Legalizing Weed

Smoking to Live

Whether or not to permit the use of marijuana for medical purpose is a public policy issue within state and federal governments. Over the past decade, both state and federal governments have argued over control issues concerning the castigation of marijuana. While the primary goal of certain states is to implement the legalization of medical marijuana, the federal government argues strongly against access to the drug for medical use. Numerous amounts of states have attempted creating federally approved research programs to recognize the benefits of utilizing marijuana as a tool for remedial health, yet these programs are currently non-existent as the battling issue for control over the topic is at present highly controversial. Federal regulations concerning the use of cannabis are currently being fought against in many states, and I will argue why I think certain responsibilities of cannabis regulation should be allocated to the states.

In 1937, the federal government passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which banned the recreational and medicinal usage of cannabis. Since the 1970s, pressure has been accumulating to change the federal law regarding the prohibition of cannabis. However, the Controlled Substances Act, which was passed during Richard Nixon's presidency, outlawed marijuana by defining it in law as a drug "with no accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S." This federal policy also prohibits doctors to prescribe medical marijuana as an aid to their patients; otherwise the doctors' practice licenses will be revoked. In addition, patients using medical marijuana for their illnesses who are found with the drug are punished as criminals in the judicial system.

A few states demanding change of these federal policies include California, Florida, and Massachusetts, in which action has been taken to undermine federal policy. For instance, in 1991 80% of voters in San Francisco rejected the medical marijuana prohibition, in which mainly conservative voters favored marijuana's medical availability. Furthermore, in 1996 California's voters adopted Proposition 215, also known as the Medical Marijuana Initiative, which holds that the state's criminal laws against marijuana do not apply to seriously ill patients who use the drug on the advice of their physicians. Likewise, in 1991 the Florida Supreme Court ruled marijuana can be a drug of "medical necessity" in the treatment of AIDS, and conservative Massachusetts Governor William Weld signed the nation's thirty-fourth state law recognizing marijuana's medical utility.

In response, the federal government led by the Bush administration in 1992 announced a War on Drugs, in which the FDA's Compassionate IND program for medical marijuana was shut down. This program ran research on the health benefits of medical marijuana for AIDS, cancer, and glaucoma patients and allocated resources of medical care to them. Proceeding this announcement, high officials in PHS, FDA, NIDA (government agencies), and the White House told reporters they strongly opposed the Bush Administration's decision to terminate the Compassionate IND program for medical marijuana. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency), supported by the federal government, argued that marijuana has no medical value even when the FDA authorized marijuana's compassionate medical use for the treatment of an increasing amount of life-threatening diseases.

The termination of the Compassionate IND program caused many diseased patients who use marijuana for their health to become upset, as well as numerous states that support the drug's assistance. Asserting that medical marijuana is a gateway drug and that advertisements promote the illegality of use of marijuana to children, the Bush administration launched an anti-drug campaign that prohibited advertisements of drug reform in cities. However, advertisements were placed on public funded transportation