Marijuana should be legalized. There is no sensible argument for the ongoing prohibition of marijuana. The prohibition of this plant robs governments of potential tax revenues, diverts spending to the prison industrial complex, leads to racially-biased incarceration rates, and violates America's principle of personal freedom. The counterarguments are rooted in fear, ignore evidence and impose the morality of one group of people on all. It is time to leave the past in the past, with the senseless, fear-based marijuana policy, and start using our brains a little.
Credibility
There is a tremendous credibility gap between those in favor of ending prohibition and those in favor of sustaining it. Those in favor of ending prohibition frequently have little economic stake, and they consist of experts from a wide range of disciplines. A group of law enforcement officers -- LEAP -- has recognized that enforcing this prohibition is a poor use of limited police resources, and diverts those resources away from maintaining community safety. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition also notes prohibition is "giving criminals a monopoly over (drug) supply" and that "prohibition reduces neither use nor abuse." In other words, the economic benefits of marijuana are earned by criminal enterprises, which invest those profits into other, more dangerous forms of illegal activity. The worst impacts of this are played out in Mexico, Guatemala and other Central American countries, but these effects are also seen in domestic criminal enterprises as well. Funds are diverted from the public treasury to criminals and prison corporations, and there is no net effect on consumption or abuse. We are paying billions of dollars enforcing prohibition for no discernable benefit.
Academic studies have shown that there are tremendous medical benefits of marijuana use in particular. These findings have become the basis for medical marijuana programs around the country, in many states. The institution of these medical marijuana programs has not been found to affect consumption of the plant significantly, but it has increased the number of patients who are receiving effective medication for their pain.
Those who would prefer to maintain prohibition tend to be religious groups, conservatives who oppose any sort of forward-thinking policy, and those with vested economic interest in ongoing prohibition -- the alcohol and tobacco industries and the prison industrial complex, which benefits from high incarceration rates of African-Americans that result from the current marijuana prohibition. Few if any proponents of prohibition can lay claim to any expert credibility -- they have opinions, but not necessarily facts.
The Audience
It is not known what the audience believes here. Marijuana legalization is a divisive issue. But it is important to understand that anybody who wishes to think critically about the issue will need facts and reasoning in order to do so. While proponents of prohibition reach for emotional, fear-based arguments, those who support legalization seldom do so. Where they do, they reach back into the distant past for statistics that support their argument, instead of basing their conclusions on up-to-date data that has been subject to statistical analysis. A classic example of this is to change the argument from "marijuana" to "drugs" and then lump in statistics or arguments based on heroin (Hartnett, 2005), like the classic canard about how 9/11 was caused by drug profits, as if al-Qaeda isn't financed by Saudi oil money.
The most emotional appeal is to the American value of individual freedom. This is a shared cultural value, and it is fair to question whether the nation's policy on marijuana prohibition fits with this value. This argument is raised in different contexts, but one of the most common is that of the state's rights to determine their own drug...
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