should cannabis be legalised essay

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The Evidence—and Lack Thereof—About Cannabis

Research is still needed on cannabis’s risks and benefits. 

Lindsay Smith Rogers

Although the use and possession of cannabis is illegal under federal law, medicinal and recreational cannabis use has become increasingly widespread.

Thirty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical cannabis, while 23 states and D.C. have legalized recreational use. Cannabis legalization has benefits, such as removing the product from the illegal market so it can be taxed and regulated, but science is still trying to catch up as social norms evolve and different products become available. 

In this Q&A, adapted from the August 25 episode of Public Health On Call , Lindsay Smith Rogers talks with Johannes Thrul, PhD, MS , associate professor of Mental Health , about cannabis as medicine, potential risks involved with its use, and what research is showing about its safety and efficacy. 

Do you think medicinal cannabis paved the way for legalization of recreational use?

The momentum has been clear for a few years now. California was the first to legalize it for medical reasons [in 1996]. Washington and Colorado were the first states to legalize recreational use back in 2012. You see one state after another changing their laws, and over time, you see a change in social norms. It's clear from the national surveys that people are becoming more and more in favor of cannabis legalization. That started with medical use, and has now continued into recreational use.

But there is a murky differentiation between medical and recreational cannabis. I think a lot of people are using cannabis to self-medicate. It's not like a medication you get prescribed for a very narrow symptom or a specific disease. Anyone with a medical cannabis prescription, or who meets the age limit for recreational cannabis, can purchase it. Then what they use it for is really all over the place—maybe because it makes them feel good, or because it helps them deal with certain symptoms, diseases, and disorders.

Does cannabis have viable medicinal uses?

The evidence is mixed at this point. There hasn’t been a lot of funding going into testing cannabis in a rigorous way. There is more evidence for certain indications than for others, like CBD for seizures—one of the first indications that cannabis was approved for. And THC has been used effectively for things like nausea and appetite for people with cancer.

There are other indications where the evidence is a lot more mixed. For example, pain—one of the main reasons that people report for using cannabis. When we talk to patients, they say cannabis improved their quality of life. In the big studies that have been done so far, there are some indications from animal models that cannabis might help [with pain]. When we look at human studies, it's very much a mixed bag. 

And, when we say cannabis, in a way it's a misnomer because cannabis is so many things. We have different cannabinoids and different concentrations of different cannabinoids. The main cannabinoids that are being studied are THC and CBD, but there are dozens of other minor cannabinoids and terpenes in cannabis products, all of varying concentrations. And then you also have a lot of different routes of administration available. You can smoke, vape, take edibles, use tinctures and topicals. When you think about the explosion of all of the different combinations of different products and different routes of administration, it tells you how complicated it gets to study this in a rigorous way. You almost need a randomized trial for every single one of those and then for every single indication.

What do we know about the risks of marijuana use?  

Cannabis use disorder is a legitimate disorder in the DSM. There are, unfortunately, a lot of people who develop a problematic use of cannabis. We know there are risks for mental health consequences. The evidence is probably the strongest that if you have a family history of psychosis or schizophrenia, using cannabis early in adolescence is not the best idea. We know cannabis can trigger psychotic symptoms and potentially longer lasting problems with psychosis and schizophrenia. 

It is hard to study, because you also don't know if people are medicating early negative symptoms of schizophrenia. They wouldn't necessarily have a diagnosis yet, but maybe cannabis helps them to deal with negative symptoms, and then they develop psychosis. There is also some evidence that there could be something going on with the impact of cannabis on the developing brain that could prime you to be at greater risk of using other substances later down the road, or finding the use of other substances more reinforcing. 

What benefits do you see to legalization?

When we look at the public health landscape and the effect of legislation, in this case legalization, one of the big benefits is taking cannabis out of the underground illegal market. Taking cannabis out of that particular space is a great idea. You're taking it out of the illegal market and giving it to legitimate businesses where there is going to be oversight and testing of products, so you know what you're getting. And these products undergo quality control and are labeled. Those labels so far are a bit variable, but at least we're getting there. If you're picking up cannabis at the street corner, you have no idea what's in it. 

And we know that drug laws in general have been used to criminalize communities of color and minorities. Legalizing cannabis [can help] reduce the overpolicing of these populations.

What big questions about cannabis would you most like to see answered?

We know there are certain, most-often-mentioned conditions that people are already using medical cannabis for: pain, insomnia, anxiety, and PTSD. We really need to improve the evidence base for those. I think clinical trials for different cannabis products for those conditions are warranted.

Another question is, now that the states are getting more tax revenue from cannabis sales, what are they doing with that money? If you look at tobacco legislation, for example, certain states have required that those funds get used for research on those particular issues. To me, that would be a very good use of the tax revenue that is now coming in. We know, for example, that there’s a lot more tax revenue now that Maryland has legalized recreational use. Maryland could really step up here and help provide some of that evidence.

Are there studies looking into the risks you mentioned?

Large national studies are done every year or every other year to collect data, so we already have a pretty good sense of the prevalence of cannabis use disorder. Obviously, we'll keep tracking that to see if those numbers increase, for example, in states that are legalizing. But, you wouldn't necessarily expect to see an uptick in cannabis use disorder a month after legalization. The evidence from states that have legalized it has not demonstrated that we might all of a sudden see an increase in psychosis or in cannabis use disorder. This happens slowly over time with a change in social norms and availability, and potentially also with a change in marketing. And, with increasing use of an addictive substance, you will see over time a potential increase in problematic use and then also an increase in use disorder.

If you're interested in seeing if cannabis is right for you, is this something you can talk to your doctor about?

I think your mileage may vary there with how much your doctor is comfortable and knows about it. It's still relatively fringe. That will very much depend on who you talk to. But I think as providers and professionals, everybody needs to learn more about this, because patients are going to ask no matter what.

Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA, is the producer of the Public Health On Call podcast , an editor for Expert Insights , and the director of content strategy for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Five Reasons Why We Should Legalize Cannabis

Cannabis use in the United States has had a long and complicated history. For decades, people who used cannabis were subject to social ostracization and criminal prosecution. However, attitudes toward cannabis have been evolving in recent years. An increasing number of states have started to legalize cannabis for medical or recreational use. This shift in policy has been driven by a variety of factors including changing public attitudes and the potential economic benefits of legalization. In this article, we will explore the potential benefits of legalizing cannabis in our country.

1. Legalization for the Environment

Legalizing cannabis can have significant benefits for the environment. When cannabis is grown illegally, it is often done in environmentally damaging ways, such as using chemical pesticides or clearing primary forests to make room for crops. Legalization could allow customers to support more environmental growers. This will incentivize more responsible growing practices, such as the use of organic farming methods or the use of renewable energy sources to power indoor grow operations. In addition, the culture of growing cannabis can help to discover and preserve precious marijuana seeds , increasing biodiversity and facilitating a deeper understanding of cannabis plants and their cultivation.

2. Legalization for Justice

Where cannabis is illegal, people are being arrested and charged for possession or sale, which leads to costly court cases and a burden on the criminal justice system. Legalization would free up law enforcement resources to focus on more serious crimes and simultaneously reduce the number of people incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. This could help to reduce the overall prison population and save taxpayers money.

In addition, legalization can have significant benefits for justice and equity, particularly for marginalized communities that have been disproportionately affected by the criminalization of cannabis. Communities of color have been particularly affected by the war on drugs, with Black Americans being nearly four times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white Americans, despite similar rates of use.

By regulating cannabis cultivation and sales, legalization can help to eliminate the black market and reduce the involvement of criminal organizations in the cannabis industry. This can lead to safer communities and reduced drug-related violence in communities that have been most affected by the criminalization of cannabis.

3. Legalization for Public Health

Cannabis has been shown to have many beneficial and therapeutic effects on both physical and mental health. However, people may be hesitant to seek medical marijuana treatment due to fear of legal repercussions if cannabis is illegal. Legalization can allow more people to enjoy better health outcomes. It can also promote the safer use of cannabis by educating the public on appropriate cannabis use and providing quality control measures for cannabis products. Legalization can also lead to increased research into potential medical applications of cannabis and could lead to the development of innovative treatments.

Another potential perk of cannabis legalization is that it could reduce the use of more harmful drugs. In the absence of cannabis, people may turn to more dangerous drugs like heroin or fentanyl to manage chronic pain or other conditions. By legalizing cannabis, we can provide a safer alternative for these individuals and could reduce the overall demand for these more dangerous drugs. States that have legalized cannabis found a decrease in opioid overdose deaths and hospitalizations, suggesting that cannabis are an effective alternative to prescription painkillers.

4. Legalization for the Economy

The legalization of cannabis can generate significant tax revenue for governments and create new economic opportunities. When cannabis is illegal, it is sold on the black market, and no taxes are collected on these sales. However, when it is legal, sales can be regulated, and taxes can be imposed on those sales. In states that have legalized cannabis, tax revenue from cannabis sales has been in the millions of dollars , with California registering a whopping $1.2 billion in cannabis tax revenue in 2021. This impressive income can be used to reduce budget deficits, fund various public services such as education and healthcare, and create new opportunities for investment in projects that revitalize the economy.

Aside from tax revenue, legalizing cannabis can create new jobs. The cannabis industry is a rapidly growing industry, and legalization could lead to the creation of new jobs in areas such as cultivation, processing, and retail sales. This can help to reduce unemployment and create new gainful opportunities for people who may have struggled to find employment in other industries. Legalization can also lead to increased investment in related industries, such as the development of new products or technologies to improve cannabis cultivation or the creation of new retail businesses. There are now several venture capital funds and investment groups that focus solely on cannabis-related enterprises.

5. Legalization for Acceptance

Finally, legalization could help reduce the stigma surrounding cannabis use. Before cannabis legalization, people who use the plant were often viewed as criminals or deviants. Legalization can help change this perception and lead to more open and honest conversations about cannabis use. Ultimately, legalization could lead to a more accepting and inclusive society where individuals are not judged or discriminated against for their personal and healthcare choices. By legalizing cannabis, we can harness the power of a therapeutic plant. Legalization can heal not just physical and mental ailments of individuals but also the social wounds that have resulted from its criminalization.

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Should Marijuana Be Legalized Essay +Example

Marijuana legalization has been a topic of debate for decades, sparking conversations on both its potential benefits and drawbacks. The “Should Marijuana Be Legalized Essay” delves into the complexities of this issue, examining the arguments from various perspectives which you will also learn shortly.

While we learn how to write comprehensively on this topic, we will also navigate through the key points surrounding marijuana legalization, addressing both optimistic and cautious viewpoints as to make this authentic.

Marijuana , also known as cannabis, has long been a controversial substance, provoking discussions about its medicinal, recreational, and economic potential. With shifting societal attitudes and evolving scientific research, the question of “ whether marijuana should be legalized ” has gained significant attention.

In this article, we will explore the multifaceted aspects of this question and provide you with a well-rounded understanding of the topic.

So yeah, Let’s just dive into this amazing topic, shall we?

