Arguments Against Legalizing Marijuana

For the past several years legalizing marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use has been a prominent and controversial issue in the US. Many proponents of legalizing marijuana argue that it has painful relieving properties without the harsh side effects of some prescribed drugs. They also argue that its recreational is really no worse than alcohol or cigarettes, both of which are detrimental to health and legal. Opponents to the legalization of marijuana argue that the adverse psychological and physical effects puts not only the user, can be potentially dangerous. The opposition believes that the drug can also weak the minds of users. I am a proponent for the decriminalization of marijuana. I believe that it should be used for medicinal

Phillipe Bourgois, a professor of Anthropology and Family and Community Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania wrote an article titled, The Mystery of Marijuana: Science and the U.S. War on Drugs, discussing the impact and resources that are wasted on criminalizing marijuana (Bourgois 2008). Bourgois explains that “objective scientic evidence” does not alter the way drug policies are created and that the social and political forces are the driving forces in the excessive criminality placed on marijuana use (Bourgois 2008). The research shows that regardless of evidence that marijuana use is associated with fewer risks than alcohol the federal law enforcement agencies have spent over 4 billion dollars a year and arrested well over three quarters of a million people, typically on possession alone during the 2000s (Bourgois 2008). He states that public health researchers need to be aware of the impact of power politics and social meaning as they relate to drug (Bourgois 2008). He believes that because stringent technical statistics are meaningless in the vacuum of society and infallible when it comes to the predictions of risky practices or infectious, it becomes the responsibility of public health to researchers to broaden their understanding of the great powers that can affect health, policy, and cultural values (Bourgois 2008). The economic and social impact that marijuana has is staggering. The continued criminalization of this drug is costing the United States an enormous amount of money loss in pursuit to arrest and prosecute users. Research shows that it is not as injurious as alcohol, yet the laws that make it illegal are far more rigid to the point of excessive. Bourgois believes that the greatest harm cause by marijuana is not its properties as a drug, but rather the “collateral damage of its illegality”