National Commission On Marijuana And Drug Abuse example essay topic

Is the American Government Really Winning their War on Drugs? Jennifer Steele In the United States, more than 70 million people have tried marijuana, and millions of adults still consume it on a regular basis. About 140 million people -nearly 2.5% of the world's population- smoke marijuana. Almost everyone has a friend, relative, neighbor, or co-worker who consumes marijuana. Because of the widespread economic and criminal justice ramifications of the illicit marijuana market and of Marijuana Prohibition, the marijuana phenomenon touches nearly everyone's life. A "marijuana-free America" has proved to be an unrealistic goal.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves, "Does Marijuana prohibition work?" Assuming the purpose of marijuana prohibition is to stop people from using marijuana, it has failed. Marijuana has been illegal in America since 1937, and it has yet to stop marijuana usage. A "drug war" began in 1980, and it has had no long-term effect on usage of marijuana. Prohibition does not work. Alcohol prohibition did not work and neither will marijuana prohibition.

Many people say marijuana should be legalized for the following reasons: for the sick who can benefit from its usage; for the environmental and industrial benefits; for the farmers who need the cash and for the tax revenues. Should marijuana be legalized? I think marijuana should be legalized, or at least decriminalized in the United States, because alcohol and tobacco are no less harmful than marijuana, but they are legal. Why are they legal and marijuana is not? Cannabis has not been proven physically addictive and no physical withdrawal symptoms occur when use is discontinued. However, psychological dependence can develop with long-term use.

Many marijuana users describe two phases of marijuana intoxication: initial stimulation, which includes giddiness and euphoria, followed by sedation and pleasant tranquility. Mood changes are often accompanied by altered perceptions of time, space, and one's bodily dimensions. Fragmentary ideas and memories disrupt thinking processes. Many users report increased appetite, heightened sensory awareness, and feelings of pleasure. Negative effects can include confusion, acute panic reactions, anxiety attacks, fear, a sense of helplessness, and loss of self-control. These effects can differ, however, depending on the amount of drug consumed and the circumstances under which it is taken.

The effects of long-term use on the intellect are unknown. Evidence that marijuana induces or causes brain damage does not exist. Marijuana is not like alcohol or tobacco, but that does not mean that it is more harmful than they are either. Every drug acts differently. However, there are some similarities. Like alcohol intoxication, marijuana intoxication impairs judgment, comprehension, memory, problem-solving ability, and reaction time.

In many ways, the effects of marijuana are subtler than those of alcohol. Even in high doses, the sense of balance is not affected and speech is not slurred. Often there is remarkably little external evidence of use of the drug as users behave somewhat normally. Cannabis may reduce anxiety and relax the user while at the same time intensifying experiences of the senses, such as sound, taste, or touch.

This often leads to the "munchies", a suddenly stimulated appetite. It tends to make people laugh more and often they engage in long conversations. People do not tend to feel bored as easily and feeling of self-worth improves. It may reduce inhibitions without being associated with increased aggression as alcohol is. As normally used, marijuana does not cause hallucinations.

You do not see or hear things that are not there. You do not forget who you are. Alcohol and marijuana intoxication appears to differ in their relation to intentional rather than accidental casualties. Alcohol intoxication is strongly associated with aggressive and violent behavior. There is little to suggest that causal relationship of marijuana use to aggression or violence. When examining the relationship between marijuana use and violent crime, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse concluded, "Rather than inducing violent or aggressive behavior through its purported effects of lowering inhibitions, weakening impulse control and heightening aggressive tendencies, marijuana was usually found to inhibit the expression of aggressive impulses by pacifying the user, interfering with muscular coordination, reducing psychomotor activities and generally producing states of drowsiness lethargy, timidity and passivity".

There is a major health risk of acute alcohol use that is not shared with marijuana. In large doses, alcohol can cause death by asphyxiation, alcohol poisoning, cardiomyopathy, and cardiac infarct. With smoked marijuana the effects start within seconds and last one to four hours while with orally ingested marijuana the effects start after about an hour and can last from two hours to a whole day. The effects generally wear off more quickly than with alcohol, but they last longer than with tobacco, which is why marijuana smokers smoke far less than tobacco smokers do. After the effects wear off there is no hangover and there are no withdrawal symptoms.

There is no known case of a single person ever dying from an overdose of marijuana. It is safer to take too much marijuana than too much aspirin. Fifty doses of aspirin are lethal, but it takes an estimated 40,000 doses of marijuana, which cannot be achieved by recreational users. The major acute health risks that marijuana shares with tobacco are the irritant effects of smoke upon the respiratory system, and the stimulating effects of both THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and nicotine on the cardiovascular system, both of which can be detrimental to persons with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. For both drugs, the respiratory effects do not apply to ingestion that is not by inhalation. The chart below shows the results of the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse in 1997.

