Using marijuana doesn't make you an addictive person, what Miss Universe Catriona Gray answered in her Q&A question “I'm for being used in medical use but not so for recreational use. Because I think if people were to argue, 'what about alcohol and cigarettes?' So everything is good but in moderation." Some people used marijuana for medical purposes, as one of the users i found this [link removed by moderator] and i think it is one of the best MJ that can help us when it comes to the medical aspects.
The charlottes web strain of medicinal marijuana is fairly effective in preliminary studies from what I’ve read, but due to Nixon era policies in the US from the racially motivated war on drugs, research on a federal level is blocked and made needlessly difficult. Thus even though it looks good now, there isn’t enough done to really show the full effects, including side effects, of medication through medicinal marijuana.
Now even though the US is slacking in research for this comeback medicine, countries like Israel are leading the research internationally and have shown some really amazing results on the lines of benefits associated with medicinal marijuana. These are especially noticed in strains, similar to charlottes web, that remove the compounds that get you high and instead focus on the THC oil.
Now on recreational, marijuana is empirically safer on every area for use compared to both alcohol and tobacco. Marijuana even boasts an impressively low addiction rating of 7% (or as one author for the US government puts it “marijuana has an extremely high addiction rate of 7%) Important to note however, Smoking anything produced an elevated risk for lung cancer and emphysema due to the carcinogenic nature of smoke. There have been 0 deaths observed due to an “overdose” on marijuana for starters. This provides a direct counter image to the news headlines of college students at universities around the nation in the US dying from alcohol poisoning or the opioid crisis in the US from prescription opioids.
The only key issue with recreational marijuana usage is with regards to the operation of machinery or vehicles due to the drug (it acts as a chemical agent that alters the chemical balance within the body, so yes, definitionally it is a drug) having an effect on motor skills and cognition. I see this as no different than alcohol, sleeping pills, or plenty of other legal and commonly accepted drugs, foods, and other items that could effect oneself.
Besides the “how is it really worse than alcohol or tobacco” defense for legalizing recreational marijuana, there is also the criminal justice reform approach. From tapes, documents, interviews, and other forms of information, it has been established that the original ban on marijuana and the labeling ad a schedule 1 drug was due to a racist mindset and the goal of using the war on drugs as a way to limit urban diversification and to target minorities under the Nixon administration. Now these mindsets are clearly not appropriate for any large policy, and over time policies have been put in place to try and limit this. For example, removal of stop and frisk policies (policies that could not be shown to be effective anyways by any major study). The issue is that due to the original scope, the policies still carry some targeting and as such there is the issue of an unbalanced arrest rate that could be solved by legalization. Now legalization is in no way the only way, and nor would I argue the best way to accomplish CJS reform, but it would help a little.
The last bit of argumentation I would look towards is regards to Uruguay’s action to decriminalize all drugs. (It seems the mods have removed links, so won’t link any new stories to this, but look it up, its fascinating.) to summarize the results, they saw a large drop in both usage and crime associated with drugs, fewer overdoses, and massive savings in their CJS. This has in large part to do with the economics of illicit goods, a topic I won’t go into depth here because this is a mobile 3D MMORPG game forum and not a research paper
, but the basic idea is that illicit goods carry their own demand that is not representative of actual demand for a product and is usually attached to the idea that the item is hard to come by, whether it is or isn’t. Uruguay decriminalized the drug so if you had under a good amount of it, you wouldn’t be prosecuted. The only thing that was illegal was selling it or trafficking it (as in possession of insanely high quantities). This way for consumers the drugs functioned under a normal supply demand function, even though due to them being illicit the supply stayed low.
This combined with what has been seen SO FAR in Washington state and Colorado depicts an idea of where drug legalization is better than keeping it heavily criminalized. (For example, in Washington they found that teen marijuana usage dropped over time since legalization, and marijuana use overall has fallen as well).
So to summarize, use fell, crime associated with illegal trafficking and selling fell, and tax revenue increased due to the drugs being taxed, and the drugs are safer because they can be regulated.
All in all due to the way the Nixon policies operated there is a A LOT of research that needs to be done, especially by countries with large GDP’s like the US to fully investigate long term health impacts and societal consequences of legalizing medicinal and recreational marijuana. However currently it seems that there is a strong case to be made for legalizing medicinal at the minimum due to the inability to overdose and the wide range of medicinal purposes.
Feel free to pm me about anything or talk to me in game
Bob The God
This Bob guy is a guide? Legitimately?
Former EG try hard who’s now relaxing midgame on crom.
Fire Mages are where its at