It’s the biggest news that nobody is talking about: on Tuesday night, voters in Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use. People at least 21 years old will be allowed to purchase up to once ounce of marijuana from a licensed retailer and, in Colorado, will also be allowed to grow up to six cannabis plants in private locations.
This is a big deal, and not just for people that like to get high. The legalization of recreational marijuana, as opposed to medical marijuana, in Colorado and Washington represents the first steps toward the end of cannabis prohibition in the United States.
I believe that the legalization of marijuana offers several profound benefits to our nation. However, before I continue, I feel that I must clarify one point: the arguments contained in this editorial are all based on the assumption that the prohibition of marijuana is inherently wrong. This point will not be debated in this editorial. I urge readers to watch the documentary entitled “The Union: The Business Behind Getting High,” which is available free of charge on YouTube. It provides detailed information on the history of cannabis prohibition and presents a compelling argument against it.
The most obvious benefit of marijuana legalization is that it will be safer and easier to buy. It should come as no surprise to the reader that the purchase of marijuana is not, by any means, easy or convenient. It requires locating a dealer with product, convincing them that you, the buyer, aren’t a narcotics officer, and somehow arranging a time to meet and conduct a shady business transaction.
Under the new system, any person desiring marijuana and of 21 years of age will be able to enter a licensed retail establishment and purchase up to 28 grams of pot with no more effort than it might take to purchase a case of beer.
Convenience aside, who cares? Well, a major argument against marijuana is that it is a “gateway drug.” There is no evidence that the mere use of marijuana might push a person toward harder drugs. However, the “gateway theory” holds water in that the black market by which a person purchases marijuana does not distinguish between cannabis and harder drugs. Oftentimes, marijuana dealers also deal in harder drugs. This mixing of marijuana and hard drugs in the same market is sometimes all it takes to get a person into drugs such as cocaine or methamphetamine.
By eliminating this black market for marijuana, it becomes easier to separate it from the truly dangerous drugs, thus eliminating the infamous gateway effect.
Following in the same vein, legal and controlled distribution of marijuana also means that the product will be of a more consistent quality. Unless a person is purchasing marijuana from a medical dispensary or directly from a grower, it is nearly impossible to accurately identify which strain of marijuana a person is being sold.
This runs counter to the most basic principles of economic consumer theory. How can an industry as far-reaching and profitable as the marijuana industry function properly if consumers don’t even know what product they are being sold?
These two benefits pertain directly to consumers of marijuana. What about the rest of the country?
The legalization of marijuana will remove a heavy and unnecessary weight from the shoulders of the already overburdened U.S. penal system and, consequently, from American taxpayers.
According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug-related offenses are in prison for marijuana convictions. Assuming once more that the prohibition of marijuana is unjust, this means that American taxpayers are spending over $1 billion a year to incarcerate criminals on marijuana-related convictions. Imagine all the problems that could be solved if this tax revenue were applied elsewhere. Our national debt might be resolved in a matter of decades instead of the current projection of, well, never.
Speaking of tax revenue, marijuana legalization also presents the possibility for the taxation of commercial cannabis products. Under the current system, each and every transaction of marijuana goes untaxed.
Imagine the vast wealth of tax revenue that could be generated if commercial cannabis products were subject to the same “sin tax” that is levied on alcohol and tobacco products. Our war in the Middle East could be funded indefinitely – that is, if anybody still wanted to fight it.
If marijuana legalization is so great, why isn’t anyone talking about it? The fact of the matter is that, while publications such as Time Magazine have declared marijuana to be increasingly of the mainstream, cannabis use is still unnecessarily stigmatized in the United States. The classic “stoner” stereotype continues to prevail throughout the media. Cannabis users are seen as burnouts and are generally written off as unproductive members of society.
Such is not the case. In fact, some of the most productive and creative members of society are or have been cannabis users. While the list is long, notable members include prominent astrophysicist Carl Sagan, American founding father Thomas Jefferson, famed miracle-worker Jesus Christ (studies suggest that he and his followers used cannabis extracts in religious rites) and our recently re-elected president, Barack Obama.
While Colorado and Washington have taken monumental and historic steps toward national prosperity by legalizing marijuana, the sad truth is that, on a federal level, cannabis is still a Schedule I controlled substance. While the DEA has taken steps to eradicate medical marijuana dispensaries in California, it is still unclear how the agency will prosecute the sale and use of cannabis products in Colorado and Washington. The nation is watching these two states to see how they will face their new challenge. I wish them the best of luck.
Editorials Co-Editor Nicholas Bradley is a College sophomore from Skillman, N.J.
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While you make a lot of good points in this article, I’d be very interested to see your source for Jesus using marijuana…I’m not saying He never did (although it certainly wouldn’t have been how most people use it today) but I’ve never heard that before…
Here’s the article in The Guardian where I initially found the information: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/06/science.religion
Here’s another source from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2633187.stm
Studies of the Bible are oftentimes tenuous and open to interpretation, so I cite Jesus Christ as a famous cannabis user in full knowledge of the fact that there are those more knowledgeable about the Bible than I who will disagree with me.
Cannabis use is associated with only marginal increases in traffic accident risk, comparable to anti-histamines and penicillin.