Substance Ever Used Used past year Used past month Frequent users Alcohol 177 million 139 million 111 million 49 million Cigarettes 152 million 71 million 64 million Not tracked Marijuana 71 million 19 million 11 million 6.4 million The Office of National Drug Control Policy unveiled its "new" $19 billion dollar strategy on March 23, 2000. Director General Barry McCaffrey, our drug "czar" claims that we have made "substantial progress", and that "for those who say this is a war, we are winning". Director McCaffrey is known to stretch the facts especially when it comes to the success of his National Drug Control Strategy. For example, he said, "Each year drug use exacts $110 billion in social costs, and contributes to 52,000 drug-related deaths... ". Actually, sixty percent of those costs are due to drug-related law enforcement, incarceration, and crime.

Only three percent of drug costs were to victims of drug-related crime, and less than forty percent of the $100 billion social costs actually are due to the health impact of drugs. According to the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the federal government's premiere substance abuse agency, about 16,000 people died each year from drug-related causes. "Drug-related" includes much more than deaths from overdoses it includes: both illegal and illicit use of legal drugs, suicide, homicide, motor vehicle injury, HIV, pneumonia, hepatitis, en carditis, infant deaths, and overdoses. Many of those deaths are due to the illegality of the drugs involved.

General McCaffrey also said, "in the view of the nation's scientific and medical community, marijuana has high potential for abuse and no generally accepted therapeutic value". However, the New England Journal of Medicine stated, "federal authorities should rescind their prohibition of the medicinal use of marijuana for seriously ill patients and allow physicians to decide which patients to treat."The accumulated data indicates a potential therapeutic value for cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation", stated the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report on medical marijuana. The IOM also examined the question whether the medical use of marijuana would lead to an increase of marijuana use in the general population and concluded that; "at this point there is no convincing data to support this concern. The existing data is consistent with the idea that this would not be a problem if the medicinal use of marijuana were as closely regulated as other medications with abuse potential. This question is beyond the issues normally considered for medical uses of drugs, and should not be a factor in evaluating the therapeutic potential of marijuana or cannabinoids. Marijuana is not a completely benign substance.

It is a powerful drug with a variety of effects. However, except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications". In spite of the established medical value of marijuana, doctors are presently not permitted to prescribe marijuana, but they can prescribe cocaine and morphine. Between 1978 and 1997, thirty-five states and the District of Columbia passed legislation recognizing marijuana's medicinal value. Those states include: AL, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, IO, LA, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OH, OK, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, AND WI. Organizations that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include: the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Bar Association, American Public Health Association, American Society of Addictive Medicine, AIDS Action Council, British Medical Association, California Academy of Family Physicians, California Legislative Council for Older Americans, California Medical Association, California Nurses Association, California Pharmacists Association, California Society of Addictive Medicine, California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Colorado Nurses Association, American Medical Association, American Cancer Society, Australian Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, Federation of American Scientists, Florida Medical Association, National Academy of Sciences, Kaiser Permanente, Lymphoma Foundation of American, Multiple Sclerosis California Action Network, National Association of Attorneys General, National Association of People with AIDS, National Nurses Society on Addictions, New Mexico Nurses Association, New York State Nurses Association, and the Virginia Nurses Association.

A few of the editorial boards that have endorsed medical access to marijuana include: Consumer Reports Magazine, New England Journal of Medicine, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, New York Times, Orange County Register, and USA Today. In 1996 voters in both California and Arizona approved ballot measures exempting physicians and patients from criminal prosecution when marijuana is prescribed for medical purposes in the relief of pain or other symptoms caused by cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, arthritis, and other illnesses and chronic conditions. The Massachusetts and Ohio legislatures enacted similar medical necessity laws in 1996. However, the U.S. government, which opposes such exemptions to anti-marijuana laws, warned physicians in these states that they may lose federally sanctioned privileges for writing prescriptions for controlled substances, be barred from participation in federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, and face federal criminal prosecution for prescribing marijuana. Director McCaffrey also said, "Marijuana is a gateway drug". The IOM's 1999 report stated, "there is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs".

It explained that marijuana has been mistaken for a "gateway" drug in the past because, "patterns in progression of drug abuse from adolescence to the adulthood are strikingly regular. Since marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug, it is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not suprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana-usually before they are of legal age". The gateway theory takes a statistical association between and extremely popular behavior, marijuana use, and an unpopular behavior, cocaine, or heroin use, and then implies that one causes the other. There is no evidence to this association, and the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) acknowledges that it has not been able to determine if there is any causal relationship between the two.

Another stretched fact made by General McCaffrey is, "The murder rate in Holland is double that in the United States. That's drugs. The Dutch approach to drugs hasn't worked". According to the FBI and the Dutch Bureau of Statistics, the Dutch homicide rate in 1995 was one-fourth that of the U.S. (1.8 vs. 8.0). All categories of drug use in Holland are lower than in the United States. 32.9% of Americans have used marijuana.

