(Newswire.net — August 7, 2014) — With the startling discovery that 38% of Americans have tried marijuana and a huge 18.9 million smoke it regularly, it may come as no surprise that 54% of the US population now want to see the schedule 1 drug legalized. As shown in Washington and Colorado, this could be beneficial in a few ways: the selling of super-strength marijuana could be stopped, other drug use might reduce because marijuana is so readily available and crime rates relating to drugs could lower. In addition, the tax the state earns from the selling of marijuana could go towards helping the community. However, legalizing such a widely used drug could also have its downsides and, if the government approach it from a commercial standpoint, it could merely encourage regular drug use even further.
Could legalizing marijuana prevent hard drug use?
In the Netherlands where marijuana use is controlled – although still technically illegal – the amount of young people who use heroin is supposedly almost non-existent. The Netherland’s policy on heroin provides existing users with free heroin three times a day in a controlled, sterile environment. However, this doesn’t necessarily explain why young people simply don’t use it. In fact, many would believe that if a country is giving away free drugs, they would have an incredibly high drug rate. This isn’t the case. You may also assume that because young people aren’t taking hard drugs, there would automatically be a worryingly high level of marijuana use but instead, the Netherlands have shown they have a relatively low rate of marijuana use among young people. Therefore, not only has allowing people to use marijuana in a controlled way prevented the use of hard drugs, it also seems to have affected the amount of people smoking soft drugs.
In the experiment in Colorado in which marijuana was legalized, various positive results have been recorded, such as a lowered crime rate. The amount of teenagers smoking it has also decreased from 24.8% to 22% – contrasting with the rest of the country in which 23% of high school children claim to smoke it.
Are there any downsides to legalizing marijuana?
Legalizing a drug isn’t without its cons. One of the downsides of making the substance so widely available, as shown in Colorado, is that the amount of traffic citations being written for people driving while under the influence of marijuana has increased to 12.5%. This could be because of the way the government has marketed the movement; viewing it as a commercial venture rather than a genuine method of lowing drug and crime rates. The danger with marketing it this way is that people believe it’s ‘safe’, when the reality is that marijuana can be harmful, especially to those with existing mental health issues.
Instead, if legalization was to occur, the US should consider controlling the substance in a far more rigid way, like the Netherlands, which only allows you to use it in designated coffee shops. In addition, it should be controlled and monitored by state, rather than en-mass. This makes it far more manageable and also retains the quality of the product. The Netherlands is a lot smaller than America and therefore, they don’t have this issue. Finally, support should be openly offered for those dealing with a marijuana problem so they can quit the drug if they wish.