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Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

One thing we might need to know is that the central question of whether marijuana should be legalized is a complex issue that requires a thorough examination of its potential benefits and drawbacks. While supporters argue that legalization can lead to increased tax revenue , reduced crime rates, and improved medical access, opponents raise concerns about its impact on public health, impaired driving, and the potential for misuse which is everyone’s general and probably mine too.

But still, let’s see some lights in this…

The Positive Aspects

1. economic boost and tax revenue.

Legalizing marijuana can create a new stream of revenue for governments through taxation. Colorado, for example, reported over $300 million in tax revenue from legal marijuana sales in a single year. This revenue can be allocated to various public services, including education and healthcare.

2. Medical Benefits

Marijuana contains compounds with potential therapeutic effects. Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive compound, has shown promise in treating conditions such as epilepsy and chronic pain. Legalization can promote further research into the medical applications of cannabis, potentially leading to innovative treatments.

3. Crime Reduction

Legalizing marijuana can decrease the illegal drug market and associated criminal activities. Law enforcement resources can be redirected towards more pressing issues, leading to a potential reduction in crime rates and freeing up space in overcrowded prisons.

Related: Can You Use Contractions in College Essays? Exploring Formality in Academic Writing

The Cautious Viewpoints

1. public health concerns.

Opponents of legalization highlight concerns about the impact of marijuana on public health. Regular use, especially in young individuals, can lead to cognitive impairments, addiction, and mental health issues. Legalization might normalize its consumption and potentially exacerbate these problems.

2. Impaired Driving

Marijuana’s psychoactive effects can impair motor skills and reaction times, increasing the risk of accidents when driving under the influence. Developing effective methods for detecting impairment and enforcing laws to prevent impaired driving are challenging tasks.

3. Gateway Drug Theory

Some argue that marijuana use can act as a gateway to experimenting with more potent and dangerous substances. While this theory is debated, it underscores the importance of considering potential consequences on society’s well-being.

How to Write an Essay on “Should Marijuana Be Legalized” 500 words Sample

The debate over the legalization of marijuana has been a contentious issue for decades, sparking discussions on its potential benefits and drawbacks for individuals and society at large. While some advocate for its legalization due to its potential medical benefits and the potential for regulation, others raise concerns about its impact on public health and safety. This essay will delve into the arguments on both sides of the spectrum and ultimately conclude whether marijuana should be legalized.

• Medical Benefits and Economic Potential: One of the primary reasons for the push to legalize marijuana is its potential medical benefits. Numerous studies have shown that certain compounds in marijuana, such as CBD (cannabidiol), can be effective in treating various medical conditions, including chronic pain, epilepsy, and anxiety disorders. Legalizing marijuana could facilitate further research into its medicinal applications, potentially leading to the development of new treatments and medications.

From an economic standpoint, legalization could create new industries and generate substantial tax revenue. Legalizing and regulating marijuana could create jobs in cultivation, distribution, and sales. Additionally, the taxation of legal marijuana sales could provide governments with much-needed funds for public services and initiatives.

• Criminal Justice Reform: Proponents of legalization often emphasize the potential for criminal justice reform. Criminalizing marijuana has disproportionately affected marginalized communities, leading to unjust arrests and convictions. Legalization could alleviate the burden on law enforcement, reduce incarceration rates for nonviolent offenses, and redirect resources toward more serious crimes.
• Regulation and Consumer Safety: Legalizing marijuana allows for better regulation and quality control. When the substance is illegal, it’s often obtained from unregulated sources, raising concerns about product safety and purity. Legalization would enable governments to implement strict quality standards, ensuring that consumers receive safe and reliable products.
• Public Health and Safety Concerns: However, opponents of legalization argue that marijuana poses significant public health and safety risks. They point to studies suggesting that regular marijuana use can have negative effects on cognitive function, particularly in adolescents whose brains are still developing. Moreover, concerns about impaired driving and workplace safety persist, as the psychoactive compounds in marijuana can impair judgment and motor skills.
• Gateway Drug Hypothesis: Another argument against legalization is the “gateway drug” hypothesis, suggesting that marijuana use may lead individuals to experiment with more dangerous substances. While research on this topic is inconclusive, some fear that legalizing marijuana could contribute to a larger drug abuse problem.
• Addiction and Dependency: Critics also raise concerns about the potential for marijuana addiction and dependency. While not everyone who uses marijuana will develop a dependence, some individuals may experience withdrawal symptoms and struggle to quit, impacting their overall well-being.

The question of whether marijuana should be legalized is complex, with valid points on both sides of the debate. The potential medical benefits, economic opportunities, and criminal justice reform that could result from legalization are compelling arguments. However, it’s essential to consider the potential public health and safety risks, particularly regarding cognitive development in young individuals and the possibility of increased drug abuse.

Ultimately, the decision to legalize marijuana should be approached cautiously, with a focus on evidence-based policies and comprehensive regulations. Striking a balance between individual freedoms, public health, and societal well-being is crucial. As society continues to evolve, it’s essential to engage in informed and thoughtful discussions that weigh the potential benefits and drawbacks of marijuana legalization.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Faq 1: is marijuana addictive.

Marijuana can be psychologically addictive, leading to dependence in some individuals, especially with prolonged use.

FAQ 2: Does marijuana have any proven medical benefits?

Yes, compounds in marijuana, such as CBD, have demonstrated potential medical benefits, particularly in managing certain medical conditions.

FAQ 3: Can legalized marijuana reduce crime rates?

Legalization can potentially reduce certain types of crime by eliminating the black market, but its overall impact varies by region.

FAQ 4: How does marijuana legalization affect adolescents?

Legalization may contribute to increased availability and normalization, raising concerns about its impact on developing brains and mental health in adolescents.

FAQ 5: What are the challenges of regulating marijuana?

Regulation involves addressing issues like potency control, labeling, advertising, and preventing sales to minors.

FAQ 6: Does marijuana use lead to harder drug use?

The relationship between marijuana use and subsequent use of harder drugs is complex and not fully understood, with multiple factors at play.

Final Verdict

In conclusion, the debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana is a multifaceted and nuanced issue that requires careful consideration of its potential impacts on various aspects of society.

While proponents highlight its medical benefits, economic potential, and the opportunity for criminal justice reform, opponents raise valid concerns about public health, safety, and the risk of increased substance abuse.

The decision to legalize marijuana should not be taken lightly. It necessitates a comprehensive evaluation of the available evidence, experiences of other jurisdictions that have legalized it, and a commitment to implementing robust regulatory frameworks. Striking the right balance between personal liberty and societal well-being is paramount.

As societies continue to evolve, it is important to approach this debate with an open mind and a willingness to adapt to new information. Whether one stands on the side of legalization or not, it is clear that the conversation around marijuana should be guided by scientific research, social impact assessments, and the experiences of communities that have navigated similar changes.

In the end, the question of whether marijuana should be legalized is not one that can be answered definitively.

It is a complex issue that requires ongoing dialogue, careful study, and a commitment to finding solutions that prioritize the health, safety, and freedom of individuals while safeguarding the broader interests of society.

Related: Should College Athletes Be Paid Essay + Example

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2018 Theses Doctoral

Essays on Cannabis Legalization

Thomas, Danna Kang

Though the drug remains illegal at the federal level, in recent years states and localities have increasingly liberalized their marijuana laws in order to generate tax revenue and save resources on marijuana law enforcement. Many states have adopted some form of medical marijuana and/or marijuana decriminalization laws, and as of 2017, Washington, Colorado, Maine, California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Nevada, Alaska, and the District of Columbia have all legalized marijuana for recreational use. In 2016 recreational marijuana generated over $1.8 billion in sales. Hence, studying marijuana reforms and the policies and outcomes of early recreational marijuana adopters is an important area of research. However, perhaps due to the fact that legalized recreational cannabis is a recent phenomenon, a scarcity of research exists on the impacts of recreational cannabis legalization and the efficacy and efficiency of cannabis regulation. This dissertation aims to fill this gap, using the Washington recreational marijuana market as the primary setting to study cannabis legalization in the United States. Of first order importance in the regulation of sin goods such as cannabis is quantifying the value of the marginal damages of negative externalities. Hence, Chapter 1 (co-authored with Lin Tian) explores the impact of marijuana dispensary location on neighborhood property values, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in marijuana retailer location. Policymakers and advocates have long expressed concerns that the positive effects of the legalization--e.g., increases in tax revenue--are well spread spatially, but the negative effects are highly localized through channels such as crime. Hence, we use changes in property values to measure individuals' willingness to pay to avoid localized externalities caused by the arrival of marijuana dispensaries. Our key identification strategy is to compare changes in housing sales around winners and losers in a lottery for recreational marijuana retail licenses. (Due to location restrictions, license applicants were required to provide an address of where they would like to locate.) Hence, we have the locations of both actual entrants and potential entrants, which provides a natural difference-in-differences set-up. Using data from King County, Washington, we find an almost 2.4% decrease in the value of properties within a 0.5 mile radius of an entrant, a $9,400 decline in median property values. The aforementioned retail license lottery was used to distribute licenses due to a license quota. Retail license quotas are often used by states to regulate entry into sin goods markets as quotas can restrict consumption by decreasing access and by reducing competition (and, therefore, increasing markups). However, license quotas also create allocative inefficiency. For example, license quotas are often based on the population of a city or county. Hence, licenses are not necessarily allocated to the areas where they offer the highest marginal benefit. Moreover, as seen in the case of the Washington recreational marijuana market, licenses are often distributed via lottery, meaning that in the absence of an efficiency secondary market for licenses, the license recipients are not necessarily the most efficient potential entrants. This allocative inefficiency is generated by heterogeneity in firms and consumers. Therefore, in Chapter 2, I develop a model of demand and firm pricing in order to investigate firm-level heterogeneity and inefficiency. Demand is differentiated by geography and incorporates consumer demographics. I estimate this demand model using data on firm sales from Washington. Utilizing the estimates and firm pricing model, I back out a non-parametric distribution of firm variable costs. These variable costs differ by product and firm and provide a measure of firm inefficiency. I find that variable costs have lower inventory turnover; hence, randomly choosing entrants in a lottery could be a large contributor to allocative inefficiency. Chapter 3 explores the sources of allocative inefficiency in license distribution in the Washington recreational marijuana market. A difficulty in studying the welfare effects of license quotas is finding credible counterfactuals of unrestricted entry. Therefore, I take a structural approach: I first develop a three stage model that endogenizes firm entry and incorporates the spatial demand and pricing model discussed in Chapter 2. Using the estimates of the demand and pricing model, I estimate firms' fixed costs and use data on locations of those potential entrants that did not win Washington's retail license lottery to simulate counterfactual entry patterns. I find that allowing firms to enter freely at Washington's current marijuana tax rate increases total surplus by 21.5% relative to a baseline simulation of Washington's license quota regime. Geographic misallocation and random allocation of licenses account for 6.6\% and 65.9\% of this difference, respectively. Moreover, as the primary objective of these quotas is to mitigate the negative externalities of marijuana consumption, I study alternative state tax policies that directly control for the marginal damages of marijuana consumption. Free entry with tax rates that keep the quantity of marijuana or THC consumed equal to baseline consumption increases welfare by 6.9% and 11.7%, respectively. I also explore the possibility of heterogeneous marginal damages of consumption across geography, backing out the non-uniform sales tax across geography that is consistent with Washington's license quota policy. Free entry with a non-uniform sales tax increases efficiency by over 7% relative to the baseline simulation of license quotas due to improvements in license allocation.

