, especially not in a society that authorizes the use of nicotine and celebrates drinking which in fact have been proven to many fatalities. The negative health effects in marijuana are so slight that they do not make a good enough argument to impose criminal charges among its users. The government has obligatory underage alcohol consumption laws and effective advertising campaigns have succeeded in reducing underage drinking to 24.8 percent in the year 2011 compared with 33.4 percent in 1991. Cigarette smoking amongst high school students is at the lowest points it’s ever been, thanks to the taxes on tobacco and rising public smoking limits. There is already some early evidence that regulating marijuana similarly to tobacco would aid in combating youths who are active users of marijuana, which was learned after the state of Colorado started regulating medical marijuana in 2010. Along with some additional recreational elements, the health risks of marijuana depend on the regularity of use, the strength and quantity ingested, and how old the consumer of the drug is. Irregular, or casual use by adults poses diminutive to no risk at all for generally healthy individuals. The effects of marijuana are normally euphoric and gentle, whereas alcohol causes many drinkers to become enraged and lead to threatening situations such as abusers of this substance behind the wheel of a car. A study on WebMD presented the minimal risk of the drug by stating, “most of the risks of marijuana use are small to moderate in size, and they are unlikely to produce public health problems comparable in scale to those currently produced by alcohol and tobacco.” While tobacco leads to cancer, and the abuse of alcohol causes cirrhosis, no strong connection between marijuana and a terminal disease has been concluded.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana-legalization-and-regulation
While debating high controversy debates such as the legalization of marijuana it is important to consider countries who have already legalized marijuana. In my experience, the city of Amsterdam is the most well known. In this article (http://themonkeycage.org/2012/11/08/legalizing-marijuana-some-lessons-from-the-netherlands/) they talk about the effects that legalizing marijuana plays in the Netherlands. While petty crimes increased a little, tourism overall increased which had an overall positive effect on their country. Besides that there we’re many other effects that I consider looking into. Legalizing such a highly debated product is never easy but when it comes down to it, government officials need to evaluate what will be best for society overall.