Some friends and I were having an interesting debate the other day regarding the legalization of marijuana. None of us were in favor of supporting it but we were discussing the merits of both arguments. The prevailing strategy for those who are “anti-marijuana”/ pro-legalization is to legalize it, but tax the bejeebers out of of it. That way, economics regulate rather than moral agents. I’ve always thought this argument was ridiculous based on the grounds that people refuse to see Marijuana as a gateway drug to harder more illicit drugs. I believe it is a societal buffer for us.
It is fairly difficult for the Average Joe to acquire marijuana (without a margin of severe risk). Unless, you’re a student or musician, you’re not around it all the time. If you walked up to your colleagues at the copier at work and said, “hey, where can I score some mary jane?”, you’d more than likely get fired once word got back to HR. Consequently, it’s infinitely harder to get truly destructive drugs like crack, cocaine, and heroine. There are many compelling arguments that Marijuana is not much more damaging than alcohol. Can a society survive legalized Marijuana usage? Yes. Can a society survive legalized alcohol usage? Yes. Can a society survive legalized Heroine usage? No. The point that marijuana should be legalized because it’s no worse than alcohol is irrelevant.
The biggest problem with marijuana is that it brings us one step closer to the cockroaches of our society. The black market world filled with con men, pornographers, opportunists, and self-destructive people. We need this buffer. Without it, we would start saying, “how bad is cocaine, really? It doesn’t kill you, if you use it in moderation.” The guy that sells cocaine knows full well that he’s destroying his clients, so he obviously has less empathy for his fellow human beings. Whereas, I would venture that the majority of marijuana peddlers inoculate themselves from guilt by saying, “marijuana isn’t that destructive”, and they’re partially right. So you get way more kids and young people that use and/or sell marijuana for awhile and then straighten up and get their lives on track after acknowledging that they might have made some bad decisions. But if you’re using and/or selling crack, you’re probably not going to recover.
And remember that the fuel behind all of this is rampant self-gratification. As a culture, we indulge ourselves in excess. We think that we’re entitled to whatever we want as long as “we’re not hurting anyone else”. But that fails to take into account that we’re all connected. No one is an island, except maybe Michael Jackson, he’s off on his own planet, haha. What’s wrong with restraining ourselves, legally, from some things that might not kill us but are just unhealthy and slightly destructive. Take morality and human responsibility off the table and just think about survival of the fittest and the argument still stands up that we should police ourselves in drug usage.
Take a look at the link below. Amsterdam, the city known all over the world as the icon of the legalization argument for prostitution and marijuana is tapping the brakes saying, “wait a minute, we didn’t sign up for all this collateral damage”. NOTE: It is technically illegal to sell marijuana, but they don’t enforce it so it’s, in practice, legalized. Kind of like speeding in Montana!
Amsterdam to close many brothels, marijuana cafes - Yahoo! News
