Over many years, the legality of marijuana has been widely debated. Supporters of laws that seek to legalize marijuana argue that it is a drug that is safe and that criminal sanctions against personal use indicate harsh and unwarranted penalties. The proponents also point out that the mortality, economic cost and may more negative impacts associated with alcohol and tobacco are much more grave compared to those associated with marijuana.
On the other hand, the opponents of liberalization of current legal status of marijuana counter that marijuana is not mild, especially considering the new psychopharmacologic information indicating that it shares many characteristics with any other illegal drugs. They also argue that legalization or discrimination of its use at personal level would likely trigger a significant rise in its use, with a predictable increase in social, health and economic costs (A. Joffe, 2004)
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For example a number of states in the USA have passed initiatives that allow medical use of this drug under certain situations. However, this idea of permitting physicians to prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes has vigorously been opposed by the federal government, an approach described by the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine as “inhumane ,heavy-handed and misguided.” This controversy is almost common to every country for instance Australia has decriminalized the use of marijuana has been legalized in some territories, Switzerland as well as Canada and many other countries are revisiting there approach to this question. However, marijuana regulation in Holland is the most widely published. Under a system of “law-on-the-books.” Where Dutch permits personal use of marijuana but criminalizes