• Cannabis--Law and legislation
• Marijuana industry
• Drug legalization
• Drugs--Economic aspects

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Regions & Countries

Most americans favor legalizing marijuana for medical, recreational use, legalizing recreational marijuana viewed as good for local economies; mixed views of impact on drug use, community safety.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand the public’s views about the legalization of marijuana in the United States. For this analysis, we surveyed 5,140 adults from Jan. 16 to Jan. 21, 2024. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for the report and its methodology .

As more states pass laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use , Americans continue to favor legalization of both medical and recreational use of the drug.

An overwhelming share of U.S. adults (88%) say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use.

Nearly six-in-ten Americans (57%) say that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational purposes, while roughly a third (32%) say that marijuana should be legal for medical use only.

Just 11% of Americans say that the drug should not be legal at all.

Opinions about marijuana legalization have changed little over the past five years, according to the Pew Research Center survey, conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024, among 5,14o adults.

The impact of legalizing marijuana for recreational use

While a majority of Americans continue to say marijuana should be legal , there are varying views about the impacts of recreational legalization.

About half of Americans (52%) say that legalizing the recreational use of marijuana is good for local economies; just 17% think it is bad and 29% say it has no impact.

More adults also say legalizing marijuana for recreational use makes the criminal justice system more fair (42%) than less fair (18%); 38% say it has no impact.

However, Americans have mixed views on the impact of legalizing marijuana for recreational use on:

• Use of other drugs: About as many say it increases (29%) as say it decreases (27%) the use of other drugs, like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine (42% say it has no impact).
• Community safety: More Americans say legalizing recreational marijuana makes communities less safe (34%) than say it makes them safer (21%); 44% say it has no impact.

Partisan differences on impact of recreational use of marijuana

There are deep partisan divisions regarding the impact of marijuana legalization for recreational use.

Majorities of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say legalizing recreational marijuana is good for local economies (64% say this) and makes the criminal justice system fairer (58%).

Fewer Republicans and Republican leaners say legalization for recreational use has a positive effect on local economies (41%) and the criminal justice system (27%).

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite downsides from legalizing recreational marijuana:

• 42% of Republicans say it increases the use of other drugs, like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, compared with just 17% of Democrats.
• 48% of Republicans say it makes communities less safe, more than double the share of Democrats (21%) who say this.

Demographic, partisan differences in views of marijuana legalization

Sizable age and partisan differences persist on the issue of marijuana legalization though small shares of adults across demographic groups are completely opposed to it.

Older adults are far less likely than younger adults to favor marijuana legalization.

This is particularly the case among adults ages 75 and older: 31% say marijuana should be legal for both medical and recreational use.

By comparison, half of adults between the ages of 65 and 74 say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, and larger shares in younger age groups say the same.

Republicans continue to be less supportive than Democrats of legalizing marijuana for both legal and recreational use: 42% of Republicans favor legalizing marijuana for both purposes, compared with 72% of Democrats.

There continue to be ideological differences within each party:

• 34% of conservative Republicans say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, compared with a 57% majority of moderate and liberal Republicans.
• 62% of conservative and moderate Democrats say marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use, while an overwhelming majority of liberal Democrats (84%) say this.

Views of marijuana legalization vary by age within both parties

Along with differences by party and age, there are also age differences within each party on the issue.

A 57% majority of Republicans ages 18 to 29 favor making marijuana legal for medical and recreational use, compared with 52% among those ages 30 to 49 and much smaller shares of older Republicans.

Still, wide majorities of Republicans in all age groups favor legalizing marijuana at least for medical use. Among those ages 65 and older, just 20% say marijuana should not be legal even for medical purposes.

While majorities of Democrats across all age groups support legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use, older Democrats are less likely to say this.

About half of Democrats ages 75 and older (53%) say marijuana should be legal for both purposes, but much larger shares of younger Democrats say the same (including 81% of Democrats ages 18 to 29). Still, only 7% of Democrats ages 65 and older think marijuana should not be legalized even for medical use, similar to the share of all other Democrats who say this.

Views of the effects of legalizing recreational marijuana among racial and ethnic groups

Substantial shares of Americans across racial and ethnic groups say when marijuana is legal for recreational use, it has a more positive than negative impact on the economy and criminal justice system.

About half of White (52%), Black (53%) and Hispanic (51%) adults say legalizing recreational marijuana is good for local economies. A slightly smaller share of Asian adults (46%) say the same.

Criminal justice

Across racial and ethnic groups, about four-in-ten say that recreational marijuana being legal makes the criminal justice system fairer, with smaller shares saying it would make it less fair.

However, there are wider racial differences on questions regarding the impact of recreational marijuana on the use of other drugs and the safety of communities.

Use of other drugs

Nearly half of Black adults (48%) say recreational marijuana legalization doesn’t have an effect on the use of drugs like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine. Another 32% in this group say it decreases the use of these drugs and 18% say it increases their use.

In contrast, Hispanic adults are slightly more likely to say legal marijuana increases the use of these other drugs (39%) than to say it decreases this use (30%); 29% say it has no impact.

Among White adults, the balance of opinion is mixed: 28% say marijuana legalization increases the use of other drugs and 25% say it decreases their use (45% say it has no impact). Views among Asian adults are also mixed, though a smaller share (31%) say legalization has no impact on the use of other drugs.

Community safety

Hispanic and Asian adults also are more likely to say marijuana’s legalization makes communities less safe: 41% of Hispanic adults and 46% of Asian adults say this, compared with 34% of White adults and 24% of Black adults.

Wide age gap on views of impact of legalizing recreational marijuana

Young Americans view the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in more positive terms compared with their older counterparts.

Clear majorities of adults under 30 say it is good for local economies (71%) and that it makes the criminal justice system fairer (59%).

By comparison, a third of Americans ages 65 and older say legalizing the recreational use of marijuana is good for local economies; about as many (32%) say it makes the criminal justice system more fair.

There also are sizable differences in opinion by age about how legalizing recreational marijuana affects the use of other drugs and the safety of communities.

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Table of contents, most americans now live in a legal marijuana state – and most have at least one dispensary in their county, 7 facts about americans and marijuana, americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use, clear majorities of black americans favor marijuana legalization, easing of criminal penalties, religious americans are less likely to endorse legal marijuana for recreational use, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Should Marijuana Be Legal?

And the author alex berenson makes a case against pot..

With Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt

Listen and subscribe to our podcast from your mobile device:

Apple Podcasts | RadioPublic | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Play

This week on “The Argument” podcast, the columnists talk pot. First, Michelle Goldberg presses former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson on his forthcoming book about the dangers of marijuana, “ Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence .”

Then, the columnists debate which marijuana policy the country should pursue. Michelle argues the harms of criminalizing weed outweigh the harms of legalizing it. Ross Douthat worries about the broader social impacts of legalization and the growth of the cannabis industry. And David Leonhardt favors a middle path, one that forgoes harsh penalties for marijuana use without incentivizing more Americans to try it.

And finally, merry … Advent? Ross taps into his liturgical side to recommend a solution to the seasonal “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays” dilemma.

Background Reading:

Ross on marijuana and social libertarianism

David on marijuana’s health effects

Meet the Hosts

Ross douthat.

I’ve been an Op-Ed columnist since 2009, and I write about politics, religion, pop culture, sociology and the places where they all intersect. I’m a Catholic and a conservative, in that order, which means that I’m against abortion and critical of the sexual revolution, but I tend to agree with liberals that the Republican Party is too friendly to the rich. I was against Donald Trump in 2016 for reasons specific to Donald Trump, but in general I think the populist movements in Europe and America have legitimate grievances and I often prefer the populists to the “reasonable” elites. I’ve written books about Harvard, the G.O.P., American Christianity and Pope Francis; I’m working on one about decadence. Benedict XVI was my favorite pope. I review movies for National Review and have strong opinions about many prestige television shows. I have three small children, two girls and a boy, and I live in New Haven with my wife.

Michelle Goldberg

I’ve been an Op-Ed columnist at The New York Times since 2017, writing mainly about politics, ideology and gender. These days people on the right and the left both use “liberal” as an epithet, but that’s basically what I am, though the nightmare of Donald Trump’s presidency has radicalized me and pushed me leftward. I’ve written three books, including one, in 2006, about the danger of right-wing populism in its religious fundamentalist guise. (My other two were about the global battle over reproductive rights and, in a brief detour from politics, about an adventurous Russian émigré who helped bring yoga to the West.) I love to travel; a long time ago, after my husband and I eloped, we spent a year backpacking through Asia. Now we live in Brooklyn with our son and daughter.

David Leonhardt

I’ve worked at The Times since 1999 and have been an Op-Ed columnist since 2016. I caught the journalism bug a very long time ago — first as a little kid in the late 1970s who loved reading the Boston Globe sports section and later as a teenager working on my high school and college newspapers. I discovered that when my classmates and I put a complaint in print, for everyone to see, school administrators actually paid attention. I’ve since worked as a metro reporter at The Washington Post and a writer at BusinessWeek magazine. At The Times, I started as a reporter in the business section and have also been a Times Magazine staff writer, the Washington bureau chief and the founding editor of The Upshot.

My politics are left of center. But I’m also to the right of many Times readers. I think education reform has accomplished a lot. I think two-parent families are good for society. I think progressives should be realistic about the cultural conservatism that dominates much of this country. Most of all, however, I worry deeply about today’s Republican Party, which has become dangerously extreme. This country faces some huge challenges — inequality, climate change, the rise of China — and they’ll be very hard to solve without having both parties committed to the basic functioning of American democracy.

How do I listen?

Tune in on iTunes , Google Play , Spotify , Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow Michelle Goldberg ( @michelleinbklyn ), Ross Douthat ( @DouthatNYT ) and David Leonhardt ( @DLeonhardt ) on Twitter.

This week’s show is produced by Alex Laughlin for Transmitter Media, with help from Caitlin Pierce. Our executive producer is Gretta Cohn. We had help from Tyson Evans, Phoebe Lett and Ian Prasad Philbrick. Our theme is composed by Allison Leyton-Brown. Thank you to Kaiser Health News. Check out its podcast “What the Health.”

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Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana

The pros of legalizing marijuana, the cons of legalizing marijuana.

• Scientific Evidence

The pros and cons of legalizing marijuana are still being debated. Today, 37 U.S. states allow for the medical use of marijuana. A growing number allow recreational use.

However, as a Schedule I controlled substance, marijuana is illegal under federal law. This Drug Enforcement Administration designation means that marijuana is considered to have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." It also limits medical studies into the potential benefits of cannabis .

