Should Marijuana Be Legalized

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Should Marijuana Be Legalized?
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Overview

• Common Arguments for Pro-Legalization
• Discussion
• Rebuttal to Pro-Legalization
• Resources for More Information

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Should marijuana be legalized?

• Pro-marijuana supporters say, Yes because
• Marijuana is safer than alcohol, yet its
  illegal.
• Marijuana toxicity has never killed anyone.
• Marijuana is a natural botanical plant, how bad
  can it be?
• People with medical issues should be able to
  smoke marijuana to relieve pain or other
  debilitating symptoms.

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Should marijuana be legalized?

• 1972 Commission determined marijuana was
  relatively safe should be Schedule III. It is
  currently a Schedule I drug alongside cocaine
  heroine.
• A DEA Administrative law judge determined that
  marijuana was the safest drug known to man.

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Should marijuana be legalized?

• People are filling our prisons for marijuana use
  at a time when our correctional facilities are
  overburdened.
• Marijuana creates a 10 billion, violent black
  market that we could eliminate if we legalized.
• Marijuana has been legalized elsewhere with
  little problems the Dutch have lower/same drug
  use rates as the US without our black market
  violence they also have lower users of cocaine.

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What do YOU think?
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The truth
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Marijuana is safer than alcohol, yet its
illegal.

• If we applied that standard, alcohol would be
  illegal and crack-cocaine would be legal, since
  alcohol use trumps all other drugs with respect
  to its contribution to violent crime.
• Alcohol, unlike marijuana or any other illegal
  drug, has a long, wide-spread history of use in
  Western culture, dating back to the Old Testament
  and Ancient Rome.
• Yes, marijuana has been used for a while, but not
  in a broad, wide-spread manner like alcohol.

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Marijuana has never killed anyone.

• Marijuana contributes to dependence, mental
  illness, lung obstruction, memory loss, motor
  skill disruption and other harms in a way that
  tobacco does not, and its harms are
  underappreciated.
• ER admissions for marijuana-related illness
  (psychotic episodes, etc.) exceed those of
  heroin.
• There have been numerous cases of fatal car and
  other accidents caused by someone under the
  influence of marijuana.

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Marijuana is a natural botanical plant, how bad
can it be?

• Smoking marijuana can do serious damage to your
  lungs and those around you.
• Research on the long-term effects of marijuana
  abuse indicates some changes in the brain similar
  to those seen after long-term abuse of other
  major drugs.
• Marijuana often contains more harmful
  substancesabout 400 of them, some of which are
  carcinogenic.

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Marijuana is a natural botanical plant, how bad
can it be?

• A recent study found that people who had used
  marijuana more than 50 times before the age of
  18, had three times the increased risk of
  developing schizophrenia later in life.
• Young people who use marijuana weekly have double
  the risk of depression and/or anxiety later in
  life.

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Treatment Admissions by Primary Substance of
Abuse (Ages 12 - 17)
(55 CJS referral)
SOURCE SAMHSA, Treatment Episode Data Set, 1999
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People with medical issues should be able to
smoke marijuana.

• There is likely medical benefit from components
  in the cannabis plant. This is very different
  than legalizing smoked marijuana.
• But medicine should never be determined by
  voters.
• The general public does not have the knowledge
  necessary to vote on whether a particular pill or
  patch is beneficial for the treatment of Heart
  Disease, Attention Deficit Disorder, or Diabetes.
  Why is this different?

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People with medical issues should be able to
smoke marijuana.

• The 1999 IOM report said that smoked marijuana
  should generally not be recommended for medical
  use we dont smoke medicine.
• Just like we dont chew willow bark to reap the
  benefits of Aspirin.

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People with medical issues should be able to
smoke marijuana.

