Downing 1 Bryan Downing Professor Gerchick English 102 April 22, 2014 Cans and Can'ts of Cannabis: (A look

on the legalizing battle of Cannabis) Cannabis, commonly known and referred to as marijuana, is consumed by about 147 million people around the world, making it the most cultivated and consumed illicit drug (WHO | Cannabis). There is debate as to whether or not cannabis is more harmful than beneficial or vice versa, however there are facts that support either argument. The effects can be weighed as positive effects, such as improved economy, or as negative effects, such as increased minor consumers or MIC. The uses of marijuana generally revolve around either recreational or medicinal, however an impact on the economy is present regardless of the categorical use. It is also important to consider the effects on society as the use of marijuana can either benefit those in need (such as the people who require it for medicinal purposes) or harm those who become addicted (such as an experimenting high school student). Because cannabis is so widely abused, this argument can apply to users, both legal and illegal, as well as to the family and friends of those users. A secondary audience to this argument would include states that have legalized marijuana as well as those that could potentially pass legislation to do the same. To begin, it is important to look at the history behind the prohibition of cannabis. In the 1930s, an investor named William Randolf Hearst invested in a paper company but was competing against a major opponent: cannabis. Cannabis was, and still is, a very useful plant that grows easily and can have many positive benefits on life. But, because it was a main competitor

Downing 2 with Hearst, he spent money to have cannabis made illegal. Surprisingly, only the term marijuana was attacked as opposed to hemp since everyone would not have agreed to outlaw hemp due to its uses in day to day life. Harry Anslinger was a head member of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics at the time and, because cannabis was more commonly used than cocaine and other harmful drugs, he added the term marijuana to help pass the bill. Anslinger did not accomplish this without the support of William Randolf Hearst, and the outcome was aimed to boost both of their careers and outlaw all forms of cannabis. Because of this law, it is speculated that America now relies on gasoline to fuel cars rather than hemp oil, which could have been a clean alternative. Also, trees in the forests of the United States are cut down every year when hemp could be grown instead in almost every type of terrain in order to preserve the forests. Neither of the two wanted to use hemp because it would hinder their careers. Although marijuana is not lethal and has fewer side effects than most drugs, it was still included in the legislation and was paired with cocaine and other harmful substances to make it illegal (Guither). As seen with the ban of cannabis, throughout the past marijuana has obtained the threatening title of a dangerous substance. As experiments and tests have been studied around the effects of marijuana on the body, the drug is gaining a new title as a medicine. Therefore, some people have argued that marijuana is not as harmful as everyone used to think. In fact, on January 1, 2014 the state of Colorado legalized the use of recreational marijuana (Watts). This legalization brings up many topics of debate including underage users, permissible smoking locations, as well as the legal side of the matter with DUI charges. It also brings up some positive questions as to how this legalization will impact the economy as well as society. There is the potential for the legalization of marijuana to boost the economy of Colorado and improve the health of certain individuals in the short-run, but more time is necessary in order to assess the

Downing 3 long-term effects on those who decide to take on the use of marijuana as a lifestyle. Although the economic impacts are based on the illegal trafficking of marijuana, there have been studies on how the drug can affect the human body. Studies have suggested that the use of cannabis has a noticeable impact on the cognitive function of the brain. One study has even indicated that the chronic use of marijuana has encoding, storage, manipulation and retrieval impairments on the user (Cuttler, McLaughlin, and Graf). Not only is marijuana the most consumed illicit drug, today it has grown to be in the top three most common substances consumed, the other two being alcohol and cigarettes. Over the years marijuana has gained a new title as medicine since most people across the world have seen an increase in its use as a prescribed drug. Although this does not prove marijuana as a nonharmful substance, it creates a perception that it may not be as dangerous as it appears. After all, patients trust that the medicine they are taking will heal them, not harm them. Furthermore when individuals see that something looks less harmful than what they are currently consuming, they may make a decision on which substance to consume based on these false and uneducated presumptions (Thompson). A classic example is cigarettes, which have been known to cause cancer for about thirty years now. It was the health department that declared it harmful and deadly. The United States still has not outlawed cigarettes that are known to contain harmful chemicals that slowly kill the user. It is a curious thought that people debate the topic of the fatally-ill choosing to end their own life while people that smoke are slowly ending their lives with every pack of cigarettes. If someone can say that a person does not have the right to end their own life, then some would argue the same could apply to smokers. However, in the end no one should have the right to determine what someone else does to his or her body; people should have the right to choose what they do with themselves.