This article explains the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana, as some have argued them.

Americans overwhelmingly support the legalization of marijuana. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 88% of Americans support legalizing marijuana. Of those, 59% say it should be legal for medical and recreational use and 30% say it should be legal for medical reasons only.

Several possible health benefits of medical marijuana have been proposed:

• Nausea : Marijuana is effective in relieving nausea and vomiting. Studies have shown that cannabis can decrease nausea caused by chemotherapy and almost eliminate vomiting.
• Spasticity : Marijuana can relieve pain and spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis.
• Appetite : Marijuana can help treat appetite loss associated with conditions like  HIV/AIDS and certain types of cancers.
• Chronic pain : Marijuana can relieve certain types of chronic pain, including neuropathic pain, which is caused by nerve damage.

And arguments in favor of using medical marijuana include:

• It's safer : Marijuana is safer than some other medications prescribed to treat pain. For example, some people may use it instead of opioids for pain management. Opioids are highly addictive and are typically not recommended for long-term use in treating chronic pain.
• You can use it in many ways : You do not need to smoke cannabis for its benefits. Products such as cannabidiol oil (CBD), topical pain relief treatments, edibles, and other non-smoking applications are now available.
• You don't need to get high : As studies continue, researchers are finding benefits in the individual compounds in cannabis. When these chemicals are isolated—such as CBD has been—they can offer treatment options without the "high" produced by the compound commonly known as THC.
• It's natural : People have used marijuana for centuries as a natural medicinal agent with good results.

Recreational Marijuana

Marijuana is legal for recreational use in 20 states and the District of Columbia. In 20 other states, marijuana has been decriminalized. This means there are no criminal penalties in these states for minor marijuana-related offenses like possession of small amounts or cultivation for personal use.

Those who oppose the legalization of marijuana point to the health risks of the drug, including:

• Memory issues : Frequent marijuana use may seriously affect your short-term memory.
• Cognition problems : Frequent use can impair your cognitive (thinking) abilities.
• Lung damage : Smoking anything, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, can damage your lung tissue. In addition, smoking marijuana could increase the risk of lung cancer .
• Abuse : Marijuana carries a risk of abuse and addiction.
• Accidents : Marijuana use impairs driving skills and increases the risk for car collisions.

The fact that the federal government groups it in the same category as drugs like heroin, LSD, and ecstasy is reason enough to keep it illegal, some say. As Schedule I drugs are defined by having no accepted value, legalization could give users the wrong impression about where research on the drug stands.

Scientific Evidence Remains Limited

In the past, clinical trials to to determine if marijuana is effective in treating certain conditions have been restrictive and limited. However, as medical marijuana becomes more common throughout the world, researchers are doing more studies.

Expert reviews of current research continue to say more studies are needed. In addition, many hurdles involve controlling the quality and dosing of cannabis with what is legally available to researchers.

One review of research noted that the long-term effects of cannabis are still unknown. Without more research into dosage and adverse effects, scientific evidence of risks and therapeutic effects remains soft.

Researchers need to evaluate marijuana using the same standards as other medications to understand whether it is valuable for managing any conditions.

Until the federal government downgrades marijuana from a Schedule I drug, widespread clinical trials are unlikely to happen in the United States.

Medical marijuana is increasingly available in the U.S. It is often used to treat chronic pain, muscle spasms, and nausea and vomiting, and to increase appetite. However, it can affect thinking and memory, increase the risk of accidents, and smoking it may harm the lungs and lead to cancer.

More studies are needed to understand the benefits of medical marijuana. However, unless the federal government removes it as a Schedule I controlled substance, research, access, and legality will remain complicated.

A Word From Verywell

There are both benefits and risks to medical marijuana. If you're considering using marijuana medicinally, don't be afraid to talk to your doctor about it. They can help you determine whether marijuana may be the proper treatment for you.

Medical marijuana remains controversial, but it is gaining traction as a legitimate recommendation for various symptoms. Even though many states have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes and recreational use, more research is needed.

National Conference of State Legislatures. State medical marijuana laws .

United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Drug scheduling .

Pew Research Center. Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal for recreational or medical use .

Badowski ME. A review of oral cannabinoids and medical marijuana for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: a focus on pharmacokinetic variability and pharmacodynamics . Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2017;80(3):441-449. doi:10.1007/s00280-017-3387-5

Corey-Bloom J, Wolfson T, Gamst A, et al. Smoked cannabis for spasticity in multiple sclerosis: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial .  CMAJ . 2012;184(10):1143-1150. doi:10.1503/cmaj.110837

American Cancer Society. Marijuana and Cancer .

Hill KP. Medical marijuana for treatment of chronic pain and other medical and psychiatric problems: A clinical review . JAMA. 2015;313(24):2474-83. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.6199

Choo EK, Feldstein Ewing SW, Lovejoy TI. Opioids out, cannabis in: Negotiating the unknowns in patient care for chronic pain . JAMA . 2016;316(17):1763-1764. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.13677

Corroon J, Sexton M, Bradley R. Indications and administration practices amongst medical cannabis healthcare providers: a cross-sectional survey . BMC Fam Pract. 2019;20(1):174. doi:10.1186/s12875-019-1059-8

Morales P, Reggio PH, Jagerovic N. An overview on medicinal chemistry of synthetic and natural derivatives of cannabidiol . Front Pharmacol . 2017;8:422. doi:10.3389/fphar.2017.00422

The Council of State Governments. State approaches to marijuana policy .

Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School. The Effects of Marijuana on your Memory .

Ghasemiesfe M, Barrow B, Leonard S, Keyhani S, Korenstein D. Association between marijuana use and risk of cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis . JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(11):e1916318. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.16318

Preuss U, Huestis M, Schneider M et al. Cannabis use and car crashes: A review . Front Psychiatry . 2021;12. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.643315

Deshpande A, Mailis-Gagnon A, Zoheiry N, Lakha SF. Efficacy and adverse effects of medical marijuana for chronic noncancer pain: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials . Can Fam Physician. 2015;61(8):e372-81.

Hill KP, Palastro MD, Johnson B, Ditre JW. Cannabis and pain: a clinical review .  Cannabis Cannabinoid Res . 2017;2(1):96-104. doi:10.1089/can.2017.0017

Maida V, Daeninck PJ. A user's guide to cannabinoid therapies in oncology . Curr Oncol. 2016;23(6):398-406. doi:10.3747/co.23.3487

Meier MH, Caspi A, Cerdá M, et al. Associations between cannabis use and physical health problems in early midlife: A longitudinal comparison of persistent cannabis vs tobacco users. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73(7):731-40. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.0637

By Angela Morrow, RN Angela Morrow, RN, BSN, CHPN, is a certified hospice and palliative care nurse.

Argumentative Essay On Marijuana Legalization

Published by gudwriter on May 27, 2018 May 27, 2018

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Why Marijuana Should be Legalized Argumentative Essay Outline

Introduction.

Thesis: Marijuana should be legalized as it is more beneficial that it may be detrimental to society.

Paragraph 1:

Marijuana has not caused turmoil in some of the countries where it has been legalized.

• Marijuana does not increase violent, and property crimes as many suggest.
• Studies reveal that in Colorado, violent crimes have declined following the legalization of marijuana.

Paragraph 2:

Prohibiting use of marijuana does not limit its consumption.

• In spite of the many laws prohibiting the use of marijuana, it is one of the most highly abused drugs.
• 58% of young people from all over the world use marijuana.
• It has not been attributed to any health complications.

Paragraph 3:

Legalization of marijuana would help state governments save taxpayers money.

• Governments spend lots of funds on law enforcement agencies that uphold laws restricting the use of marijuana.
• They also spend vast sums of money on sustaining arrested dealers and consumers in prison.
• Legalizing marijuana would result in saving vast sums of money.

Paragraph 4:

Marijuana is less noxious than other legal substances.

• Marijuana has less health side effects than other legal substances such as alcohol and tobacco.
• Alcohol is 114 times more destructive than marijuana.

Paragraph 5:

Marijuana has been proven to have medical benefits.

• Marijuana helps stop seizures in epileptic patients.
• It helps stop nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy .

Paragraph 6:

Marijuana has been proven to be a stress reliever.

• Marijuana relieves stress and depression in their users by causing excitement.
• Its use reduces violence and deaths related to stress and depression.

Conclusion.

There are many misconceptions about marijuana existent in the modern world. People have continued to ignore health benefits linked to this substance citing their unproven beliefs. Owing to its ability to stop seizures, nausea, and stress in individuals governments should highly consider marijuana legalization. Its legalization will also help state governments reduce expenses that result from maintaining suspects convicted of marijuana possession and consumption.

Why Marijuana Should be Legalized Argumentative Essay

The argument that marijuana use should be made legal has gained momentum both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world in recent years. This has seen the drug being legalized in some states in the U.S. such that by 2013, twenty states had legalized medical marijuana. As of the same year, Colorado and Washington had legalized recreational marijuana. The arguments behind the push for legalization majorly revolve around the idea that the drug has medicinal effects. However, there are also arguments that there are serious health effects associated with the drug and this has only further fueled the already raging debate. This paper argues that marijuana should be legalized as it is more beneficial that it may be detrimental to society.

Marijuana has not caused any notable negative effects in countries where it has been legalized. There is a general belief that marijuana consumers are violent. However, no authentic research can prove these assertions. As already seen, some states in the United States have legalized both medicinal and recreational marijuana. In spite of this, no cases of marijuana-related violence have been recorded so far in such states (Markol, 2018). Reports reveal that the rate of violence and property crimes have decreased in Colorado following the legalization of the drug. If marijuana does not increase violent crimes, there is no reason as to why it should not be legalized.

It is also noteworthy that prohibiting marijuana use does not limit its consumption. Less than 10% of countries in the world prevent the use of marijuana, but according to research, 58% of young people in most of these countries are marijuana users (Head, 2016). General reports reveal that marijuana is one of most commonly abused drug in the world. It is also readily available in most states as it is a naturally growing plant (Head, 2016). In spite of its continued use, there are few cases, if any, of marijuana-related health complications that have been reported in any of these countries (Head, 2016). Therefore, if the illegality of marijuana does not limit its consumption, then state governments should consider its legalization.

Legalization of marijuana would further help state governments save taxpayers’ money. It is widely known that in countries where marijuana is illegal, authorities are stringent and will arrest any individual found in possession of the drug (Sanger, 2017). However, as earlier mentioned, laws prohibiting the use of the drug do not prevent its consumption, and this means that many people are arrested and prosecuted for possessing it (Sanger, 2017). State governments therefore use a lot of funds to support law enforcement agencies that seek to uphold laws prohibiting the use of marijuana (Sanger, 2017). Many people have been arrested and incarcerated for either possessing or consuming the drug, and the government has to use taxpayers’ money to sustain such people in prison. Since these actions do not limit consumption of marijuana, state governments should legalize the drug so as to save taxpayers money.

