Legalization of Marijuana
In this year of the millenium, the American populace, even while in the midst of the most prolonged economic boom in the history of the Republic, is confronted with some serious problems. Any randomly chosen group of people asked to list the most dangerous of these, would include among their immediate answers: "The Drug Problem".By the "Drug Problem", do they mean the proliferation in our communities of all illicit, mood-altering, physically dangerous drugs? Or do they really mean the accompanying problems bought on by these proscribed substances: crime and the threat of crime, violence, disease, the growing number of users on public welfare, the loss of productivity to the country's industry, the congestion of the court system, the over-crowding of our penal institutions, the diversion of our tax dollars from more productive areas, the corruption of our law enforcement agencies, and directly and indirectly the erosion of our civil rights?Since I am confining this paper to discussing the laws prohibiting marijuana use, I will concede that it fits the first two categories above; i.e. it is by law, illicit, and by its nature, mood-altering. With the third category we enter upon shaky ground. There is no scientific proof
There is only scant evidence that marijuana produces physical dependence and withdrawal in humans. 150,000 (not including 50% of all highway deaths and 65% of all murders) Aspirin. The "report of the AMA Committee on Legislative Activities" at that convention noted: There is positively no evidence to indicate the abuse of cannabis as a medicinal agent or to show that its medicinal use is leading to the development of cannabis addiction. · In addition to ten of thousands of inmates sentenced to state and federal prisons for one year or more, tens of thousands of marijuana offenders are serving sentences of less than a year in local jails around the country. The plant that our own great-grandfathers grew, used, and depended on for food, fiber, medicine, and paper is today illegal to grow or possess in all 50 states. Today sick people sit in jail because our government refuses to admit the usefulness of hemp as a medicine. " "The distribution in private of small amounts of marijuana for no remuneration or for insignificant amounts should no longer be an offense. Such a system, with appropriate discouraging mechanisms built in, would send the message that marijuana is no more acceptable when legal than it was when illegal.
Common topics in this essay:
Consumers Union,
Addictive Drug,
Drug War,
Hemp Victory,
Marijuana Gateway,
Zimmer Morgan,
Drug Drug,
York July,
Control Act,
Park Service---focus,
marijuana offenses,
marijuana users,
arrested marijuana,
marijuana arrests,
marijuana possession,
arrested marijuana offenses,
mount vernon,
marijuana offenders,
et al,
criminal justice,
marijuana laws,
american medical association,
ed mount vernon,
vernon york consumers,
mount vernon york,
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Acceptance Essays
