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The Legalization of Marijuana: The Real Reasons for Banning Cannabis

Gabrielle Reisne

The News, Choate Rosemary Hall

Sunday 02 Oct 2011

We’ve all been told the same thing since elementary school: Don't do drugs. And the adults who spread this message are often the same adults that drink wine with every meal and might even kick back at night with a glass of whiskey. But why is alcohol, a drug with serious proven health risks, okay to use if weed, a drug that has never been the sole cause of a single death—according to writer Daniel J. DeNoon of WebMD—is not? Because it's legal?

In 1619, a law was passed in colonial Virginia ordering farmers to grow hemp, also known as cannabis, also known as marijuana. Hemp is one of the most resourceful crops in the world. It can be used to produce thousands of kinds of textiles and paper. It can also be smoked in the form that most people know as pot. By the 1930s, however, in a time of intense racism in this country, government propaganda and a few misunderstood correlations caused cannabis to become widely associated with African Americans and violence, according to Brett Harvey in his documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High. Therefore, the Marijuana Stamp Act of 1937 was passed. This act limited the growth of cannabis to farmers who had a stamp for it. However, as Harvey notes, the government refused to give out any stamps, so cannabis was essentially outlawed.

Marijuana only became popular again during WWII when the government again permitted the growth of hemp in order to promote economic production. However, the government found after WWII that communism was becoming a threat, and that some pot smokers were pacifists. This was obviously not what the government needed in order to succeed in its Cold War efforts. So, states Harvey, the government then outlawed marijuana to discourage apathy toward communism.

One of the most important things to understand about the illegality of marijuana is that it does not significantly affect the amount of people who smoke it. There were about 16 million marijuana users in the US in 2010, according to the American Journal of Epidemiology. During the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, Harvey notes, alcohol poisoning cases increased by 600 percent, and gang violence erupted. Today, if marijuana were legal, gang violence would dramatically decrease. The price of marijuana is so "artificially inflated," according to Harvey, that it is now worth more per ounce than gold. This drug is so valued that people are willing to shoot each other over it.

With the legalization of marijuana, the only people to really suffer would be the big drug dealers. Today, marijuana trade brings in billions of dollars every year in the US. However, because the drug is illegal, it is an unregulated market. It seems rather obvious that it would be in the government's favor to legalize the drug. Then, it could be taxed, and the money could be spent on important social endeavors, like healthcare and education.

With a regulated market, the government could also determine whom marijuana could be sold to. In today's world, it is easier for any minor buy illegal drugs than it is to buy alcohol or cigarettes, according to Harvey. Doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous? Clearly, one way to keep pot out of the hands of middle school students in America is to make it legal and then to establish a legal smoking age.

The government is also greatly influenced by representatives from pharmaceutical and alcohol companies that benefit from the illegality of marijuana, notes drug policy reformist Peter Guither in his article "Why is marijuana illegal?" on the website DrugWarRant.com. Using cannabis to alleviate pain dates back to Queen Victoria. If pot were legal, people would smoke it for relief from menstrual cramps, depression, and nausea, causing pharmaceutical companies to lose business. Many people would also smoke pot in place of drinking alcohol, which would not be good news for the alcohol producers. These powerful companies, who can afford a drop in their massive profits in the first place, have pressured the government to maintain the illegality of marijuana.

With regard to the regulation of marijuana, laws based on social and economic pressures of the past are no longer relevant. It's time to learn more about the facts of marijuana instead of relying on assumptions perpetuated by uneven media coverage and powerful apolitical bodies whose profits are at stake. The government should take a hard look at its reasons for maintaining the illegality of marijuana and realize the fruitlessness of banning a harmless recreational drug.

http://thenews.choate.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1011%3Athe-real-reasons-for-banning-cannabis&catid=3%3Aopinion&Itemid=2

 

 

 

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