UP IN SMOKE: LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

Grass. Weed. Cannabis. Ganja. You can visualize what I'm going to be
talking about at this point. Growing up, your parents instilled in
you all the negatives associated with the drug, but do the negative
aspects of legalizing marijuana really outweigh the positives?

Numerous studies have documented the negatives of getting high off of
weed. Scientists claim that aside from marijuana's weak association
with depression and anxiety, it can cause brain deterioration of
"critical life skills" over time.

The same study further finds that marijuana users impair their
ability to memorize and organize information, ultimately functioning
at a "reduced intellectual level." Funny, since half of the people I
meet hourly already function on a "reduced intellectual level," and
they don't even smoke marijuana.

More recently, research has made an aim to focus on the positives of
the drug. The use of medical marijuana to treat chronic pain
sufferers has helped these people live nearly pain-free lives, even
after they tried numerous other treatments in an attempt to control their pain.

Other arguments against marijuana include "dangerous" behavior, such
as driving under the influence or being "boring" as the life-like
marijuana commercials out there portray various situations. In other
words, the advertisements tend to stretch the truth just a little bit.

How about the one where a group of guys smoking weed in their car in
the fast-food drive-thru lane run over a little girl on a bike?
Private organizations like these invest hundreds of thousands of
dollars, if not millions, on commercials like these that depict such
incidents that rarely ever happen.

Needless to say, similar arguments could be made about alcohol ...
and they were, back during Prohibition in the United States. After a
few years of the government attempting to impose its morals on its
citizens, it got smart and realized there was money to be made.

The fact of the matter is that legalizing marijuana can help boost
the economy, which benefits us all in the long run.

Through the implementation of high taxes and regulations on the drug,
profits in the billions would help the country by pumping money back
into social programs such as Medicare, Social Security and education.

Instead, the United States government just stores all drugs acquired
from drug trafficking laws into its 60-plus locations around the
country, letting the potential moneymaker gather dust.

Think I'm crazy? Maybe, but before you jump to any hasty conclusions,
consider cigarettes for a moment. Cigarettes alone are the second
leading cause of death among males and females. Thanks to their
addictive nature, lung cancer accounts for more deaths than any other cancer.

Yet studies show that the addictive properties of alcohol, cigarettes
or even cocaine exceedingly overshadow that of marijuana's.

Bringing this drug into the mainstream can undoubtedly provide many
economic benefits to our society. Although some aspects of weed has
its negatives when abused, proper oversight and regulation of this
drug, like any other, can potentially make its use beneficial.

Jonathan Shalom is a second-year biological sciences major.