Marijuana is a drug that comes with a very complicated and nuanced history. The drug is made organically, planted and harvested naturally, just like countless other drugs or foods that humans consume. Marijuana has been used for medicinal purposes by humans for thousands of years, dating back to usage in ancient China. Since then, the drug has been consistently used both medicinally, and recreationally by different societies, without much controversy surrounding the drug. However, in the past 50-60 years or so, marijuana has been violently stigmatized by society, and the government, consequently making the drug somewhat taboo. For a multitude of reasons society in the United States decided to villainize the drug, causing marijuana users to …show more content…
Criminalizing any drug will always disproportionately affect the poorer demographic, as they are more likely to turn to illegal drugs and get caught with them, when compared to their more affluent counterparts. Moreover, it is no secret that black communities are disproportionately affected by poverty, and live in overall lower income communities, when compared to other demographics. This causes black Americans to be far more likely to use drugs, causing marijuana to be extremely prevalent among black communities in the United States. Therefore, criminalizing marijuana will inevitably disproportionately negatively affect black Americans, as “Black Americans are arrested for cannabis offenses at a rate of nearly 4:1”(Hudak, …show more content…
It has been observed time and time again that hard paternalism regarding the use of drugs and alcohol. For example, drug abuse resistance education, or DARE program was meant to educate kids on the dangers of substance abuse, and prevent future addiction. However in “a test of cumulative significance to determine whether differences existed between D.A.R.E. participants and non–D.A.R.E. participants”(West, 2004), the test “produced nonsignificant results”(West, 2004). This shows the ineffectiveness of hard paternalism tactics in which you only show one side of the story to try and discourage the use of certain substances. D.A.R.E would often not give a thorough education but rather show only the negative consequences and exaggerate them at that. This fear mongering of drugs is ineffective because kids will eventually grow older and realize some of the terrible things said about substances such as marijuana are not true. Furthermore they lack the education of the true