Face Off: Should Marijuana be Legalized? No!
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 9:18 am | By: Radical Russ
A senior at the University of Kentucky Murray State University penned this opinion piece for a “face-off” in the issue of marijuana:
Face Off: Should Marijuana be Legalized? No – Opinion
We have all heard the arguments: God made marijuana, man made alcohol – who are you going to trust? Who has ever heard of anyone overdosing on marijuana? It doesn’t have any adverse affects on society.I would argue that these statements are sheer ignorance, in its purest form. Overall the legalization of marijuana (for public use) is something that should not be entertained. Marijuana is a drug. It is a substance that alters the inhibitions of an individual on a level different than alcohol.
It certainly does. Like, alcohol is at about a “level 10″ and marijuana is at about a “level 1″. Somebody who thinks that someone on marijuana has their inhibitions lowered to any degree even resembling alcohol is someone who has either never drank alcohol or never smoked pot.
Marijuana is a hallucinogen, whereas alcohol just inhibits an individual from acting coherently. Marijuana has the same affect, but at times you will see things that are not present (i.e. the definition of a hallucinogen).
Obviously never smoked pot. Even the Drug Czar doesn’t consider pot a hallucinogen.
Also, as the saying goes, marijuana is the gateway drug. With marijuana being the gateway drug, it has the potential to have a downward spiral affect on humanity. If this drug were legalized, how much longer will it be before people begin to say we should legalize ecstasy, opium or even cocaine? If we look at the logical progression, that would send out society into mass hysteria.
Even the government doesn’t buy the gateway theory anymore. If I progress through drugs A, B, C, D, and on to E, it doesn’t necessarily follow that A caused E. Furthermore, marijuana only gets called a “gateway” because it is illegal. If drugs A through E were caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, respectively, you wouldn’t be calling caffeine a “gateway”, you’d call marijuana a “gateway”, because only at letter C are you talking about “illegal” drugs.
And the idea that legalizing weed leads to legalizing Ecstasy, opium, and cocaine is some stunning reefer madness. I’m wondering if the author opposed moving extra-strength Tylenol or Advil from prescription-only to over-the-counter, because that would lead next to over-the-counter Oxycontin and Vicodin? Why can these prohibitionists not see shades of gray? We let people buy aspirin at convenience stores, yet we put the Darvocet in regulated pharmacies. Put weed in the liquor store, card people for it, and make money on the taxes. Nothing about that move requires you to put the Ecstasy, opium, or cocaine in the liquor stores!
This logic is definitely fallible and ostentatious pontification at best; but so would any argument for the legalization of marijuana. Somewhere along the line of our history, law makers made the decision that marijuana was a substance that needed to be illegal, and that its effects would have an adverse effect on society.
Yes, and that point was the early 20th century, when the Congress was convinced by Ansligner and Hearst that the weed-smokin’ Mexicans were going to steal all our jobs, that the opium-smokin’ Chinese were going to enslave our children, and the cocaine-using Negroes were going to rape all our white women. So despite the protests of the American Medical Association, who knew damn well that cannabis was a near-harmless medicine, Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, effectively criminalizing cannabis.
Whichever side you stand on with this issue, I would implore you to do your research before making any predisposed judgments, about whether you would like to have marijuana legalized or not.
And that closing statement, following all the paragraphs before it, written without even a hint of irony, is just a small example of the madness of prohibition. The author makes a bunch of predisposed judgments on the inhibition-lowering hallucinogen called marijuana that is a gateway to legalizing cocaine and then tells me to do my research. I sure hope your senior thesis wasn’t researched as poorly as you researched this piece.
“Also, as the saying goes, marijuana is the gateway drug. With marijuana being the gateway drug, it has the potential to have a downward spiral affect on humanity.”
LOGIC FAIL !!!
Ever taken a logic or critical thinking class in college, dude ?? The second sentence assumes the first sentence is true. Yet the second is stated as fact based on the first which is conjecture, at best.
Cheap editorial trickster !!
Learn some fact before you spout so-called logic.
I have been smoking, and eating Cannabis for about six months now, and have yet to have anything more than a feeling of well being, and peacefulness. I was diagnosed with RA, Gout, and Diabetes. I have severe nerve damage in both feet and hands. my pain levels untreated are of the chart! I have switched from the 40mg Oxycontin,10/500mg Vicoden,900mg Nurotin,and 30mg Cymbalta the Doc was giving me.(handfuls of them daily) I do not hallucinate at all. My pain is well managed, and my life is normal again. I have not been a smoker accept when I was a teen, and experimented with a few different things. I am 46 now and the Creators plant works just fine for me. I can’t say for others but i can say the guy arguing against legalization does not know what he is talking about. No wonder the country is in such bad shape if he is the model of teachers in our education system. Enjoy each second in life it may be all you get.