Downing 4 Aside from cigarettes, alcohol is another commonly known addictive substance. People easily consume alcohol and the brain is chemically bound to the substance, impairing its cognitive function. In the early 1920s, alcohol was outlawed and organized crime started taking over big cities. Anti-alcohol groups formed and initiated the Noble Experiment. This was the idea that without alcohol crime rates would decline, the economy would rise, and they would build a prosperous United States of America. Despite the hoped results, none of the predicted outcomes were accomplished. In fact, crime rates rose during the prohibition and the economy took a steep fall, including the loss of thousands of jobs due to the closure of the liquor chain supply. Although this legislation was passed as the eighteenth amendment to create a better country, it opened the market for famous gang members such as Al Capone along with multiple illegal acts. These gang members were able to obtain an average of sixty million dollars per year, comparable to today and how the drug lords of Mexico are able to average millions of dollars per year on marijuana sales. In the 1920s law abiding citizens were drastically transformed into criminals due to the opportunity and want for alcohol. With the lack of safety precautions that accompanied homemade alcohol, an average of over one thousand people died each year from this poorly made alcohol. After thirteen years the government realized that prohibition was an utter failure after they tallied an eleven billion dollar loss. The 21st amendment repealed the eighteenth amendment in 1933 and restored jobs, as an attempt to help the economy pull out of its decline. Connecting this substance to cannabis, recreational marijuana is something that has a huge market in the United States of America. Four out of five students are exposed to marijuana throughout their high school career, indicating that law abiding citizens as well as big drug traffickers are ensuring that there is a ready supply of marijuana to be sold (Stimson). When marijuana was made illegal it was not deemed dangerous because marijuana is not actually

Downing 5 lethal. On the contrary, lethal substances such as alcohol and cigarettes that kill an incredible amount of people every year were allowed to stay legal in the mid-1930 because of the economic need. The market of recreational marijuana was not established back then as it is today. Colorado and Washington have made recreational marijuana legal and the rush to local dispensaries was overwhelming for shop owners. Most of the stores had to ration out the dwindling supplies due to the extreme demand. Some have suggested that the legalization of recreational marijuana will give the slightly injured American economy a large boost similar to the boost of the 21st amendment. It could also create the potential for crime rates to lower and jobs to open up across the country. Because of the decriminalization, the money that was used to enforce all of the laws surrounding it could be spent on other government budgets. Similar to the 300 million dollars that America spent on enforcing the prohibition, America is spending over twenty billion dollars a year on marijuana enforcement (Quin). During a time like this the economy could use any boost it can get. In an article called Pros and Cons of Legal Marijuana it reads, Economist Stephen Easton estimated that if marijuana was legalized, the industry spawned would generate a revenue between $45 billion to $100 billion. Market experts say that the prices of marijuana could lead to abuse if the price is low enough. Since there is such a vast market for marijuana it makes the market very rewarding for early investors. The government could take advantage of this opportune moment if they legalize it federally and collect taxes from every transaction around the United States (Stimson). There are few, if any, drawbacks to legalizing recreational marijuana. One is that it will be easier for under age children to be exposed to the drug. It has been speculated that most kids will actually choose marijuana over alcohol anyway because according to facts it is less dangerous than excessive drinking. In the case of underage users and possessors this is not