Another advantage of marijuana is that it is less noxious than other legal substances. According to research, marijuana is the least harmful drug among the many legal drugs existent in the world today (Owen, 2014). There are millions of campaigns every year cautioning people against smoking cigarettes, but there has been none seeking to warn people about marijuana consumption (Owen, 2014). Lobby groups have even been making efforts to push for legalization of marijuana. If marijuana had severe health effects as many purport, state governments would be investing heavily in campaigns aimed at discouraging its consumption (Owen, 2014). According to studies, alcohol, which is legal in many countries, is 114 times more harmful than marijuana (Owen, 2014). Therefore, if such harmful substances can be legalized, then there are no justifications as to why marijuana should not be legalized.

Further, marijuana has been proven to have medicinal benefits. Several countries, particularly in Europe, and the United States have legalized both medicinal and recreational marijuana. Their move to legalize marijuana was based on medical reports that showed a variety of health benefits linked to the drug (Noonan, 2017). Research shows that marijuana can reduce seizures in epileptic persons. Several studies have also proven that the drug indeed has a variety of health benefits. For instance, Charlotte Figi, who is now aged 10, used to have more than 100 seizures every month at age three, but since Colorado legalized medicinal and recreational marijuana, her parents started treating her with the substance, and today her seizures have significantly reduced (Noonan, 2017). Marijuana has as well been proven to reduce nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Owing to this medicinal value, state governments should consider legalizing the drug.

Additionally, marijuana has been proven to be a stress reliever. Consumption of the drug causes excitement among its users enabling them to forget about troubling situations. Unlike alcohol which is likely to aggravate stress and depression, marijuana works wonders in alleviating anxiety and depression (Sanger, 2017). There are many health and social effects associated with stress, including mental disorders and violence against others (Sanger, 2017). To avoid cases of stress-related violence and mental disorders, state governments should make marijuana consumption legal.

There are many misconceptions about marijuana in the world today. People have continued to ignore the health benefits linked with this substance and have instead focused on citing yet-to-be proven misconceptions. Owing to the ability of the drug to stop seizures, nausea, and stress in individuals, governments should seriously consider its legalization. The legalization will also help state governments reduce expenses that result from sustaining suspects convicted of marijuana possession and consumption. So far, there is more than enough evidence proving that marijuana has lots of benefits to individuals, the society, and the government, and therefore should be legalized.

Head, T. (2016). “8 reasons why marijuana should be legalized”. ThoughtCo . Retrieved June 27, 2020 from https://www.thoughtco.com/reasons-why-marijuana-should-be-legalized-721154

Markol, T. (2018). “5 reasons why marijuana should be legalized”. Marijuana Reform . Retrieved June 27, 2020 from http://marijuanareform.org/5-reasons-marijuana-legalized/

Noonan, D. (2017). “Marijuana treatment reduces severe epileptic seizures”. Scientific American . Retrieved June 27, 2020 from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marijuana-treatment-reduces-severe-epileptic-seizures/

Owen, P. (2014). “6 powerful reasons to legalize marijuana”. New York Times . Retrieved June 27, 2020 from https://www.alternet.org/drugs/6-powerful-reasons-new-york-times-says-end-marijuana-prohibition

Sanger, B. (2017). “10 legit reasons why weed should be legalized right now”. Herb . Retrieved June 27, 2020 from https://herb.co/marijuana/news/reasons-weed-legalized

Why Marijuana Should be Legal Essay Outline

Thesis:  Marijuana has health benefits and should thus be legal.

Benefits of Marijuana

Marijuana slows and stops the spread of cancer cells.

• Cannabidiol can turn off a gene called Id-1 and can therefore stop cancer.
• In an experiment, researchers were able to treat breast cancer cells with Cannabidiol.

Marijuana helps with pain and nausea reduction for people going through chemotherapy.

• Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer from severe pains and nausea.
• This can further complicate their health.
• Marijuana can stir up their appetite, decrease nausea, and reduce pain.

Paragraph  3:

Marijuana can control epileptic seizure.

• Marijuana extract stopped seizures in epileptic rats in ten hours.
• The seizures were controlled by the THC.

Disadvantages of Marijuana

Marijuana is addictive.

• One in ten marijuana users become addicted over time.
• If one stops using the drug abruptly, they may suffer from such withdrawal symptoms.

Marijuana use decreases mental health.

• Users suffer from memory loss and restricted blood flow to the brain.
• Users have higher chances of developing depression and schizophrenia.

Marijuana use damages the lungs more than cigarette smoking .

• Marijuana smokers inhale the smoke more deeply into their lungs and let it stay there for longer.
• The likelihood of lung cancer can be increased by this deeper, longer exposure to carcinogens.

Why Marijuana Should Be Legal

Paragraph 7:

Improved quality and safety control.

• Legalization would lead to the creation of a set of standards for safety and quality control.
• Users would know what they exactly get in exchange for the money they offer.
• There would be no risks of users taking in unknown substances mixed in marijuana.

Paragraph 8:

Marijuana has a medicinal value.

• Medical marijuana treats a wide assortment of “untreatable” diseases and conditions.
• Public health would be improved and the healthcare system would experience less of a drain.  

Paragraph 9: 

Among the major arguments against marijuana legalization is often that legalization would yield an increase in drug-impaired driving.

• This argument holds that even now when the drug is yet to be fully legalized in the country, it is a major causal factor in highway deaths, injuries, and crushes.
• It however beats logic why marijuana is illegalized on the ground that it would increase drug-impaired driving while alcohol is legal but also significantly contributes to the same problem.

Legalization of marijuana would have many benefits. The drug is associated with the treatment of many serious illnesses including the dreaded cancer. Legalization would also save users from consuming unsafe marijuana sold by unscrupulous people.

Why Marijuana Should Be Legal Essay

There is an ongoing tension between the belief that marijuana effectively treats a wide range of ailments and the argument that it has far-reaching negative health effects. There has nevertheless been a drive towards legalization of the drug in the United States with twenty nine states and the District of Columbia having legalized it for medical and recreational purposes. It was also found by a study that there is a sharp increase in the use of marijuana across the country (Kerr, Lui & Ye, 2017). Major public health concerns are being prompted by this rise. This should however not be the case because marijuana has health benefits and should thus be legal.

Marijuana slows and stops the spread of cancer cells. A study found that Cannabidiol can turn off a gene called Id-1 and can therefore stop cancer. A 2007 report by researchers at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco also indicated that the spread of cancer may be prevented by Cannabidiol. In their lab experiment, the researchers were able to treat breast cancer cells with this component (Nawaz, 2017). The positive outcome of the experiment showed that Id-1 expression had been significantly decreased.

Marijuana also helps with pain and nausea reduction for people going through chemotherapy. Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer from severe pains, appetite loss, vomiting, and painful nausea. This can further complicate their already deteriorating health. Marijuana can be of help here by stirring up the appetite, decreasing nausea, and reducing pain (Nawaz, 2017). There are also other cannabinoid drugs used for the same purposes as approved by the FDA.

It was additionally shown by a 2003 study that the use of marijuana can control epileptic seizure. Synthetic marijuana and marijuana extracts were given to epileptic rats by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Robert J. DeLorenzo. In about ten hours, the seizures had been stopped by the drugs (Nawaz, 2017). It was found that the seizures were controlled by the THC which bound the brain cells responsible for regulating relaxation and controlling excitability.

Some scientists claim that marijuana is addictive. According to them, one in ten marijuana users become addicted over time. They argue that if one stops using the drug abruptly, they may suffer from such withdrawal symptoms as anxiety and irritability (Barcott, 2015). However, the same argument could be applied to cigarette smoking, which is notably legal. There is need for more studies to be conducted into this claim being spread by opponents of marijuana legalization.

It is also argued that marijuana use decreases mental health. Those opposed to the legalization of recreational marijuana like to cite studies that show that users of the drug suffer from memory loss and restricted blood flow to the brain. They also argue that users have higher chances of developing depression and schizophrenia. However, these assertions have not yet been completely ascertained by science (Barcott, 2015). The claim about depression and schizophrenia is particularly not clear because researchers are not sure whether the drug triggers the conditions or it is used by smokers to alleviate the symptoms.

It is further claimed that marijuana use damages the lungs more than cigarette smoking. It is presumed that marijuana smokers inhale the smoke more deeply into their lungs and let it stay there for longer. The likelihood of lung cancer, according to this argument, can be increased by this deeper, longer exposure to carcinogens. However, the argument touches not on the frequency of use between marijuana and cigarette smokers (Barcott, 2015). It neither takes into account such alternative administration methods as edibles, tinctures, and vaporizing.

Legalization of marijuana would lead to improved quality and safety control. Purchasing the drug off the street provides end users with no means of knowing what they are exactly getting. On the other hand, legalizing it would immediately lead to the creation of a set of standards for safety and quality control (Caulkins, Kilmer & Kleiman, 2016). This would certainly work in the marijuana industry just as it is working in the tobacco and alcohol industries. Users would be able to know what they exactly get in exchange for the money they offer. Additionally, there would be no risks of users taking in unknown substances mixed in marijuana sold on the streets.

Marijuana should also be legal because it has a medicinal value. It has been proven that medical marijuana treats a wide assortment of “untreatable” diseases and conditions. These include problems due to chemotherapy, cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, migraines, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and Crohn’s disease (Caulkins, Kilmer & Kleiman, 2016). Public health would be improved and the healthcare system would experience less of a drain if medical cannabis products were made available to those suffering from the mentioned conditions. Consequently, more public funds would be available for such other public service initiatives as schools and roads.

Among the major arguments against marijuana legalization is often that legalization would yield an increase in drug-impaired driving. This argument holds that even now when the drug is yet to be fully legalized in the country, it has already been cited to be a major causal factor in highway deaths, injuries, and crushes. Among the surveys those arguing along this line might cite is one that was conducted back in 2010, revealing that of the participating weekend night-time drivers, “8.6 percent tested positive for marijuana or its metabolites” (“Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana,” 2010). It was found in yet another study that 26.9% of drivers who were being attended to at a trauma center after sustaining serious injuries tested positive for the drug (“Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana,” 2010). It however beats logic why marijuana is illegalized on the ground that it would increase drug-impaired driving while alcohol is legal but also significantly contributes to the same problem.

As the discussion reveals, legalization of marijuana would have many benefits. The drug is associated with the treatment of many serious illnesses including the dreaded cancer. Legalization would also save users from consuming unsafe marijuana sold by unscrupulous people. There are also other health conditions that can be controlled through the drug. Arguments against its legalization based on its effects on human health also lack sufficient scientific support. It is thus only safe that the drug is legalized in all states.

Barcott, B. (2015).  Weed the people: the future of legal marijuana in America . New York, NY: Time Home Entertainment.

Caulkins, J. P., Kilmer, B., & Kleiman, M. (2016).  Marijuana legalization: what everyone needs to know . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Kerr, W., Lui, C., & Ye, Y. (2017). Trends and age, period and cohort effects for marijuana use prevalence in the 1984-2015 US National Alcohol Surveys.  Addiction ,  113 (3), 473-481.