I have been trying to find an answer to the question “why the fuck is weed illegal?” and till now I’ve only found reasons that cannot be classified in anything apart from horseshit.
Who is the fucking retard (Genius?) who decided it would be a good thing to make this herb illegal?
Marijuana is not a drug it is an herb with people use every day.And alcohol how many people die from it everyday alot and you dont hardly ever here about people dieing from MARIJUANA.My mom has cancer so she smokes it to help with nausea and the pain, And i know when my mother is in pain if you have been around her as long as i have you would know to so that is why i think that it should be legalized!
WOW!! it says at the top “A senior at the University of Kentucky Murray State University penned this opinion piece for a “face-off” in the issue of marijuana”
Well at least I know never to send my children to the University of Kentucky!! Complete and utter ingnorance!!
As a student that made it all the way to your senior year..you would think you would grasp the idea of at least having an IDEA of what you are discussing when you want to start a debate. Almost every single bit of information you wrote is completely false!! And absolutely ignorant!!
I will tell you this…Marijuana will ABSOLUTELY be legal in my lifetime! At one point in time alcohol was illegal just the same as Marijuana. And I would bet the farm one day it will again be illegal. In another 20-30 years when the generations who hold offices in which these laws are made are all died off it will then become legal. There have been studies done which proved that on a personal level all of the persons whom have a vote against the legality of the drug will say they are for it being legal and understand the differences between it and alcohol and how the latter is much more dangerous. It has come down purely to these “men” brought in front of their peers and none of them having the guts to say what they truly feel. No 30 year vet, distinguished member of congress is going to be the first guy to say” Ok, Marijuana is by far safer than all the legal drugs we are now shoveling out to our people INCLUDING prescription meds and cigarettes.
But the generation behind them has no hang ups about saying these things and when the last dinosaur has been replaced it will then come back around to be legal.
Even if you dont know anything about the drug or its ACTUAL effects which it is obvious that you do not… all you have to do is look at our history and you will have your answer. At one point or another EVERY drug was legal. You could open a Sears and Roebuck catalog and mail order Morphine and\or Heroin and have it AND a small kit to administer the drug sent right to your door.
Anyway I am rambling..I am just shocked at the things you had said. I would advise you to do some real research on the drug and while you’re at it do some research on the legal one like alcohol.
There has NEVER in the history of the human race been a death caused by the ingestion of marijuana. EVER! There are THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of deaths due to alcohol every year. And a large percentage of those are JUST FROM DRINKING TOO MUCH OF IT and not anythign else such as an act under the influence of it. I mean that ONE stat alone should be enough for you to START to understand.
‘Marihuana’ was outlawed federally in the US in September of 1937, littleflower. I advise you to read tinyurl.com/1mn and tinyurl.com/potconviction which are two tiny urls I set up to auto-redirect to much longer URLs on the topic.
But to continue:
The north won the Civil war in 1865, which meant bad news for the southerners and their vast crops: no more slave labor. By 1904 there were anti-drug laws being drafted up by individual states, to ‘punish’ minorities for using these naturally occurring substances instead of drinking the processed, white man’s drug.
Not at all, the reason it was outlawed was BECAUSE it grew everywhere, Anslinger saw it as a way of sucking never-ending billions out of the federal government, to wage war (and lose) against the most prolific plant on the planet.
And if someone’s not carrying any, HEY, they can just plant some on the person.
Vices are not crimes. The drug war is based on a repugnant assertion: that you do not have ownership over your own body; that you don’t have the right to decide what you’ll do with your body, with your property and with your life. The position of the drug warriors is that you should be in jail if you decide to do something with your body that they don’t approve of.
Being so verily opinionated, you’ve done your research on use of contractions, and punctuation marks. Your case was stated in such an overwhelmingly intelligent manner…given your “bomb” grammar.
Somewhere along the line of our history, law makers made the decision that marijuana was a substance that needed to be illegal, and that its effects would have an adverse effect on society.
Whichever side you stand on with this issue, I would implore you to do your research
this cat can’t pin down the date at which marijuana became illegal in the united state). ( I just did an ask.com search for “when did marijuana become illegal in the united states and found an a page for the marijuana tax act about five entries in.) and he’s talkin about do you’re research?!!!!!!!!!