Downing 6 something new that will form. There are thousands of minor consumption or possession charges that happen each month across the United States. This will not be surprising when it does happen. One other drawback is that it is debated to impure peoples memory. According to an article following that point is true. It reads: However, a series of mediation analyses revealed that correlations between problems with cannabis use and prospective memory were driven by self-reported problems with retrospective memory. For the second study, 48 non-users (who had never used cannabis), 48 experimenters (who had used cannabis five or fewer times in their lives), and 48 chronic users (who had used cannabis at least three times a week for one year) were administered three objective prospective memory tests and three self-report measures of prospective memory. The results revealed no objective deficits in prospective memory associated with chronic cannabis use. In contrast, chronic cannabis users reported experiencing more internally-cued prospective memory failures. Subsequent analyses revealed that this effect was driven by self-reported problems with retrospective memory as well as by use of alcohol and other drugs. Although our samples were not fully characterized with respect to variables such as neurological disorders and family history of substance use disorders, leaving open the possibility that these variables may play a role in the detected relationships, the present findings indicate that cannabis use has a modest effect on self-reported problems with prospective memory, with a primary problem with retrospective memory appearing to underlie this relationship (Cuttler, McLaughlin, and Graf).

Downing 7 When children are growing up they are taught that marijuana is bad and they help dad carry beer into the house after going to the store. There are many people that are regular smokers and drink up to forty ounces of alcohol a day. The quality of life is hindered because of these harmful substances. Marijuana on the other hand has not killed any user when cigarettes, the number one cause of death, has killed six and a half million people and counting. Alcohol, the third cause of death, is still at 75,000 per year which equates to 6,250 people every month in the United States (Alcohol Linked to 75,000 U.S. Deaths a Year). Marijuana is still physically unable to kill people. The drug is not dangerous and a person that is trying to smoke it as a recreational experience cannot die. To take the argument into the simplest of turns, no matter what the readers view in any argument it is important to stop and realize the hard facts. Break down facts so low that there is no opinion surrounding the words. Now as a reader re-read this last paragraph starting now (Weida). Now that the facts are fresh, it is important for readers to stop and form an opinion on what is the real danger of allowing marijuana to be legal. Could it cause too much of an economy boost for the US? It cannot kill anybody because the facts have proven that someone is more likely to drown or get struck by lightning than die from smoking marijuana. The United States allows people to slowly kill themselves and profits on all of it already. Why should they not make something legal that will not harm the user and have a benefit in each community around the country? If all projected profits that the government would earn from recreational marijuana went straight to every homeless person in the United States along with homeless children that go hungry every night, each homeless person would receive over $12,857.14. After handing out $12,857.14 to every poor person the country there would still be a projected thirty billion dollars to spend on education. It is an extreme belief but from the religious stand point this is a Gift

Downing 8 from God. This is a gift that can supply the funding to give the poor and the hungry a chance to get off their feet as well as start a new life and benefit our country. This substance that is one hundred percent not lethal compared to alcohol and cigarettes is the answer to an economy and poverty problem. If the government is not going to make it legal it will be because they have some self-benefit off of our suffering.

Downing 9 Works Cited "Alcohol Linked to 75,000 U.S. Deaths a Year." Msnbc.com. MSN NEWS, 5 May 2005. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. Cuttler, Carrie, Ryan J McLaughlin, and Peter Graf. Mechanisms Underlying the Link between Cannabis Use and Prospective Memory. PloS one 7.5 (2012): e36820. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. Guither, Pete. "Why Is Marijuana Illegal?" Drug WarRant. Drug WarRant.com, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. "Literary Devices." Literary Devices. Magazine Basic, 2014. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. Quin, Sophia. "Marijuana Legalization: 20 Billion Is the One Number That Says It All."PolicyMic. Harvard University, 20 June 2013. Web. 07 Apr. 2014. Stimson, Charles. "Legalizing Marijuana: Why Citizens Should Just Say No." The Heritage Foundation. N.p., 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 05 Mar. 2014. Thompson, Stephen P. "Teens at Risk." Detroit: University, 11 Mar. 2011. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. Watts, Lindsey. 8 Things to Know about Buying and Smoking Pot in Colorado." NBC News. NBC, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. Weida, Stacey. "Welcome to the Purdue OWL." Purdue OWL: Establishing Arguments. Purdue Greenhaven Press, 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2014. WHO | Cannabis. n. pag. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.

For further learning: Bryan Downings WP3 Diigo research Word Count: 2616