Nawaz, H. (2017).  The debate between legalizing marijuana and its benefits for medical purposes: a pros and cons analysis . Munich, Germany: GRIN Verlag.

Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana. (2010). In  CNBC . Retrieved June 25, 2020 from  https://www.cnbc.com/id/36267223 .

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Six policy lessons relevant to cannabis legalization

Chelsea l. shover.

Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

Keith Humphreys

Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Stanford University, Palo Alto, California

Background:

Cannabis (marijuana) has been legalized for recreational and/or medicinal use in many U.S. states, despite remaining a Schedule-I drug at the federal level. As legalization regimes are established in multiple countries, public health professionals should leverage decades of knowledge from other policy areas (e.g., alcohol and tobacco regulation) to inform cannabis policy.

Objectives:

Identify policy lessons from other more established policy areas that can inform cannabis policy in the U.S., Canada, and any other nations that legalize recreational cannabis.

Narrative review of policy and public health literature.

We identified six key lessons to guide cannabis policy. To avoid the harms of “a medical system only in name”, medical cannabis programs should either be regulated like medicine or combined with the recreational market. Capping potency of cannabis products can reduce the harms of the drug, including addiction. Pricing policies that promote public health may include minimum unit pricing or taxation by weight. Protecting science and public health from corporate interest can prevent the scenarios we have seen with soda and tobacco lobbies funding studies to report favorable results about their products. Legalizing states can go beyond reducing possession arrests (which can be accomplished without legalization) by expunging prior criminal records of cannabis-related convictions. Finally, facilitating rigorous research can differentiate truth from positive and negative hype about cannabis’ effects.

Conclusion:

Scientists and policymakers can learn from the successes and failures of alcohol and tobacco policy to regulate cannabis products, thereby mitigating old harms of cannabis prohibition while reducing new harms from legalization.

Introduction

The normative debate about whether governments should legalize medical and/or recreational cannabis (aka “marijuana”) remains high profile and vitriolic in multiple countries, and because of its political nature can at most be only partially informed by science ( 1 ). However, a less noticed but equally important discussion occurs beyond the click-worthy headlines and passionate op-eds: Given that medical and recreational cannabis legalization are already a reality in some countries (e.g., Canada, Uruguay) and over half of U.S. states and will likely become a reality in others, what lessons can we draw from other policy areas that will help regulatory systems maximize public health ( 2 , 3 )? Public health research can and should play a large role in this discussion particularly given the availability of decades of evidence on the impact and regulation of other potentially addictive or otherwise harmful consumables (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, prescription opioids, sodas, nutritional supplements) ( 4 , 5 ).

We write as scientists, policy analysts, and public health professionals, and make no effort in this paper to persuade anyone to vote for or against marijuana legalization. We hope that those who support legalization will find the foregoing discussion of value because they care about public health. After all, no one supports legalization hoping it will lead to more cannabis-induced auto accidents, for example. We hope that those who oppose cannabis legalization will also find our analysis of value because even when the overall policy framework is not to one’s liking, there are usually still ways of making it better (or at least less objectionable) including in ways that a legalization opponent would approve. Though many of our examples draw from the U.S. setting, we aim for recommendations that could apply in other countries considering or implementing cannabis legalization.

We recognize that efforts to address public health concerns regarding legal cannabis will meet with some political resistance, particularly in the corporate-friendly United States Cannabis industry players typically aim to maximize profits even it if harms public health. For their part, voters and advocacy groups often care about things other than public health (e.g., their views on personal freedom, their religious and cultural values). But the fact that a public health agenda under cannabis legalization will be difficult to achieve is not a reason to abandon it. Our six lessons are thus explicitly aspirational.

Although we believe the lessons presented here could be applied in many countries, we focus mainly on the United States both because we know it the best and because its cannabis regulation framework is unusually fluid due to the federal-state conflict in law, and the ongoing march of cannabis legalization across state after state (most recently, in November 2018 Michigan legalized recreational marijuana and Utah and Missouri legalized medical marijuana).. In the U.S., cannabis remains a Schedule I substance and illegal at the federal level, but memos issued during the previous presidential administration effectively left enforcement up to the states ( 6 ). A January 2018 memo from the current Department of Justice (DOJ) formally rescinded this policy, and at this writing it remains unclear whether or how the Trump administration will respond to cannabis legalization ( 7 ). Further complicating the legal landscape, the cannabis plant contains over 100 different cannabinoids, and there is presently one case where cannabinoids with different properties are subject to different regulations. Medication containing the non-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) and no more than 0.1% of the psychoactive constituent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) were recently down-scheduled to Schedule V ( 8 ). All of this complexity, contradiction, and ferment makes it particularly important and opportune in the U.S. to inject public health concerns into the debate in the hopes of shaping the future.

1. Do not have a medical marijuana system that is not truly medical

Medicine has status, trust and privilege in society because of what it can accomplish and also because of how tightly it is regulated. Proponents of medical cannabis has attempted to gain similar status, trust and privilege, without the matching responsibilities of being carefully regulated. Indeed, if cannabis is indeed a medical drug, it is the least regulated medical drug in the U.S..

The experience of other unregulated quasi-medical industries, for example the patent medicines that thrived in the 19 th century and the supplements hawked on late night cable television, indicate that substantial harm can be done to the public by products that claim medicine’s mantle while evading its standards. The lesson for medical cannabis is that public health will be maximized if it either truly functions as medicine (e.g., with specified conditions, specific indications, and tight regulations), or, is folded into the recreational system.

To date, most “medical” cannabis has been sold with almost no medical oversight, with the role of physicians limited to writing a recommendation letter for patients. Physicians do not prescribe cannabis, nor do they provide it. Medical cannabis clients must take the physician recommendation letter to a separate dispensary, which is staffed by “budtenders” who typically do not have medical training. At the dispensary, clients choose from products of varying potency and content. Medical recommendation letters are often provided by physicians at clinics that solely provide medical cannabis recommendations, rather than primary care providers. Because the recommendation letter can sometimes be renewed over the phone or online without speaking to a clinician, medical oversight can easily be limited to the brief initial consultation. “Budtenders” can give any medical advice they wish, and this includes advice that is almost surely harmful to health, e.g., encouraging pregnant women to regularly smoke cannabis to reduce cramping ( 9 ).

Currently, a number of states operate separate medical and recreational cannabis markets (e.g., Colorado, Maine, Oregon) whereas others have combined the recreational and medical markets (e.g., Washington, California) ( 10 – 15 ). Acknowledging that something that is not regulated as medicine is not the same as medicine as commonly understood is good for public health. Combining programs may also streamline regulation and increase tax benefits to the state by preventing recreational users from entering the more lightly taxed medical system. Additionally, combining programs removes the incentive for youth to seek medical use to avoid higher age limits for recreational sales.

Medical and recreational use overlap, with most people who use medical cannabis also reporting recreational use ( 16 ). In a survey of a nationally representative panel of adults, only 10% of those who currently or ever used cannabis used it only for medical reasons ( 17 ). By way of comparison, consider how few people who take antibiotics, aspirin, or insulin to manage or cure disease would also use these drugs recreationally. Furthermore, with a few exceptions (e.g. CBD oils), the products available in medical and recreational outlets are the same. There is no reason the public should subsidize recreational drug use by making it tax-free, because lower prices feed over-consumption that harms public health (and also of course, imposes more costs on the public purse).

One concern about combining the two systems is that sick people will have to pay taxes on a medical product. But many products that can promote health are not tax-exempt (e.g. exercise equipment, cranberry juice for preventing bladder infections, over the counter medications in most states). As therapeutic uses for cannabis are identified with high-quality empirical data, relevant components or resulting medications can enter the medical system like any other drug, proceeding through FDA approval. As cannabinoid-derived drugs are approved, they can be covered by insurance or become available over the counter, where their potency and components will be regulated.

2. Protect science, regulation, and public health from corporate influence

When many people think of cannabis legalization, they envision a world where cannabis is sold by small operations owned by anti-corporate hippies who donate a portion of their profits to save the whales ( 18 ). In reality, legalization in the U.S. is leading to corporate cannabis run largely by hard-charging white guys in business suits who have MBAs and JDs and think of hippies with distaste if they think of them at all. The tobacco industry has been poised to capitalize on legal cannabis ( 19 ), as are the sugary beverage and alcohol industries ( 20 ). All scientists are aware of the potentially corrupting influence of industries in funding studies to support preferred conclusions and lobbying to promote industry’s business interests. For example, soda companies have long sponsored nutrition studies and legislation ( 21 ).

Protecting science and public health from corporate influence could take several forms. Full disclosure of cannabis industry-related conflicts of interest by researchers and journals should be standard ( 22 ). Robust non-corporate funding for cannabis research is also important, along the lines of California’s Tobacco Related Diseases Research Program which now funds proposals related to cannabis as well as tobacco.

Advertising regulations like those in place for tobacco products – e.g., advertising cannot target children, limits on where and when advertisements can be displayed or aired – may also be a key tool to promote public health. Currently, the industry in the U.S. complains that its advertising expenses are not tax deductible whereas those of the alcohol and tobacco industry are. The industry’s lobbyists are correct that this is an inconsistency, but from a public health viewpoint the best approach would be to subject alcohol and tobacco to the same restrictions rather than use public funds to subsidize sale of addictive products.

Evidence-informed public health education campaigns about cannabis are needed. Public health messages should take care not to exaggerate risks, lest they lose credibility in the face of the observation that many people do use cannabis without developing a use disorder or experiencing even the harms associated with over-consumption of alcohol. Ad campaigns similar to public health campaigns about alcohol – covering topics like getting help when use is out of control, abstaining during pregnancy and while trying to become pregnant, not using while driving, and not selling to minors – could promote public health.

Public health promoting regulations are more likely to be implemented if policymakers prevent the foxes from guarding the hen house. Multiple states give individuals from marijuana corporations seats on regulatory commissions, and do not require sufficient disclosure of marijuana industry-related conflicts of interest, for example when inviting “independent experts” to comment on developing legislation and regulations. The ballot initiative process is a particularly tempting opportunity to achieve regulatory capture, because industry players can potentially encode pro-profit, anti-public health, rules into the law for the long term. For this reason, even legislature members who oppose marijuana legalization might consider legislating their own framework when facing a corporate-written and funded legalization ballot initiative that seems likely to pass.

Last but most assuredly not least, non-corporate models should be considered by legalizing states and countries, as has been adopted in some Canadian provinces ( 5 , 23 ). For example, the state monopoly system used to sell alcohol in many U.S. states significantly reduces sales to youth and alcohol related harm ( 24 , 25 ). The same should be considered for cannabis, as should restricting the sale to non-profits and coops.

3. Cap the potency of cannabis products

Some drug policy analysts used to speak of the “Iron Law of Prohibition” which maintained that drugs become more potent over time because they are illegal. This is simply incorrect as tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals have all become substantially more potent since their development while being legal. Legality per se does nothing to limit potency unless there is a law that caps it.

