Decriminalization of Marijuana

Decriminalization of Marijuana

I decided to do my essay about decriminalization of specifically marijuana because I felt that the legalization of marijuana is somewhat impractical. The prohibition of marijuana in our country has become a big debate in the United States today. There are many arguments for both side of the debate, but as it currently stands it is illegal to possess any amount of marijuana and it seems as if that won’t change soon. While there are many bad things being said about decriminalizing marijuana there are some arguments on the supporting side that are actually logical and make sense.

The question really isn’t whether you support or don’t support marijuana use. I don’t advocate the use of marijuana because most people are much better off not using it. The real question though is whether marijuana users should be locked in cages, which is one reason why I chose to write about decriminalization and not legalization. A few questions brought up in my research really got me thinking such as: Should our scarce law-enforcement resources be targeted to this non-threat? Should otherwise good, hard-working people have their lives ruined for using a drug that is safer and less destructive to society than the beer we see advertised on TV every day? Basically after doing much research about the topic I’ve come to a conclusion. My position is that marijuana use by adults should be decriminalized, patients should have the option of legal medical marijuana, and laws regarding marijuana should be modeled on alcohol laws.

Since my position is that of which is stated above I decided to bring up some commonly asked questions about the decriminalization of marijuana. A common question brought up right off the get go would be, what about the children? No one is advocating the use of marijuana by children and if someone is then they are very ignorant. Just as young people obtain alcohol, though, some will get the marijuana to. The current state of criminalization for adult use has little effect here: In many places the legal, regulated drug alcohol is more difficult for minors to obtain than the currently criminalized drug marijuana. I found this statement interesting as I had never really thought about this, but it is very true especially in our society today. Another argument thrown around when this question pops up is the “gateway theory” which assumes that using marijuana leads to the use of harder drugs.