• Lets do the proper research first.
• Double-blind, clinical trials of the components
  in marijuana
• In a non-smoked form
• We have Marinol now, but there is promise in
  the non-THC elements of marijuana
• Medical marijuana in its current form is
  unworkable.
• In California, marijuana is legal for anyone who
  claims any ailment and can pay 100-300 for a
  medical marijuana card sold by a doctor.
• In other states, issuing medical marijuana ID
  cards by the state/local government has proven
  unworkable, clumsy, and prone to major corruption.

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1972 Commission determined marijuana should be
Schedule III.

• This was a commission comprised mainly of
  politicians, not scientists.
• They based their recommendations not on their own
  original research, but on secondary research
  studies from the 1960s.
• This was almost 40 years ago why would we base
  policy decisions on research from back then? If
  we did this, we would also conclude that smoking
  cigarettes was safe for adults.
• The research now does justify Schedule I.

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Why marijuana is a Schedule I substance

• Drugs are placed in schedules due to their
  properties of (1) potential of abuse and (2)
  medical value
• Smoked marijuana has a high potential of abuse
• About the same as alcohol 1 in 10 users are
  dependent, and millions of Americans are
  dependent on marijuana alone
• Smoked marijuana has no medical value
• Well get into this in a later slide.

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A DEA Administrative law judge determined that
marijuana was the safest drug known to man.

• As respectful as we are of the DEA and the fine
  work they do, their appointed judges are not
  scientists, nor public health officials.
• Judge Youngs decision was ignored not because of
  politics, but because marijuana is a harmful drug
  with serious consequences for users and
  non-users.

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People are filling our prisons for marijuana use
at a time when our correctional facilities are
overburdened.

• Probably the biggest myth with regard to drug
  policy is that low-level marijuana users are in
  jail or prison.
• Yes, almost 1 million arrests occurred for
  marijuana last year (many of these were the same
  people being written up again and again), and
  technically most of these were recorded under
  possession, but...
• Almost all of these arrests resulted in not a
  single day of jail they were equivalent to
  parking (or perhaps speeding) tickets.

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Marijuana and jail time

• People in our criminal justice system for
  possession either
• Also had a role in distribution or,
• Pled down to possession in exchange for
  information or,
• Violated terms of parole/probation, and their
  original crime was much more serious
• Arrest records are automatically expunged after 2
  years in California similar in other states
• Chances of serving time for marijuana use
  assuming one smoked regularly for a year is
  about 1 hour/yr.

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Marijuana creates a 10 billion, violent black
market that we could eliminate if we legalized.

• No guarantee that legalization would undercut the
  black market, especially if you wanted to tax the
  drug to offset increases in use.
• The black market for marijuana is not where most
  of the crime and money are. Look to cocaine (3x
  bigger), heroin and meth for that.
• Money spent on marijuana is spread over so many
  users and distributors that few are working with
  amounts that motivate or encourage high levels of
  crime.

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Mexican involvement in the black market

• Even if we legalize marijuana, hardly a dent
  would be made because
• Cocaine, an expensive drug, is the main driver of
  the problems were concerned with
• There is no guarantee the endemic marijuana
  market would go away after legalization
• Cartels are entangled in so many other issues
  human trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, etc.
  that the harms from their existence would
  continue. Theyre not going to become
  librarians and ice-cream men if we sold marijuana
  in CVS pharmacy tomorrow.

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Marijuana has been legalized elsewhere with
little problems.

• Like the rest of Europe, Holland traditionally
  has had a much smaller drug problem than the US
• 1984-1996 explosion of coffee-shops and
  promotion efforts.
• Era of commercialization
• Young adult lifetime use tripled (15 to 44),
  current use more than doubled (8 to 19 ).
• About the same use as US now
• Government officials calling for a scale-back of
  coffee-shops ferocious increase in enforcement

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Other points

• One of the main reasons we should not legalize
  marijuana is that we already struggle to manage
  our two legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
• The AMA does not support legalization of
  marijuana.

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Resources for more information

• www.jointcause.org
• www.cadfy.org
• www.abovetheinfluence.com
• http//www.nida.nih.gov/DrugPages/Marijuana.html