Balancing Act: The Complex Journey of Marijuana Legalization

Marijuana’s IQ Impact

Today in the U.S., Marijuana is a big problem that raises a lot of debates. Americans have many different viewpoints about Marijuana. Some people use it to relax or to get high. Some use it for medical treatments: to remove their pain and to sleep better at night. Some people say that Marijuana gives them a more colorful life. Some worry that it will be abused by their children. There are people who support marijuana legalization. Some feel uncomfortable if their neighbors have the right to use weed. There are so many ways to use Marijuana, and there is no perfect way to deal with it; however, understanding more about Marijuana may help us minimize the damage.

Marijuana has a lot of short-term effects on the brain; its effects are useful in some situations, but they are dangerous in other situations. When a consumer uses Marijuana, the chemical THC goes through the lungs into the bloodstream. THC then goes to the brain and causes the ‘high’ feeling. In about 30 minutes to 1 hour, the person will experience altered senses, changes in mood, difficulty with thinking, hallucinations, etc. (Abuse.) These effects are fun and helpful if people use them in the right place; nevertheless, people are not always using them correctly. A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has shown that between 2007 and 2014, there were more and more drivers who tested positive for THC. The percentage increased from 8.6 percent to 12.6 percent, and the effects of Marijuana increased the risk of a crash by 10 to 61 percent (Mills).

The long-term effects of Marijuana can reduce the I.Q. of a person. Marijuana has influences on brain development. The drug may affect the brain-building process of teenagers and decrease I.Q. At Duke University, research had shown that users who smoked heavily since their teens and were having marijuana use disorder lost about 8 points of I.Q. Even if heavily-used teenage users quit Marijuana when they grow up, the damage will not be fully recovered. Other studies also showed that Marijuana declines general knowledge and verbal ability (Abuse.)

Marijuana Dilemma: Restrictions?

Marijuana also has bad physical effects on the human body. Similar to tobacco, frequently smoking Marijuana leads to breathing problems and lung illnesses: a daily cough and phlegm and a risk of lung infections. Because Marijuana raises the heart rate, it increases the possibility of a heart attack. The older the users are, the higher their risk for heart attack they may be. If pregnant women use Marijuana, their children may have health problems: lower birth weight, brain, and behavioral problems. The use of Marijuana by teenagers also links to mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety(Abuse.)

Research suggests that marijuana use may lead to a substance use disorder. People who have substance use disorder are unable to stop consuming Marijuana even if they know that it declines their health and creates problems in their social life. Research showed that 9 to 30 percent of marijuana users may develop marijuana use disorder. Users who use Marijuana before age 18 have a four to seven times chance of developing marijuana use disorder. When long-term users try to quit Marijuana, a lot of them find it hard to quit because of symptoms like grouchiness, sleeplessness, anxiety, and craving (Abuse.)

When we talk about the bad sides of Marijuana, logically, we think about marijuana restriction; however, the damage of the restriction maybe even bigger than the damage of the original consumption. Osho, a philosophy professor, and an Indian meditation master, said ‘whenever you start stopping something, you give great importance to it.’ Similar things happened in India in his lifetime: every time the government of India tried to prohibit alcohol, many more people started drinking. When the prohibitions had withdrawn, the percentage of people drinking dropped. The drug is needed because the way we build our society makes people so miserable. There are too much stress and anxiety in our society that these poor people need drugs to relax. If governments cannot make society less stressful, they should consider helping scientists to make better drugs with fewer side effects.

Unintended Consequences: Marijuana Prohibition

Osho made a funny comparison between alcohol restriction and the pissing prohibition signboard. When he was a child, there was a temple located near his house. The temple had a long and beautiful wall which was a potential place for bad pissing habits. The funny thing is there was no major problem with bad pissing habits at all until the day the monks drew down the sign: “Pissing here is prohibited.” The sign raised the ideas, and people got in line to piss on that wall.

