The Case for the Legalization of Marijuana

My support for the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana perplexes a lot of people. Those who know that I'm conservative see this position as a glaring spot of Liberalism among my usually-spotless collection of conservative political positions. I counter such claims with the argument that the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana is no longer a conservative or Liberal issue, but rather an issue of common sense.

Many conservatives resist any attempt at decriminalizing marijuana because they automatically associate it with delinquency, crime, laziness, and moral corruption. They aren't too far off-base in those associations. I have several colleagues and acquaintances which match this description and who smoke marijuana. However, to claim a causal relationship between such lifestyles and the consumption of marijuana is fallacious. Why, you may ask? Because for every person I could name who smokes marijuana and matches the aforementioned descriptions, I could also name a person I know who smokes marijuana and is intelligent, morally sound, and hard-working. And, as with most groups of people, there is a middle ground into which many people I know fall.

First, the basics. The designation of marijuana as a Schedule One drug (high possibility of abuse with no known acceptable medical use) while alcohol remains 100% legal is confounding, to say the least. For one thing, it is nearly impossible to overdose on marijuana; a person will simply fall asleep before even approaching a lethal intake of marijuana. Deaths from alcohol poisoning, however, are much more common.

Furthermore, all the theories which claim that marijuana use leads to harder drugs, complete lack of motivation, total apathy, social delinquency, etcetera, are fallacious. Marijuana affects every single person in a different way, just as any drug does. A person who consumes marijuana and who then becomes a jobless bum hooked on all sorts of other drugs leads us to believe that marijuana was the cause of his downfall. If marijuana was the cause of his downfall, though, the millions upon millions of other marijuana users in the developed world would also be in his position. Reality clearly demonstrates otherwise. The useless, jobless, pot-smoking bum can blame marijuana all he wants, but it's certain that it was his personality and mental outlook that doomed him, and not a plant.

Marijuana needs to be treated just like any other mind-altering substance, including tobacco and alcohol. Such things must be consumed with personal and social responsibility. The legalization or decriminalization of marijuana does not automatically imply the right to endanger others or one's self while under the influence, just as the legal drinking status of a 21-year-old does not allow him to endanger himself or others while drunk. As with the other mind-altering drugs, there will be those who would abuse the right to consume marijuana. Those people are the outliers, though; it is highly probable that legalization or decriminalization would reduce risky behaviors while consuming marijuana. As gun control measures and the alcohol Prohibition of the 1930's show, prohibition measures, especially on a plant that grows naturally as a weed, are doomed to fail, and foster even more irresponsible behavior than the law was intended to prevent.

The so-called War on Drugs is costing taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars to arrest pot smokers, and yet the availability of the drug (especially here in a school/college setting) is incredible. It is also estimated that the legalization of marijuana would pump an additional $6.7 billion into the United States economy, in addition to freeing up several billion dollars more that would no longer have to be used by law enforcement agencies to track, arrest, and prosecute marijuana users (stats from Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Mirons report, funded by the pro-repeal Criminal Justice Policy Foundation). For those conservatives still looking for a reason to legalize the plant, remember that marijuana trafficking from Mexico into the United States is an incredibly lucrative illicit trade, and that the legalization of marijuana in the United States would effectively kill any demand for Mexican pot. The Mexican drug dealers would lose a huge source of their revenue from such legalization in the US.

In short, the associations of marijuana with social delinquency and the breakdown of moral fiber, as well as other assumed dangers of the consumption of the plant, are largely unfounded. The breakdown of moral fiber comes from a person's lack of moral backbone, not from a plant. Social delinquency comes from the same thing in addition to lack of maturity and/or a poor upbringing. Therefore, conservatives should find no objective fault in the consumption of marijuana.

If anyone has any other questions about marijuana or its use, feel free to get in touch with me.