Just as tobacco became more potent and more addictive in the 1900s– the same has happened with cannabis ( 26 , 27 ). Illegal cannabis smoked on college campuses in the 1970s had 3–5% THC, whereas legal cannabis sold in Washington State today averages 20% THC ( 28 ). Higher potency is concerning because of greater risk of adverse psychiatric effects and greater potential to transition light users into daily users and cannabis use disorders ( 29 – 31 ). For example, a study in the Netherlands found first-time drug treatment admissions for cannabis rose following increasing cannabis potency ( 32 ). If more potent cannabis is more addictive, increased availability post-legalization may increase the number of individuals who develop cannabis use disorder. Additionally, though cannabis poses essentially no fatal overdose risk, cannabis ingestion poses health threats to children, and this risk increases with increased potency. Increased potency can also magnify the indirect harms of cannabis intoxication, such as impaired driving and accidental injuries.

Because cannabis today has dramatically higher THC levels than in prior era, past research may understate health effects. Capping potency of cannabis products can limit the as yet unknown effects of more potent cannabis while the science can catch up to nature of modern products. Of course, cannabis is not just flowers and leaves: concentrates, oils, dabs, topicals, and products yet to be invented are likely to grow in popularity after legalization. States can mitigate these concerns by capping potency of cannabis products, just as they do certain classes of alcoholic beverages: To call something beer for example, requires abiding by certain limits to ethanol concentration ( 33 ). Similarly, cannabis oils or concentrates would reasonably have a higher potency limit per ounce than flowers—just as spirits can have a higher ethanol content than beer—but would still be restricted to a limited amount of THC per package. The limits recommended by California Department of Public Health – which include limiting THC content per package and limiting potency of inhaled products – are a good start ( 34 ). For oils and other smokeless cannabis products, the per-package limits would need to be set by regulatory bodies of scientists rather than industry, as discussed earlier. Banning smokeless cannabis products would likely result in increasing use of smoked cannabis and all of the attendant smoke-related health complication. Entirely banning high-potency products legal cannabis market may also have the unintended consequence of pushing consumers to the illicit market ( 35 ). Therefore, we do not at the present time advocate banning high-potency cannabis products like dabs, oils, or concentrates, but rather tailored and enforced regulations for labeling and packaging. In addition to capping potency, regulators have the opportunity to reduce harms of co-use of alcohol or tobacco with cannabis by explicitly banning products that combine cannabis and alcohol (as in, cannabinoids in alcohol) or cannabis and nicotine. Requiring every cannabis product sold for smoking or in smokable form to carry the message “Caution; cannabis smoke contains carcinogens” would communicate the risks of smoking specifically that may differ other cannabis products. Finally, regardless of what level of THC cap is in place, governments might consider setting taxes higher for high THC products. We explore other ways to use price setting to promote public health in the next section.

4. Price may be the most effective lever to promote public health

There’s an old saw that “Addicts will do anything to get their fix” but experimental and epidemiological research conducted in dozens of countries has established the opposite: Drug use is responsive to price, even for the heaviest drug users ( 36 ).

This observation is critical for understanding cannabis legalization because nothing the government does raises the price of the drug as high as does prohibition, which poses enormous costs on business ( 37 ). This is why the removal of cannabis prohibition has produced a price collapse in state after state, including a 70% drop of wholesale prices in 4 years in Colorado and even steeper drops in Oregon and Washington ( 38 , 39 ). Cannabis is called “weed” because it is very easy to grow, and easy to grow, legal crops in America (e.g., wheat) are very cheap. Legal prices are falling about 1% every 2–4 weeks and their natural bottom could be as low as a nickel per joint, such that cannabis becomes like beer nuts – a complimentary offering by restaurants and bars.

Health taxes have effectively reduced consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages ( 36 , 40 ). Raising taxes on alcohol has also been demonstrated to reduce serious harms including death and injury due to motor vehicle accidents ( 41 , 42 ).

Sales of retail cannabis have typically been subject to sales and excise tax, but rates vary significantly between states ( 40 ). Because these taxes are generally set as a percent of price and the price is rapidly collapsing, the ability of such taxes to raise revenue and deter excessive use is thus waning almost every day ( 38 , 39 ). A more effective alternative is to tax the raw cannabis (i.e., flowers, leaves) by weight as California has always done and Maine has just begun to do ( 43 ). This raises fear of potency soaring as producers try to pack more THC in every ounce, but this can be countered by implementing potency caps, as discussed earlier. In the case of products that contain cannabis and other ingredients – e.g., brownies, lemonade, lattes – the amount of cannabis that can be included (in terms of potency) would be set by potency caps, and the tax could be based on the weight or unit of cannabis, not the entire product.

Minimum unit pricing of cannabis also merits serious consideration. This approach is used for alcohol in British Columbia and was also recently implemented in Scotland ( 44 ). It is not a tax, but rather a floor price below which a product cannot be sold. Implementing it for alcohol reduces emergency room admissions, alcohol-related arrests and injuries, and deaths ( 45 ). Public health benefits would also be expected from implementing such a minimum unit pricing policy for cannabis.

5. Look beyond reducing marijuana possession arrests

Wanting to reduce marijuana possession arrests is a weak rationale for legalization. Decriminalizing marijuana possession in California for example dropped both adult and adolescent possession arrests by over 60% in just 12 months ( 46 ). Arrests can be dramatically curtailed without creating a corporate industry that sells marijuana.

In contrast, legalization is an excellent opportunity to reduce the damage of prior criminal penalties by expunging the records of individuals arrested for possession as well as low-level dealing. This group is disproportionately poor and minority, and their arrest record limits their ability to obtain housing, work, and education ( 47 ). It also keeps people with expertise out of the emerging and overwhelmingly white-dominated, cannabis industry.

Currently, the process to get records updated in California requires an individual to hire a lawyer to get a possession record expunged or a felony for selling downgraded to a misdemeanor, but a bill introduced in the state senate would automate this process ( 48 ). One way to fund this effort in California as well as in other legalization states would be to designate some tax revenue from retail cannabis sales for this purpose.

6. Facilitate rigorous research

“More research is needed” has become a tired academic cliché, but it’s nonetheless applicable to cannabis legalization. Debate about the health benefits and risks of all manner of products is a commonplace of modern life and is certainly the case with cannabis. In political debates, the drug is characterized as extremely dangerous by some activists and as harmless – indeed extraordinarily therapeutic – by others. There is evidence for some harms and some benefits, although in neither case does the limited evidence available support more extreme assessments in either direction. In terms of benefit, a 2017 report by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that there is substantial evidence that cannabis is an effective treatment for some chronic pain conditions in adults, and spasticity symptoms in multiple sclerosis, as well as conclusive evidence of efficacy in treating nausea and vomiting induced by chemotherapy ( 49 ). Other reviews have been more cautious in their conclusions, noting that the research base is old, includes many comparisons of cannabis to drugs which are no longer used because more effective ones have become available, and have small sample sizes ( 50 ).

In terms of harms, fairly rigorous quasi-experimental work indicates that greater access to cannabis leads to lower educational achievement ( 51 ). U.S. prevalence estimates of cannabis use disorder among people reporting past-year cannabis use vary in recent nationally representative surveys, with estimates ranging from 12% in the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health to 31% in the 2012–13 National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions ( 29 , 52 ). But whether cannabis use disorder is becoming more of less prevalent is not clear ( 29 , 52 ). On the one hand the proportion of cannabis users who used the drug every day or nearly every day is increasing sharply ( 53 ), but on the other hand with legalization and normalization, some of the negative effects of frequent cannabis use may be waning (e.g., problems with employers, conflicts with family members who disapprove of cannabis).

The obvious lesson to draw from all other putatively medical products as well as other addictive drugs is that empirical claims about health or social effects and should be investigated empirically. The U.S. has a careful system for studying and approving medications in place and it should be used for cannabis-related medicines as well. Only through rigorous research can effective therapies derived from cannabis be approved and regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Properties should be investigated in controlled studies and resulting therapies should proceed through FDA approval process as have one CBD-derived medication and two medications derived from synthetic cannabinoids ( 54 ). It should be noted that the FDA approval process may be particularly difficult for a botanical cannabis product (as opposed to a chemical extract), due to variation in concentration of cannabinoids between plants. However, the FDA currently regulates several plant-matter botanical drug products in its over-the-counter review (e.g., psyllium, cascara, senna) and has approved two botanical products for marketing as prescription drugs ( 55 ).

One regulatory reform that has been considered in Congress is to alter the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) such that Schedule I drugs with therapeutic potential could be more easily studied ( 56 ). Creating a “Schedule I-R” would allow researchers and regulators to treat cannabis and its addictive constituent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as a lower-schedule substance when obtained for the purposes of advancing science ( 8 ). The recent downscheduling of a CBD extract formulation (Epidiolex) is an important step, but the rescheduling is currently limited to drugs that have already been approved by the FDA: “As further indicated, any material, compound, mixture, or preparation other than Epidiolex that falls within the CSA definition of marijuana set forth in 21 U.S.C. 802( 16 ), including any non-FDA-approved CBD extract that falls within such definition, remains a schedule I controlled substance under the CSA.” ( 8 ). Establishing a Schedule I-R would facilitate research on other cannabis products, other cannabinoids, and even other CBD-based formulations, all of which are currently still Schedule I ( 8 ).

A second reform that would improve the quantity and quality of cannabis research is to allow more farms to grow cannabis for research purposes rather than having only the federal monopoly provider in Mississipi. It seems bizarre for example that states can operate medical cannabis programs that give the drug to sick patients, but are not allowed to run medical cannabis research programs. In 2016 the Drug Enforcement Agency expanded the number of authorized manufacturers of cannabis for National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded research, but none of the organizations that applied for a license has been granted one by the Trump Administration ( 54 ).

For findings to be relevant, and to determine how differing modes of use or potency may modify health effects, at least some research on cannabis must be conducted on consumer cannabis products. Combustible may still be most common mode of use ( 17 ), but as retail markets expand researchers need to evaluate edible, vaporized, topical, and other smokeless products.

Currently, one topic that is especially relevant and contentious is whether cannabis legalization can decrease use of opioids. Some evidence suggests that medical cannabis can be opioid sparing ( 57 , 58 ), but studies have been limited by small sample size (e.g., Abrams’ clinical trial of 21 patients) or self-reported exposure and outcomes (e.g., Boenkhe’s was an online survey of clients of a medical cannabis dispensary). A systematic review found some pre-clinical evidence of “opioid sparing” effects, but clinical evidence was lacking ( 59 ). Epidemiological studies show state-level correlations between cannabis legalization and lower opioid overdoses, but such ecological studies have serious, well-known, flaws ( 60 ). Even individual-level studies showing that cannabis use and opioid use are positively correlated should not be taken as proof of a causal relationship ( 61 ). Yet medical cannabis use is associated with higher rates of prescription drug use and misuse ( 62 ). Furthermore, a recent four-year prospective study in Australia found no evidence that cannabis use improved patient outcomes in patients prescribed opioids for chronic, non-cancer pain ( 63 ). Clinical trials, and large-scale records-based studies with data at an individual level are warranted.

