The marijuana debate continues.
Is marijuana a harmful or a helpful plant? Is it more or less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco – both legal drugs. !
Read the essay below and the articles on Nicenet and respond with your opinion on the legalization of marijuana. What are the pros and cons of its legalization? Share your opinion with the class and the world!
Persuasive Essay on Legalizing Marijuana
Canada recently made international headlines by legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. I have no problem with this decision. If patients could already get morphine, marijuana is no big deal. However, this decision may lead to the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes, something that I oppose.
Legalizing casual pot encourages people to rely on a drug and instead of relying on themselves. For example, an out of shape person feeling the ill effects of a junk food diet could relieve his ailments with exercise and better diet instead of grass.
Marijuana supporters say that it is a profitable underground industry with a huge tax potential that cannot be shut down. They also state that people should have the right to ingest whatever they want to. By that rationale, we should also legalize cocaine and heroin. It would be naïve to think that we could make a fortune taxing pot. Enforcing the taxed selling of cannabis would be just as challenging as enforcing anti-marijuana laws. Many pot users would grow their own cannabis or buy some tax-free from a friend rather than taxed retail grass.
Legalizing marijuana gives the impression that it is acceptable and beneficial. Lenient laws often lead to mass misuse with limited benefits. The United States has more tolerant laws for gun and weapon ownership than Canada does. The N.R.A. often quote the constitution, “all have the right to bare arms”, when facing critics. Who in their right mind would say that liberal gun laws have benefited the U.S. and Canada should follow their example?
What would a terminally ill person sitting immobile in a hospital bed using marijuana do if they were physically healthy again? Answers might include travel, going back to school or spending more time with friends and family. Basically living each day to the fullest. Cannabis activists are lucky to have their physical health but are not living life to its fullest. They are lobbying the government so they can sit around immobile and smoke pot.
The physical effects of marijuana use are “relatively harmless”, but what are the benefits? Escaping your problems without having to deal with them. Ever wonder why the pothead and stoner are stereotype includes laziness? It’s probably rooted in wanting to experience an altered mood without having to do anything.
This is not a holier than thou essay. Like all people, I have skeletons in my closet. I have had an addiction to getting high that started at a young age and remains to this day. It’s not a drug however; I’ve been getting high on life. Only your imagination and perseverance limit what can get out of your day. Get out! Go biking, spend time with family or friends or volunteer. Whatever gets you naturally high.
CounterPoint (by Ron Barker):
I agree with you that marijuana is far from healthy. Obviously, inhaling any kind of smoke is a health hazard. And, if I’d read your essay a few years ago I probably would have agreed with you. When I was in high school, I had friends who were major pot heads. I myself never cracked under the peer pressure (in high school anyways), so I got to sit back and watch my stoned friends fail out of high school. It seemed obvious to me that anyone who smoked marijuana was doomed to live a failure of a life.
My opinion of that changed slightly, however, when in my first semester of university I had a philosophy professor who used to smoke a joint before every class. Anyway, I did an extensive research paper dealing with marijuana where I studied many statistics from recent years. I noticed that a lot of the negative information about marijuana out there is in fact either made up or highly skewed.
Of course, I understand that it works the other way too. Marijuana activists make up positive information to help strengthen their side of the debate.
One point that I never could understand, however, is why alcohol is legal. If you look at the premises presented by the side that thinks marijuana should stay ILLEGAL, you’ll see that most of them can easily be attributed to alcoholics.
Alcohol causes more health problems than does marijuana. Alcohol causes people to forget their inhibitions and act on impulse; marijuana does the opposite, causing most people to slow down and think about their actions more. And, alcohol causes more deaths than does marijuana – this is a fact which cannot be argued.
So, to get to my point, I am neither for nor against legalizing marijuana. I believe that if marijuana is bad enough to be illegal, alcohol should also be illegal. Likewise, if alcohol is okay, marijuana is okay.
I think the police force should be spending more time investigating serious crimes and forget about busting people for having a joint.
Also, to get back to my friends who failed out of high school. I don’t think it was caused by the marijuana. I think that people of such attitude CHOOSE to be marijuana users, and often because of this their failures are attributed to marijuana. I believe that, these same people, if they could relive their lives without marijuana, would fail in the same way.
