The Point of Friction

So I was working the other day (converting THOUSANDS of 90s hip hop album art to JPEG format), and the guy I'm working for came over and started reminiscing about the cover I was working on, told me about the centrality of drugs in the hip hop industry, and warned me that one hit of crack would destroy my life. Just one. That's all it takes. After this conversation about drugs, it got me thinking about the issue of the legalization of marijuana. I knew I was against it, but I wasn't sure why exactly. I had a couple extra hours, so I did some research on the subject... Here's what I found.

The pro-legalization side focuses on downplaying the physical danger to the user of marijuana and other drugs, which isn't an incredibly persuasive argument for me since America is the so-called land of the free where we're free to do whatever we want, but we're also responsible to face the consequences. It's up to you if you want to start doing crack or heroin or whatever and completely destroy your life. Even so, 17,000 deaths every year are caused by illicit drug use, which is likely caused indirectly by marijuana. Beyond this, look at all the problems caused by alcohol and tobacco, both of which underwent a similar legal process. Tobacco-induced respiratory disease is among the leading causes of death in the US, and as I will discuss later, there is a huge correlation between alcohol and violent crime. How, I ask, can marijuana avoid or lessen the problems already inherent in our society because of recreational drugs?

What the pro-legalization side doesn't address is the effect of marijuana on other people and the tendency of marijuana users to move onto harder drugs. A huge amount of crime is directly related to drug use. 1.4 of 1.7 million American adults who are incarcerated have serious drug/alcohol problems. "Eighty-one percent of state inmates... committed substance offenses such as selling drugs or driving while intoxicated; were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime; committed a crime to get money to buy drugs; or had histories of regular illegal drug use, alcohol abuse or alcoholism." A chart I found in my research shows that a large majority (71-78%) of state and federal inmates have a history of using marijuana, and smaller percentages of those have histories of using harder drugs and alcohol. There is an undeniable connection between marijuana and crime.

While research has not proven that marijuana is a gateway drug biologically, but there IS evidence that it is a social and psychological gateway drug. That is, there isn't any chemical in marijuana that causes the brain to crave cocaine or LSD, but "because of its illegal status, cannabis users are more likely to be in situations which allow them to become acquainted with people who use and sell other illegal drugs." (and making it legal isn't really going to change that.) Saying marijuana isn't a gateway drug is like saying a teen guy who looks at the magazines that are right next to porn magazines isn't going to look at them.

Even without either of these arguments, there exists the legal issue of legalization.  Legalization brings with it the problems of regulation. Secondhand smoke with tobacco cigarettes is bad enough, but think about secondhand smoke from marijuana cigarettes. Imagine this, your neighbor lights up in his backyard and your kids are playing outside... The entire structure of smoking/anti-smoking laws would have to be rethought, which would take a huge bureaucracy and committees and tax dollars, because I obviously want to pay more taxes and have more laws to regulate something that I am completely against and that was illegal last year. There would have to be really strict guidelines and even stricter punishments for illegal production and use of marijuana too, not to mention all the stoned-in-public charges that will have to be dealt with by the police force (they're just trading one problem for another). 

Here's the bottom line, which I didn't come up with myself. It's really good and concise though, so I'm going to use it. Marijuana is a problem, that is apparent, but making something that is a crime legal isn't going to fix it. 

Now this post is full of statistics about drug usage and crime and prison and all sorts of inanimate figures like that, but we have to remind ourselves that this issue will affect PEOPLE. People who have addiction problems, whose addictions affect their economic lives, family lives, social lives, spiritual lives, and pretty much every other kind of life you can think of. The legalization of marijuana would make it that much easier for someone to get into the drug culture and possibly throw away a bright future or cause an already bleak life to be dragged down into complete oblivion. If nothing else, this law would be the number one enabler. Fight it.

Some Resources:

Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect

Andrew R. Morral , Daniel F. McCaffrey & Susan M. Paddock

Drug Policy Research Center, RAND, Arlington, VA, USA

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30#illicit

http://www.casacolumbia.org/articlefiles/379-Behind%20Bars.pdf

"For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer." Romans 13:3-4