Why Marijuana Should Be Illegal

Why Marijuana Should Be Illegal

In today's society the topic of the legalization of marijuana is a very controversial subject. There are many who believe that this substance should be made legal because the government could save money by taking the drug out of the hand of criminals and making more room in jail cells for more severe crimes. There are also strong supporters that believe that there are many harmful effects from chronic use of marijuana. There are many problems, social and physical, that are effects from using marijuana. Due to the negative effects from this substance, the use of marijuana is and should remain illegal in the United States.

Society today has many troubles, by making marijuana legal it would bring about even more social problems. Legalizing marijuana would send messages to children that taking other substances is "okay." It would also lead them to believe that there would be no harm to come from taking substances similar to and including marijuana. In How to Talk to Your Kids About..., the author Lynne S. Dumas states that a national study shows most children now are trying marijuana by the age of 12 years old, if it were made legal imagine how young children would start using. Another study showed that students lose their ambitions and goals, and are most likely to drop out of school when they are using marijuana.(Schleichert,25) According to Schleichert, "most experts have come to the conclusion that the consistent use of this drug deters a persons ability to learn and to develop the skills necessary to lead a productive life."(35)

Children would also lose the authoritarian figure of parents if they see those taking drugs. Because marijuana when smoked on a daily basis or in large amounts, causes lose of short-term memory and lose of concentration, parents would not be able to perform as expected for the standards of parental guardians. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study where the authors found that the longer subjects had smoked marijuana, the worse their memories and attention spans got. The author of The Science of Marijuana, Leslie L. Iversen said if a chronic user of the drug were to try and maintain concentration over long period of time, over thirty minutes, they would have a very difficult time. (16) Consequently proving, it would be difficult for parents to perform up to par while using this drug.

Many people propose the question, why would we add another drug with proven negative health effects readily available to society? Regular users of marijuana are known to feel chest pains, have chronic cough, and have some impairment of near vision. (Edwards, 16) Marijuana might also interfere with kids' ability to go through puberty," says Dr. Adrian Dobs. (Cloud) One study from the National Institute of Drug Abuse has indicated that a user's risk of heart attack more than quadruples in the first hour after smoking marijuana. A serious side affect of the drug, that is often not noted, is that it leaves you at a high risk for infection, leaving you subject for serious illnesses. (Hubbard)

There are also much more serious health risks involving the use of marijuana. One of these risks would be the damage this drug does to ones lungs. Schleichert states that, "Marijuana smoke contains more than 150 cancer-causing substances." (29) Scientists at the University of California have found that smoking a single joint was equivalent to smoking five tobacco cigarettes in a day. If someone was to smoke for or five joints in a day it would cause the same lung cell damage if one were to smoke twenty tobacco cigarettes in a single day. Surprisingly, they also found that marijuana smoking released five times more poisonous carbon monoxide into ones bloodstream and deposited three times more tar into the lungs than cigarette smoking. There are also other studies that show, heavy marijuana smoking can harm the reproductive and endocrine systems. These are systems that are responsible for distributing hormones to the body. Heavy users will decrease the quality and number of their sperm cells or disturb their menstrual cycle. (29) As a result, marijuana smoking can become very dangerous to users who may not even be aware of the major health risk they are taking.

The dangers of exposing society are another factor in why it should be kept illegal in the United States. Marijuana is most known for being a "gateway" drug, leading many other people to try other, more dangerous, substances. It is also known that hormones, such as serotonin are released when marijuana is used. After using the substance for a long period of time, one's body will become dependent on the drug to realse the "happy" feeling from the serotonin, and many are unable