15 responses so far ↓
I think since marijuana is a drug and harm than help people,it should not be legalised. However if marijuana helps for medical purpose,then it should only be use by physiscians to cure and nobody else.Alcohol and tobaco which are legalised drugs cause many incidents to their users and even to a tird person so,if in addition to those bad consequences, they legalise also marijuana,where the world is going?We don`t want to add more problems than we already have. Nowadays, people begin smoking at very low age and the smoke of a cigarete contain many harmful chemical that causes many disease like heart disease respiratory disease and so on .Let us immagine that they legalized mariruana; the number of sick people related to smoking will double and that is not a good thing for our generation and the future generation. The world will be majoritary composed of sick people and that is not favorise the development of the world in any case.
From my point of view, the government should not legalize marijuana. Most of such drugs as opium, amphetamine and heroin are harmful to human from body to societies. Like cigarette, pot smokers are addicted continuously to marijuana. It is different from cigarette in that cannabis is more dangerous if smokers use it much. After first time they smoke it, it is hard for them to stop smoking. It is benefit if we use it with patient in some case such as diminishing suffering. Suppose that the government launched the laws that pot is legal and then the cost was cheap. Though it is inexpensive, the poor can take it. It can minimize thefts, of course, but it can increase criminal such as murdering and raping. The government will pay money for victims. By the same token, the officials can get the high tax from legalizing it. The result is that it is to increase the thefts and so on because of being high price. If that is good, why not legalize heroin, amphetamine and others.
Accordingly, it is dangerous per se, the government should not make it legal.
Nowadays, govertment does not let people use marijuana. At least goverment does not provide marijuana for anybody. For example, alcohol and cigarette is given to people by goverment.All taxes and comercials about those product are big income for goverment. When and why did people legalized those product but it was big mistake for all humankind. Humankind already is in danger for a long time. Enviorement pushs people into smoking and alcohol.Drinking age is 21 and smoking age is 18. After those age, people can reach those things very easily. Marijuana is illegal for now but there are not strick rules which prevent people for it. This is very good fight style with marijuana. There is no commercial about it which pull people into this bad habit. There is no minimum age about it. There is no public or private place where people can get together and use marijuana. In addition, people can find it and use it very easily in everywhere but they are not very comfortable to do it anytime because it is illegal. They know that if somebody reports them they will end up in jail. Metod that is being used by govertment now is very effective. It protects community from marijuana but it gives right to everyone who wants to use it. This metod should be used for alcohol and cigarette. That way, we would have better communities.
In my opinion, about legalised or not marihuana. i think that the goverment should not legalised it.
It is real that marihuana have some good things that could help people that are ill, maybe goverment could legalised it but only to medical used.
If goverment legalised it for a general consume it could attract problems. People would think that marihuana is not bad enougth and the consume of it could increase affeting the hole society.
So, goverment should not legalised it. In my opinion ,this way is the best to avoid problems.
I believe that marihuana should not be legalized because in the long run it could be very harmful for the human body, unless it is use only when is necessary such as in case of specific human diseases that might need some healing herbs in order to relax or to cause some specific effects.
Therefore, it should not be legalized for regular public consumption, it should only be used with medicinal purposes.
In conclusion, the marihuana should keep being a illegal drug and only be use for medical purposes, in that way it would be more difficult for young people and teenagers to access it and we are doing them a favor.
The point I think here is that the government should legalize the marijuana, although the drug is really harmful to the people. But have you ever thought about why this deal happened so often? It is because it is hard for the customers to get drug, so that the price rise higher and higher. In the end, the profit will be horrible. I think the government should set a special apartment to deal with these kinds of problems, it should provide the marijuana for low price. In this department, the government should also have the education expanding, that’s an important point.
I think, marijuana should not be legal to use except for medicinal purposes. If it cures people, it is okay to use it, but governments should control the use of marijuana as a medicine, I mean we can use it, but there should be a limit, though. What I think is, it should not be legalized and governments should educate people to not use these kind of harmful drugs. It should be prevented somehow because there is no difference between marijuana and heroin and others. These drugs poison and then kill people slowly. Therefore people should be instructed, they should be aware of their danger, otherwise they might find them and use them someday.
