I am of two minds regarding this issue. I can see good things about it is so far as:
i) If we legalise marijuana use of the drug amongst teenagers might decrease slightly as taking it legally wouldn’t provide the same illicit thrill as it used to when it was illegal.
ii) It is an excellent pain reliever and could ease the suffering of many people with painful and persistent illnesses/injuries.
iii) As a recreational drug it is superior to alcahol because you don’t tend to get violent when you’re high on marijuana, you still retain control over your actions, it is far more pleasurable ( that’s just my opinion ) it is not as addictive as alcahol (I’m not saying it’s not addictive because although it doesn’t happen often it can happen, although it is not hard to break a marijuana habit).
However I can see a bad side to it as well.
i) Weed dealers (who are ten a penny, really) might start selling harder drugs because they wouldn’t be able to sell marijuana anymore.
ii) It may lead people onto harder drugs without any dealer interferance.
Well, regarding the negatives, weed dealers are ten to the penny simply because grass is so cheap and the penalties are so low. The risk is minimal (compared to other illegal drugs), though the profit margins are tight. Unless another drug becomes as cheap as marijuana and possession becomes as lightly punished, small-time weed dealers aren’t going to risk dealing the stuff that could get them put away for 20 years.
Secondly, IIRC there is no substantial and uncontested evidence that pot is a gateway drug. But I’m not sure what ou mean by “dealer interference” (ten yard penalty?).
I liked your positions in favor of legalization. As far as the cons go, I think the “gateway” marijuana theory has been debunked pretty soundly. See here for a cite http://www.csdp.org/factbook/marijuan.htm
Ive got more cites to support that but it’s the only one I remembered off the top of my head, must be the weed
Let’s see. Some criminals will continue with criminal behaviour. So then, when they get busted for dealing it will be for dealing something worth getting busted for. (English good I speak.)
What I mean is, I feel much better about throwing a heroin dealer into prison than a marijuana dealer. The level of punishment for pot infractions is far beyond the potential damage from pot use.
Doesn’t look like a downside to me.
For your second item, I have never bought into the “slippery slope”. Statistics can be used to show that most abusers of “harder drugs” started off with alcohol, and all of them came from homes where bread was consumed. A certain percentage of persons using any substance will not be able to handle it. The humane thing to do is to identify these people and treat their problem like a health issue rather than a crime issue.
Legalize pot for personal use and tax the hell out of it.
It seems to me that marijuana is a “gateway” drug with some of its users nowadays because it is illegal. That is, marijuana has the stigma of being an illegal drug hanging over it, so when someone actually gets up the courage to try marijuana and discovers that it’s really not that bad, that person will question whether the other illegal drugs are all that bad either, and so will try cocaine, PCP, LSD, ice, MDMS, etc…
If marijuana were legal, it would be no more (and probably less) of a gateway drug than alcohol or tobacco is today.
With the current public attitude about tobacco in the US, it seems that there is no way the general population would be willing to give people something else to smoke. However, as time goes on, more and more marijuana users will become voters and will vote it in. A law banning something will never work if it is not something people really want. Case in point: prohibition. Right now there is still a generation or two that find it terrible. As soon as the teenagers of the 60’s get to be our oldest generation of voters, the climate will change. I say 20-25 more years.
