The Politics of Pot

The legalization of marijuana is a popular topic following the election in which legislation legalizing the use of marijuana was passed in both Colorado and Washington. ThinkFast ThinkNow wrote an interesting post about the consequences of legalizing marijuana. While there are many consequences, I think that some other issues need to be raised in the debate.

Let’s face it: drugs are a problem whether they are legal or illegal. Despite the consequences of marijuana use, I believe legalization may be the right course of action.

It is true that there is no test to determine whether someone is under the influence of marijuana while they are driving because marijuana stays in the blood for 30 days or more. I think that tests could most likely be developed similar to sobriety tests but that would need to be researched a lot more. Unfortunately people are going to drive high whether marijuana is legalized or not. Currently people with medical marijuana prescriptions or those using marijuana illegally are driving while under the influence.

I think the question is not what are the consequences of marijuana use but how will marijuana use change if it is legalized?

I think medical marijuana is worse than having marijuana legalized in some ways. In the majority of cases, medical marijuana prescriptions are abused by people with headaches, chronic pain, insomnia, stress, etc. I have all of those things and so do the majority of my classmates. We shouldn’t be treating these symptoms with marijuana. We should be treating those symptoms with lifestyle changes and other ways to relieve tension and stress in daily life.

I believe marijuana should be treated as a recreational drug similar to alcohol. The side effects are different though not necessarily more severe. Both alcohol and marijuana have been known to be detrimental to developing brains yet alcohol becomes legal at 21 (18 in most countries) while marijuana remains classified as an illegal drug.

Teenagers are taught about the consequences of alcohol abuse and how to drink safely. All freshmen at USC take a course called alcohol.edu where they learn how to drink responsibly. Maybe there needs to be a course that teaches people to use marijuana responsibly. When used recreationally I do not believe it is more detrimental than alcohol. Although marijuana use can trigger anxiety and more severe effects in people with bi-polar disorder, alcohol abuse can have severe impacts as well. Drinking is far more likely to bring out reckless or violent behavior than smoking is. Drunk teenagers are more likely to go driving or dive off a cliff while high teenagers are more likely to waste time in front of video games. While neither is healthy, the latter seems safer to me.

I believe that the legalization of marijuana would not change the current abuse of the drug. In high school it is often easier to find weed than alcohol so the people that currently choose to smoke excessively have plenty of access. Legalizing marijuana wouldn’t change that. I think that the people that abstain from smoking who would choose to use it if it were legal fall under a smaller category of people who like to recreationally use marijuana as they do alcohol.

While this would still pose an issue with the fact that you cannot test for high drivers, I am not sure that legalization would increase the number of high drivers that significantly. I would hope that with increased education the number of people driving high would decrease as people saw how dangerous it can be.

I think that marijuana should be classified in the same category of drug as alcohol and similar laws should be applied. There will be issues to work out but the dangers of driving high would be better addressed if it is acknowledged as a real problem on the same scale as drunk driving rather than disregarding the issue because getting high is illegal.