Only 15.5% of people in Holland have done so. By what measure have we made "substantial progress" in the war on drugs? After spending upward of $250 billion since 1980 to get illegal drugs off the streets, hard drugs are coming into the country and hitting the streets just as much as ever. Our prisons are bulging with 400,000 Americans currently serving time for drug-law violations. In 1973, there were 328,670 arrests for drugs, according to the FBI.

Some 1,506,200 individuals were arrested last year for marijuana offenses. 88% of them were arrested for simple possession-not for manufacture or distribution. Treatment is ten times more cost effective than interdiction in reducing the use of drugs in the U.S. 57% of the men and women seeking treatment are turned away due to a lack of facilities in their area or prohibitive costs. This leaves street addicts, just that, on the street having to resort to crime to support their habits and at a risk for contracting drug-related illnesses such as AIDS and Hepatitis C. In 1996, voters in Arizona passed an initiative, which mandated drug treatment instead of prison for non-violent drug offenders. At the end of the first year of implementation, Arizona's Supreme Court issued a report which found: Arizona taxpayers saved $2.6 million in one year, and 77.5% of drug possession probationers tested negative for drug use after the program.

The Court stated", the Drug Medical ization, Prevention and Control Act of 1996 has allowed the judicial branch to build an effective probation model to treat and supervise substance abusing offenders... resulting in safer communities and more substance abusing probationers in recovery". In 1992, the U.S. government spent only seven percent of its drug-control budget on treatment; the remaining 93% of its budget went to ineffective programs of source control, interdiction, and law enforcement. The 1997 National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (N TIES) stated, "treatment appears to be cost effective, particularly when compared to incarceration, which is often the alternative. Treatment costs range from $1,800- $6,800 per client. To contrast, the average cost of incarceration in 1993 (most recent year available) was $23,406 per inmate per year". It costs approximately $8.6 billion dollars a year to keep drug-law violators behind bars.

What has marijuana prohibition accomplished? It has made criminal drug dealers richer as the increased expenditure on anti-marijuana campaigns has increased; the risks of trafficking marijuana have increased. With increased risk, the traffickers have increased prices, which increases profits. Costs to grow marijuana have not gone up, but the sale price has gone up, which makes those involved in drug trafficking richer.

It is often the case that richer people are more powerful people. You only have to look at the period of alcohol prohibition for clear examples of this phenomenon. According to the United Nations, drug trafficking is a $400 billion per year industry, equaling eight percent of the world's trade. This is greater than the exports of the automobile industry, worldwide. Is this the desired effect of marijuana prohibition? Marijuana prohibition has also torn apart families with members that use marijuana.

There are many examples of contributing members of society that have no criminal history being sent to prison for using marijuana. Is that the desired effect of marijuana prohibition? Abraham Lincoln said, "Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. I believe that any consenting adult should be allowed to do whatever they want to his or her own body so long as it does not directly harm anyone else. Should marijuana be legalized or decriminalized?

If marijuana was legalized, then anyone could smoke, eat, or grow marijuana. If it was decriminalized then instead of being faced with a possible jail term when caught with small quantities of marijuana; the person would face a small penalty much like a parking ticket. As it pertains to use rates, the number of marijuana users is not likely to increase under decriminalization. The ratio of users to the number of those being charged with a marijuana offense has always been very low, and so the probability that a marijuana user would be caught is not high. All drugs are potentially harmful; marijuana is no exception. The entire range of marijuana policies, from total prohibition to total legalization, has drawbacks as well as benefits.

As with alcohol and tobacco, there is no simple solution. However, our priorities are misplaced. Current federal policy, this year and for the past twenty years, uses two-thirds of its resources to try to keep drugs out of the country and to arrest and incarcerate users. This strategy misses the point.

Substance abuse is no more a criminal justice issue than diabetes, obesity, or acne. We should offer compassion and treatment to those with drug problems, and cease arresting those whose only offense is personal use. Ultimately, U.S. drug policy needs a new bottom line. However, no one policy will solve all problems.

Each potentially harmful effect of marijuana consumption and the myriad public and private marijuana control efforts must be thoroughly evaluated. Each policy option should be judged according to whether the overall harm is reduced of increased. Furthermore, public policies must be grounded in the reality that marijuana use is already widespread despite the number of prohibition laws. The following issues and goals must be addressed with appropriate public policies if marijuana consumption becomes legal or is to become legal: an individual's use must not harm or threaten the health and safety of others, some individuals (e. g., minors) should not use marijuana, misuse and abuse must be discouraged, marijuana consumers should not be subjected to extraneous health hazards, links between marijuana and other drugs should be minimized, medicinal uses of marijuana must not be suppressed, sound research must be promoted, raise revenue by taxing marijuana businesses, permit domestic cultivation of industrial / environmental hemp, uphold law and order, foster respect for and cooperation with law-enforcement authorities, reduce corruption of law-enforcement and other criminal justice system officials, minimize underhanded law-enforcement practices whose mission is to create trust for the purpose of betraying it, and safeguard civil liberties and personal freedom.

The preceding issues and goals would ensure the success of marijuana legalization if they were properly carried out.