An investigator from Aalborg University and the Institute of Transport Economics in Oslo assessed the risk of road accident associated with drivers’ use of licit and illicit drugs, including amphetamines, analgesics, anti-asthmatics, anti-depressives, anti-histamines, benzodiazepines, cannabis, cocaine, opiates, penicillin and zopiclone (a sleeping pill). His study reviewed data from 66 separate studies evaluating the use of illicit or prescribed drugs on accident risk; the study found that cannabis was associated with minor, but not significantly increased odds of traffic injury (1.06) or fatal accident (1.25). By comparison, opiates (1.44), benzodiazepine tranquillizers (2.30), anti-depressants (1.32), cocaine (2.96), amphetamines (4.46), and the sleeping aid zopiclone (2.60) were all associated with a greater risk of fatal accident than cannabis. Anti-histamines (1.12) and penicillin (1.12) were associated with comparable odds to cannabis.
A 2002 review of seven separate crash culpability studies involving 7,934 drivers reported, “Crash culpability studies [which attempt to correlate the responsibility of a driver for an accident to his or her consumption of a drug and the level of drug compound in his or her system] have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes.” [Chesher et al. Cannabis and alcohol in motor vehicle accidents. In: Grotenhermen and Russo (Eds) Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutic Potential. New York: Haworth Press. 2002: 313-323.]
But, unlike with alcohol, the accident risk caused by cannabis, particularly among those who are not acutely intoxicated, appears limited because subjects under its influence are generally aware of their impairment and compensate to some extent, such as by slowing down and by focusing their attention when they know a response will be required. [Allison Smiley. Marijuana: On-Road and Driving Simulator Studies]
This response is the opposite of that exhibited by drivers under the influence of alcohol, who tend to drive in a more risky manner proportional to their intoxication.[United Kingdom’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The Classification of Cannabis Under the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971. 2002: See specifically: Chapter 4, Section 4.3.5: “Cannabis differs from alcohol; … it seems not to increase risk-taking behavior. This may explain why it appears to play a smaller role than alcohol in road traffic accidents.”]
Studies have shown marijuana users are Safer Drivers than either drunk drivers, or sober ones.
http://blogs.lawyers.com/2012/04/cruising-the-high-way-safer-than-drunk-driving/
One study, entitled “Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption” conducted in November 2011 provides evidence that marijuana is a safer substitute for alcohol when it comes to health and also makes for safer drivers.
Top Ten Reasons Marijuana Users Are Safe Drivers
When you combine all of the main results of these two decades worth of scientific research studies, the following 10 reasons marijuana drivers are safer than drunk drivers comes out like this:
1. Drivers who had been using marijuana were found to drive slower, according to a 1983 study done by U.S. National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). This was seen as a factor in their favor, since drivers who drank alcohol usually drove faster and that is part of the reason they had accidents.
2. Marijuana users were able to drive straight and not have any trouble staying in their own lanes when driving on the highway, according to a NHTSA done in 1993 in the Netherlands. The study determined also that the use of marijuana had very little effect on the person’s overall driving ability.
3. Drivers who had smoked marijuana were shown to be less likely to try to pass other cars and to drive at a consistent speed, according to a University of Adelaide study done in Australia. The study showed no danger unless the drivers had also been drinking alcohol.
4. Drivers high on marijuana were also shown to be less likely to drive in a reckless fashion, according to a study done in 2000 in the UK by the UK Transport Research Lab. The study was done using drivers on driving simulators over a period of a month and was actually undertaken to show that pot was a cause for impairment, but instead it showed the opposite and confirmed that these drivers were actually much safer than some of the other drivers on the road.
5. States that allow the legal use of marijuana for medical reasons are noticing less traffic fatalities; for instance, in Colorado and Montana there has been a nine percent drop in traffic fatalities and a five percent drop in beer sales. The conclusion was that using marijuana actually has helped save lives. Medical marijuana is allowed in 16 states in the U.S.
6. Low doses of marijuana in a person’s system was found by tests in Canada in 2002 to have little effect on a person’s ability to drive a car, and that these drivers were in much fewer car crashes than alcohol drinkers.
7. Most marijuana smokers have fewer crashes because they don’t even drive in the first place and just stay home thus concluded more than one of these tests on pot smoking and driving.
8. Marijuana smokers are thought to be more sober drivers. Traffic information from 13 states where medical marijuana is legal showed that these drivers were actually safer and more careful than many other drivers on the road. These studies were confirmed by the University of Colorado and the Montana State University when they compared a relationship between legal marijuana use and deaths in traffic accidents in those states. The studies done by a group called the Truth About Cars showed that traffic deaths fell nine percent in states with legal use of medical marijuana.
9. Multiple studies showed that marijuana smokers were less likely to be risk takers than those that use alcohol. The studies showed that the marijuana calmed them down and made them actually pay more attention to their abilities. All of these tests and research studies showed that while some people think that marijuana is a major cause of traffic problems, in reality it may make the users even safer when they get behind the wheel.
10. Marijuana smoking drivers were shown to drive at prescribed following distances, which made them less likely to cause or have crashes.
.. stick *that* in your pipe, and smoke it!
http://www.theweeklyconstitutional.com/news/headlines/1035-why-you-should-always-spark-up-before-hitting-the-road
Is Driving High on Marijuana Safer Than Driving Drunk? [ or driving sober?!! ]
For decades, marijuana advocates have argued that pot has a significantly different effect on driving ability than alcohol. But if you take the word of one auto insurance company, stoned is actually the safest way to drive. 4AutoinsuranceQuote.org is making that case based on years’ worth of scientific studies, including some from the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration that found motorists under the influence of marijuana tended to drive slower and have accident responsibility rates lower than those of drug-free drivers.
http://blogs.lawyers.com/2012/04/cruising-the-high-way-safer-than-drunk-driving/