Legalizing marijuana

It strikes me that in all the recent discussion over legalizing marijuana. Smoking marijuana offers any or all of the following positive effects: it will make you more relaxed, more thoughtful, and more creative. It will make all the good things in life a little bit better, and the bad things a little less bad. If someone suffer from disease or chronic pain, it will ease distress. If you are a loner, it will increase the pleasure of silence.

Sounds pretty good, right?

And yet, I am against legalizing marijuana. It is harmful to kids and adolescents, especially. Marijuana contributes to psychosis and schizophrenia, addiction for 1 in 6 kids who ever use it once, and it reduces IQ among those who started smoking before age 18.

According to data from the 2012 National Survey of American Attitudes on substance abuse, the survey found that 86% of American high school students said that some classmates drink, use drugs and smoke during the school day. Additionally, 44% of high school students knew a student who sold drugs at their school. Asked what drugs students sold on school grounds, 91% said marijuana, 24% said prescription drugs, 9% said cocaine and 7% said ecstasy.

In addition, the immediate effects of taking marijuana include rapid heartbeat, disorientation, and lack of physical coordination, often followed by depression. Some users suffer panic attacks or anxiety. But the problem does not even end there. 

According to scientific studies, the active ingredient in cannabis, THC, remains in the body for weeks or longer. It contains 50-70% more cancer-causing substances than tobacco smoke. One major research study reported that a single cannabis joint could cause as much damage to the lungs as up to five regular cigarettes smoked one after another. Just making marijuana legalize in United States would open us to a host of all of these negative side-effects.

Furthermore, legalizing marijuana in Amsterdam experiment has not worked out so well. Amsterdam is the most famous place across the world that has effectively legalized pot. It has even turned into a tourist destination for potheads. 

However, Amsterdam became the first city in the Netherlands to ban students from smoking marijuana at school. Think about why they would do that. Otherwise beautiful and historic city, it turns out that area spoils, dealers standing on every corner offering a hard drugs are depressing enough. We probably do not want this in our city. Policy makers in other countries have pointed to increases in petty crime and localized opposition as an argument against further legalization.

Different places will legalize in different ways; some may never legalize at all; some will make mistakes they later think better off. But those that legalize early may prove to have a lasting influence well beyond their borders, establishing norms that last for a long while. It behaves them to think through what needs regulating, and what does not, with care. Whether you smoke or not, you probably still have an opinion. It is sufficiently obvious that marijuana is a threat to our society morally and physically. Its use leads to the use of “harder” and more dangerous drugs, which pose an even greater threat to the public. I urge you to consider the deteriorating effect that marijuana has on individuals and their surroundings.