The Legalization of Mara Jew Wanna

Ahhh, the legalisation of Marijuana (yes, I do know how to properly pronounce the name). After seeing a post on facebook by Cheech and Chong calling for the legalisation of marijuana, I thought about why it should, or should not and considered the ramifications of the legalisation.

I'll start with my conclusion on legalising Marijuana: I think that it is not the right choice. Now for my reasoning.

While many see this as an issue on the negative effects of marijuana, the reality is there is no concrete evidence that smoking pot is any more dangerous than drinking or smoking cigarettes. In fact, it is the opposite - many studies have shown that smoking pot is actually safer than either of the other substances. So why do I say no?

The reasons are threefold:

Legalising marijuana will create several companies that will produce the substance, which is to be sold in stores. These companies may employ several thousand people, but compared to the tens of thousands of marijuana pushers out there, this will actually result in a net loss of income for many. These pushers will, with the loss of revenue due to the fact that you can get pot at your local 7-11 will be forced to push other, more deadly substances to remain solvent. This will increase crime and death (both through crime and through overdosing on these more dangerous substances).

Marijuana will also become heavily regulated. The initial pot that stores will sell will most likely be of poor quality, and while the free market may force quality upgrade, with all things corporate, quantity will supersede quality. In addition, the government will most likely tax the heck out of it, causing pot to raise in price. In addition, it will cause unforeseen effects, as "being high" will be treated as "being drunk" and enforcement will be writing a lot of citations for this.

Lastly, it will signal a large cultural change that is too dynamic to happen at once. There will be protests from anti-drug organisations and supporters and it will certainly change the political landscape.

However, all of these factors arguing against the legalisation of pot, also argue for the decriminalisation of possession of small amounts. The US War on Drugs isn't really serving anyone when they persecute people for having a joint in their pocket. That person now has a permanent criminal record, and his future is now in jeopardy. This culminates in a type of class warfare, where "pot smokers" are relegated to lower classes because of the difficulty in finding work with a criminal record, and thus breeding more poverty and crime.

So, while I argue that the legalisation of marijuana is a poor idea, I do support the decriminalisation of marijuana. The amount of money local law enforcement can make through citations will help support better policing, which can then be used to find and catch the pushers of the more dangerous drugs, and it will prevent many promising people from getting permanent records that will lead to their exclusion from employment. It will still hold drug pushers and growers criminally responsible, and it will not really change the political landscape as much.

In addition, doing so will lower crime rates and reduce prison populations. It will keep relatively innocent people out of the crime/jail cycle, and reduce overall crime. Maybe not by a massive amount, but it will be significant enough to be noticed. I don't think we are ready to make legal what is illegal, we need to do this in small steps, and look foreward to see where we need to stop. Legalising pot may not be the right idea, but what we are doing now isn't the right idea either.