The negative effect of restrictions is not just happened in India; we can argue that the same thing did happen in the U.S. Marijuana or cannabis has a long history; people have used it for thousand years. In Asia around 500 BC, Chinese people grew it as herbal medicine. From there, cannabis was introduced to Africa, Europe, and America. The hemp was widely grown in many American colonies to make clothing, paper, sails, and rope. Cannabis was widely used for recreational purposes and other purposes without creating any major problems in the society. At the beginning of the 1900s in the United States, when the Mexican Revolution happened, many Mexicans immigrated to the country to escape the war. The term marijuana came with Mexicans at this time. Public opinion about cannabis changed from there. Newspapers gave unfair news about Marijuana. The Marijuana Tax Act in 1939 made weed an illegal product. Today many people believe that racism played a big part in the prohibition.

The prohibition of Marijuana has caused other problems in the United States. In 1971, in order to reinforce the prohibition, President Nixon declared war on drugs. The war on drugs was not just about Marijuana, Marijuana was a big part of it. The war had increased the prison population rapidly in the country. The number of prisons grew from 218,466 in 1974 to 1,508,636 in 2014. The prison population increased by 600 percent, while the United States population just increased by 51 percent (Carroll.) Another thing about the war is it didn’t solve the problem; the price of illegal Marijuana went up, and the user population didn’t go down. From 1990 to 2009 U.S., the average price of illegal Marijuana the price dropped by about 50 percent, and the average purity increased by more than 160 percent (Chalabi.) Many people believe that the war on drugs was a failure and that the United States needs a better drug policy.

Balancing Benefits and Risks

By prohibiting Marijuana, we also give up many good things that Marijuana can bring to society. In recent years, Americans have changed their opinion of Marijuana. Marijuana is the most common illegal drug in the United States (Abuse.) In 2015, 54% of adult Americans agreed to legalize Marijuana; in 2006, there was just 32% of adult Americans support to legalize Marijuana (Motel.) There are many reasons for the changing of public opinion.

The first reason is the medical treatment effect of Marijuana has been proven. Marijuana has positive effects on many illnesses. It can reduce pain symptoms. It can cure glaucoma. It helps to reverse the bad effect of tobacco and improve lung health. It decreases anxiety. In 2017, California had more than 1.5 million patients who were using medical Marijuana. In some other states of the country, in order to be allowed to use medical Marijuana, many families moved to Colorado (Marijuana Policy Project.) The need for medical Marijuana is undeniable, but new problems did come along with legalizing Marijuana.

Medical Marijuana is helpful to patients, but it may lead to an increase in the abuse rate of the drug. Until April 2017, there were twenty-nine states, and Washington D.C. allowed medical marijuana use. Eighth of twenty-nine states allow recreational marijuana use for adults. The good news was marijuana legalization didn’t increase the marijuana use of teenagers. The bad news was the new laws may increase the abuse rate of the drug among adults. Research shows that in the states which haven’t allowed medical marijuana use, the rate of illegal marijuana use rose about 49% in a time period.

In the same period, in states that legal, medical marijuana use, the rate of illegal marijuana use rose about 64%, which is a bigger percentage increase. In the states which haven’t allowed medical marijuana use, the rate of marijuana use disorders rose by about 77%. In states that legal, medical marijuana use, the rate of marijuana use disorders rose about 107%, which is also a bigger percentage increase (Mills.) These numbers cannot show that medical marijuana laws do more harm than good; however, it is obvious that the new medical marijuana laws may lead to an increase in the abuse rate of the drug.

Marijuana legalization didn’t increase the marijuana use of teenagers, but children may be exposed to the smoke of recreational Marijuana. The most common way to consume Marijuana in the United States is smoking, and people smoke about 80 percent of the time when they use Marijuana. Although some states already allow recreational marijuana use, smoking Marijuana still remains illegal in most streets of the states. In addition, from 2002 to 2015, among non-cigarette-smoking parents, marijuana use rose from 2.4 percent to 4 percent. The result is more and more parents are smoking Marijuana in their homes where they have their children hanging around. This secondhand marijuana smoke has tetrahydrocannabinol, a chemical substance that leads to most of Marijuana’s psychological effects. The smoke may also lead to lung problems.

Smart Regulation for Safer Usage

There are smart ways to make the recreational use of Marijuana less harmful. According to Osho, governments should provide people with some kind of real relaxation, and if they cannot provide people with meditation, they can at least provide medicines. Every hospital should have a room for drug experiences so that people can have the experiences under medical care. If the governments allow scientists to research, the scientists will easily create better drugs with fewer side effects. People who want to have the experience can go to a special room in hospitals to use the drug under medical care.

