Cannabis, Should It Be Legal?

Currently the government allows you to smoke a substance that smells rank, has no pleasant side-effects and it makes people who give it up very grumpy and annoying. Tobacco kills over 100,000 people a year nation wide, and over 3.5 million a year worldwide. The tobacco companies strive to make this product more addictive. In fact, the government not only allows it, but funds it. However, cannabis has yet to produce 1 documented case of death. It has yet to be proven to have any long-term affects on the brain, and is not physically addictive. Yet, dope is illegal. Why isn’t tobacco? There is only one reason I can think of to slightly justify this. Tobacco isn’t a necessity and as such, the government can easily tax it.

Perhaps that argument is slightly childish, “if tobacco is legal then cannabis should be too”. But how did cannabis become illegal in the first place? There are two reasons for this.

One - The illegalization of marijuana in the States was used as a tool to keep Mexicans out of America in the late 30’s, as they where making lots of money selling it there, and the law gave them reason to arrest many Mexicans. The head of DEA at the time told congress that marijuana caused satanic behaviour, and white women to seek sexual relations with black men. Back in those days racism was almost a social norm and this caused the congress to believe those blatant lies.

Two - It has been illegal for long enough that everyone has grown accustom to shunning it. The only people that use it are those who live by rules which they themselves see as being perfectly rational and fair without regard for laws put in place by others. On the other hand many people that don’t have regard for the law tend to be irresponsible, thus giving all pot-smokers a bad name. Therefore, many people are poised against it simply because the government says it’s a no-no, and as such will not support legalizing it. This would cause an MP to veer from it for fear of losing precious votes. So the situation really boils down to nothing more than ignorance, and politics.

All the above focuses on why cannabis is illegal. There is nothing to suggest why cannabis should be made legal in the UK.

Here are a few reasons to support that cannabis should be legal. It can be used to stimulate appetite, relieve stress, relieve nausea, and treat AIDS, asthma, and cancer patients. The cannabis has industrial uses such as rope, cloth, paper and fuel. Making these products out of hemp is faster, cheaper and more environmentally friendly that the current means of making them. Marijuana grows fast enough that you can make 6 times the paper per acre, per year, than with the current methods. You can make roughly 4 times the cloth per acre per year than with cotton.

Still, some may say that cannabis is harmful to your health.

Even if it was harmful, you have the right to “hurt” yourself if you so choose. Then it may be argued that others may not want passive fumes from a “reefer”. However tobacco smokers are not allowed to smoke in restaurants, the same should apply to weed.

Hindus, Buddhists, Rastafarians, and other religions smoke dope as part of spiritual and religious