I don’t think marijuana should be legalized because marijuana is very harmful. It’s should only use in medical treatment not for other purposes. Marijuana will kill your brain and make illusion. So people who smoke marijuana, they will see things and unconscious. I heard that smoke one cigarette of marijuana equal to 10 or 20 cigarettes, I’m not so sure about the numbers. Anyway it’s unhealthy. I don’t have anything against alcohol and cigarettes. I believe if you know how to manage the amount of alcohol and cigarettes that you take, it will not really harm you as much as marijuana.
it is a fact that marijuana is not a similar thing with a simple cigarette. Actually the diffrence is in the addicts; a cigarette adict is the only person getting the main hazard of cigarette while the marijuana addicts can harm the other people under effect of the drug.In this point of view, it would not be the best thing to legalize marijuana.
Instead of legalizing it governments can found legal authorities that prevent the use of it by educating people.
I `am not with the idea that marijuana should be legalise.The idea that it should be cheap is rediculousbecause tghat is not going to do some thuing good other than make the situation of the world worst than it is right now.So I am still totaly angain the use or the legallization of marijuana
Marijuana should not be legalized. Many people use marijuana just to get high these days. There are many negative effects of marijuana emotionally and physically. It also leads to addiction and use of other more dangerous drugs.
Marijuana has been a serious issue through out the world. Not only it has targeted adults but also targeted young teenagers. . People who say they are smoking marijuana because of medical purpose is just an excuse. They can easily get prescribed medicine from a doctor if they are really sick.
Marijuana can leads to lung cancer and it also kills humans’ brain cells. People also get depressed to face the reality after they smoke the marijuana. So more they start smoking it, they depend on marijuana because they don’t like to face the reality and depression. Also, after the start smoking marijuana for awhile, people don’t get enough satisfaction so they start to do more dangerous drugs.
Marijuana is obviously harmful. We should not lie to ourselves and give excuses to marijuana to be legalized.
in my opinion I think that marihuana should not be legalised.
There are two opposite points, people who think that it is a good idea to legalised, and people who are against.
The firs group support that marihuana is good. Marihuana have healthy subtances that helps people who are ill. So, people think that it is a good reason to suppor this idea. The add too that marihuana is the same as alcohol and if alcohol is legalised why marihuana can not.
On the other side, people as me, think that marihuana is a drugs that should not be legalised because it could bring problems to the society, because the consume of this drug could increase with the legalizacion.
To sum up, say that government should not legalised it.
in my opinion, Erkans observations are really perfect: It is easy to find hard to use because it is illegal. But instead of legalizing it by making smilar rules to cigarettes or alcohol like the age limits there sholud be more and more stringent rules. It is a fact that alcohol is more hazardous for human health than marijuana however it is totally legal to use, but it does not mean that marijuana have the rights to be legal. In addition to keeping marijuana illegal governments should make it illegal to use or produce alcohol and tobacco products. It may be the only exception to use marijuana in clinical medicine like morphine.
Everybody agrees about marijuana’s legalization. Everbody thinks that it should be illegal and forbidden. It is already illegal in many country but there are million people using it anywhere in the world. Marijuana became very common thing like cigarette or alcohol anywhere in the world. It is being used in any party. Making something illegal and punishing people about their choise did not stop anything in human history. It will not stop marijuana, too. This is the easiest way but it does not work well. Education should be first thing we have to think about it. Good education can solve any problem. We should educate our kids about any bad habitts. We should raise our kid in this way. With this way, they will not have any desire to use any drug, cigarette, and alcohol. They will know all bad side of those thing in early age. This way is harder than makeing something illegal and punishing people but it works much better than anything.
Marijuana should never be legalized no matter what, even if it was the solution for some medical problems (which used just to reduce the pain and another alternative drugs can be used) marijuana causing every day thousands of crimes which led to serious injuries and property damage around the world, we need to understand what marijuana really is
And from where and how it’s been brought to this country and it could be a lot of points there, but in the end one answer is available for this suggestion and it is NO
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