“Any drug policy is a good policy if it reduces the total damage that drugs do,” said Mark Kleiman, the School of Policy and the Social Research University of California. There were two points of view about marijuana legalization in the United States. The supporters said that their opponents didn’t care about the patients who were suffering from diseases. People who were against the legalization said that the other side didn’t care about spreading drug abuse among kids.

Both sides were not false, but the decision should not make based on somebody’s ideological view. Legalizing Marijuana is the new policy, but we have to legalize it correctly. In 2017, there were twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia alloyed to use Marijuana in some form. Eight of the twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have laws legalizing using Marijuana for recreational purposes. Despite the fact that 69 percent of Americans believe that Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol (Motel,) Marijuana still can be harmful to people. Mark believed the key to a correct policy was to control the price of legal Marijuana and to keep it expensive.

According to Mark, the cost of one gram of 18 percent THC marijuana in the District of Columbia is about 3 dollars and change for a gram, and it is “a ridiculously low price.” The industry may want to keep the price low because of its own interest. The low price will allow the industry to attract millions of new consumers and will allow people to use Marijuana daily. The expansion of the industry will give jobs to a lot of people and increase the tax income; however, Mark believes a low price will create other new problems.

Balancing Marijuana Legalization

Mark argued that responsible consumers don’t need to use a lot of Marijuana. Therefore, a high price of the drug will not affect these consumers. At the same time, the high price of Marijuana will make it harder for irresponsible consumers to abuse the drug. Mark gave the Dutch policy of toleration as an example. In the Netherlands, Marijuana is illegal, but the policy allows Marijuana to be consumed in coffee shops. The Dutch keep their coffee shop marijuana costs the same price as the German’s illicit marijuana costs. The result is the Dutch’s heavy use rate of Marijuana has not gone up.

Marijuana is useful in many situations, but it is not a harmless substance. There are so many ways to use Marijuana, and there is no perfect way to deal with it. In the past, people have tried to prohibit Marijuana; nevertheless, Marijuana prohibiting causes even more problems to society. In recent years, people have tried to legalize Marijuana; the result, however, was far from perfect. Legalizing Marijuana makes life easier for some people, but it also increases the abuse rate of the drug. Legalizing Marijuana is the new policy, but we have to legalize it correctly. There are also smart ways to legalize Marijuana and minimize the damage at the same time. We can provide special centers where you can come and have the experience of medical care. We can allow scientists to make better drugs with fewer side effects. We also can try to control the price and keep people from over consume the drug. If we legalize it correctly, Marijuana can be very useful. It may well help people live a better life.

References:

1. Abuse, National Institute on Drug. “Marijuana.” NIDA, National Institute on Drug Abuse, Aug. 2017, www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana#ref.
2. Carroll, Lauren . “The war on drugs and incarceration rates.” @Politifact, www.politifact.com/truth-o-eter/statements/2016/jul/10/cory-booker/how-war-drugs-affected-incarceration-rates/.
3. Chalabi, Mona. “The ‘war on drugs’ in numbers: a systematic failure of policy.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Apr. 2016, www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/19/war-on-drugs-statistics-systematic-policy-failure-united-nations.
4. Kleiman, Mark. “Mark Kleiman: What would be the most sensible marijuana policy? | VIEWPOINT.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBAcrl7OMVE&t=146s.
5. Mills, David. “Do Medical Marijuana Laws Encourage Adults to Misuse the Drug?” Healthline, Healthline Media, 26 Apr. 2017, www.healthline.com/health-news/do-medical-marijuana-laws-increase-misuse#1.
6. Motel, Seth. “6 facts about marijuana.” Pew Research Center, 14 Apr. 2015, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/14/6-facts-about-marijuana/.
7. OSHOInternational. “OSHO: About Drugs.” YouTube, YouTube, 8 Mar. 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PkjfMW3I0I.
8. Project, Marijuana Policy. “Medical Marijuana Patient Numbers.” MPP, www.mpp.org/issues/medical-marijuana/state-by-state-medical-marijuana-laws/medical-marijuana-patient-numbers/.
9. PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/interviews/kleiman.html.