Change in other non-cannabis substance use after cannabis legalization could also be positive or negative. Some studies suggest that youth smoke cannabis as a precursor to tobacco – this order of events could potentially reverse advances in tobacco control measures ( 64 , 65 ). Broader availability of cannabis could theoretically reduce alcohol-related harms if alcohol and cannabis are substitutes. Conversely, it’s possible that legalized cannabis will augment societal harms caused by alcohol use if the two drugs are complements– this line of research needs to be continued. Further research on the relationship between cannabis use and use of tobacco, alcohol, and other substances can clarify this. The urgency of policy research on new cannabis laws should be balanced with the need to gather enough data for careful assessment. There is a risk policy evaluations conducted too soon after cannabis legalization will fail to detect midterm and longer term adverse outcomes.

Conclusions

In summary, cannabis legalization may have positive and negative impacts on public health, and policies should aim to maximize the former and minimize the latter. There are many other important topics we have not covered – e.g., public consumption, strategies to reduce and detect impaired driving, rules on pesticides, fraud detection – and the future will likely raise other concerns which no one is aware of at this moment. We recommend continued, rigorous research, by scientists who report results in an objective and balanced manner, free from corporate influence. With the benefit of decades of observation about policy successes and failures in regulating other drugs, policymakers can promote policies that rectify harms of cannabis prohibition, and policies that strive to minimize harms of legalization. Public health professionals and scientists have a role to play in conducting rigorous research, disseminating results in an objective and balanced manner, and contributing to making evidence-informed policy.

Acknowledgments

Authors’ Note: Chelsea L. Shover was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under award number T32 DA035165 . Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Keith Humphreys was supported by a Senior Career Research Scientist Award from the Veterans Health Administration, Stanford Neurosciences Institute, and the Esther Ting Memorial Professorship at Stanford University. Any views expressed are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect policy positions of their employers. The authors report no relevant financial conflicts.

Financial disclosures and funding information: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors were supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Veterans Health Services Research and Development Service, and [blinded] Neurosciences Institute. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute On Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number [blinded]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Contributor Information

Chelsea L. Shover, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

Keith Humphreys, Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

Should drugs be legalized? Essay

Incensed by the steadily growing number of deaths, crime and corruption created by illicit drug trade and use in the recent years, a number of persons drawn from both the government and the private sector have been calling for the legalization of drugs to curb the problems associated with the abuse and trade in drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

They argue that such a move would do more than any single act or policy in removing the biggest of society’s social and political problems. However, these calls are unfortunate and could throw an already grave problem completely out of hand. If examined carefully, it becomes clear that legalization of drugs would not bring a solution to any of the problems associated with drug abuse.

Proponents of the move to legalize argue that drug use should be an individual’s choice and the government should not control it in any way. This argument has two key shortcomings. First, we cannot just do anything we want with our bodies, just the same way a person cannot walk down the street naked, or say anything we want anywhere. The government has to step in at some point. Drug use is obviously more harmful than these two inconceivable acts.

Secondly, when people opt to do “whatever they want” with their bodies, such as drug use, it not only affects them, but also those around them (DEA, 2003). To put it practically, a driver who is ‘high’ on drugs puts the life of others on the road in danger. Such a person cannot operate machinery or even tend for their children and families as required of them. Therefore, the argument that every one has a right to do whatever they want with their bodies is simply misplaced.

Proponents of the debate to legalize drugs argue that this move will discourage drug use, citing a report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction that the Dutch are the lowest users of cannabis. They attribute this to Netherlands’ soft stance on drugs which permits cannabis sale at coffee shops and the possession of not more than 5 grams of cannabis. However, this is a shallow argument.

The Dutch government’s soft policy on marijuana use has created a much bigger problem: the differentiation of markets between hard drug users and dealers (heroin, cocaine and amphetamines) and soft drug users (marijuana) (NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2001).

Consequently, the number of marijuana users has fallen as most people have resorted to hard drugs, making the country a criminal center for illegal artificial drug manufacture, especially ecstasy, in addition to becoming a home for the production and export of marijuana breeds that have been reported to be ten times higher than normal (DEA, 2003). Besides, a 2001 study in Australia that found that prohibition deters drug abuse (NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2001).

Drug laws are very important in keeping these harmful substances out of reach of children. As long as drugs laws are put in place, the prices will continue to be higher, beyond the reach of most underage persons and even youths. The link between pricing and rate of drug use among young adults is evident in alcohol and drug use.

Studies show that high prices of alcohol and cigarettes result into decline in use of the substances (DEA, 2003). In addition, legalization of drugs would encourage sellers to recruit children sellers who can easily convince their peers to use the substances, hence increasing drug penetration into society. As long as drugs are not legalized, such a move is very unlikely, or can occur only in small scales.

DEA (U.S. Department of Justice: Drug Enforcement Administration). (2003 ). Speaking out against Drug Legalization . Web.

NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. (2001). Does prohibition deter cannabis use? Web.

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Overwhelming majority of US adults say cannabis should be legalized

The research also found that only 11% of Americans said the drug should not be legal for any reason.

Americans appear to continue to see a need for change with U.S. cannabis laws. New research data from Pew found that an overwhelming 88% of U.S. adults say that cannabis should be legalized for medical or recreational use. 

Pew found that, in  an environment where most Americans live in a state  that has legalized the plant and products made from it for certain reasons, having exposure to at least one dispensary in their communities has opened more people up to the idea that total legalization would be OK, it seems. 

The survey split up choices in various ways based on beliefs about how the plant should be used and was conducted between Jan. 16 and Jan. 21. 

In survey data out this week, Pew  found that  almost 57% of Americans say they believe cannabis should be legal for both recreational and medical reasons, while 32% said cannabis should only be legalized for medical use. 

FDA recommends reclassifying marijuana; says it has medicinal purpose

As a Schedule I drug, marijuana is currently in the same category as some of the hardest drugs, like heroin and methamphetamine.

One interesting aspect of the data is how Americans view the impact legalizing cannabis for recreational use might have on safety and encouraging the use of other substances. 

29% of Americans said they believe cannabis increases the use of other drugs, while about the same — at 27% — said they believe it would decrease the use of other substances including cocaine, fentanyl and heroin. 42% said cannabis would have no impact on the use of other substances. 

And when it comes to beliefs about safety in the community, 34% of Americans surveyed said legalizing cannabis makes communities less safe while 21% said legalizing cannabis makes communities safer.

And, beliefs about the legalization of cannabis were impacted by politics — the majority, 64%, of those who identify as a Democrat, or who lean towards being Democratic said the believe legalizing cannabis is good for local economies, and 58% said cannabis legalization creates a more fair justice system. 

41% of Republican respondents said legalizing cannabis for recreational use has a positive impact on local economies, and 27% said legalization has a positive impact on the criminal justice system. 

Those views were altered when age was factored in, with a majority 57% of Republicans between 18 to 29 years old who said they believe cannabis should be legalized for recreations and medical use — 52% of Republicans between 30 to 49 years old said the same. 

Pew found that "wide majorities" of Republicans of all age groups favors cannabis legalization for medical use. 

Across all racial and ethnic groups, Pew found that about 4 out of 10 U.S. adults believe cannabis legalization for recreational use makes the U.S. criminal justice system fairer. 

For the study, Pew Research Center uses randomly selected U.S. adults who participate in self-administered web surveys. Pew said it  used an oversample  non-Hispanic Black men, Hispanic men and non-Hispanic Asian adults to "provide more precise" estimate of "opinions and experiences of these smaller demographic subgroups."

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Cannabis — Should Cannabis Be Legalized in the UK

Should Cannabis Be Legalized in The UK

• Categories: Cannabis Marijuana Legalization United Kingdom

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Words: 1592 |

Published: Jul 17, 2018

Words: 1592 | Pages: 3 | 8 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, the medical benefits and risks, the legal landscape in other countries, the debate on the legalization of marijuanas.

• National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2021). Marijuana as Medicine. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana-medicine
• European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. (2021). Country Legal Profiles - Austria. https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/13648/Austria_Country%20Legal%20Profile_2019.pdf
• European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. (2021). Country Legal Profiles - Belgium. https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/13649/Belgium_Country%20Legal%20Profile_2019.pdf
• European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. (2021). Country Legal Profiles - Estonia. https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/13655/Estonia_Country%20Legal%20Profile_2019.pdf
• European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. (2021). Country Legal Profiles - Netherlands. https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/13665/Netherlands_Country%20Legal%20Profile_2019.pdf
• Caulkins, J. P., Kilmer, B., & Kleiman, M. A. (2016). Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press.
• Pacula, R. L., & Smart, R. (2017). Medical Marijuana and Marijuana Legalization. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13, 397-419. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032816-045128

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Marijuana | Let Florida voters decide if recreational…

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Marijuana | Let Florida voters decide if recreational marijuana should be legal, state Supreme Court rules

Florida could become yet another state to legalize recreational marijuana after the state Supreme Court determined Monday that the question should go before the voters in November.

If approved with 60% of the vote, the constitutional amendment would allow adults 21 or older to “possess, purchase, or use” up to 3 ounces of marijuana products, as well as legalize marijuana accessories.

It would also allow medical marijuana treatment centers and other state-licensed businesses to “acquire, cultivate, process, manufacture, sell, and distribute such products and accessories.”

The approval comes two years after the court ruled a similar marijuana measure was misleading and struck it from the 2022 ballot.

This time, the Court ruled 5-2 that the amendment had a singular purpose and clear language.

Read the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to allow voters to decide on marijuana legalization

Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody had opposed the measure, arguing it shouldn’t be put on the ballot because it would be misleading to voters as it doesn’t make clear marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Justices rejected that argument, along with the idea that voters would think the amendment would allow companies to “immediately enter the cannabis market” without a license.

The two dissenters, Justices Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso, were Gov. Ron DeSantis’ two most recent appointees to the bench. Three other DeSantis appointees voted to allow the ballot measure.

The amendment was backed by Trulieve, the state’s largest medical marijuana producer, which put about $40 million into the campaign to get it on the ballot.

“We look forward to supporting this campaign as it heads to the ballot this fall,” Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers said in a statement, adding the company will also be a strong backer of “the next important phase to educate Floridians on the amendment and secure a yes vote on Amendment 3 this November.”

DeSantis has said he opposes legalization, adding that he doesn’t like the “pungent odor” of marijuana in public spaces. He warned the ballot initiative’s language is too broad to control the smell, but supporters say it allows the Florida Legislature to put limits on outdoor consumption.

Following the ruling, Republican Florida House Speaker Paul Renner also said Monday he didn’t see a “critical need” for legalizing recreational marijuana.

“It looks innocuous,” he said. “But then you start asking yourself, ‘Can you smoke on a child’s playground? Can you smoke in an elevator?’ … The marijuana amendment is overly broad to serve the self interest of those that are going to grow it and make billions and billions of dollars off of it.”

The justices wrote, however, that the amendment “leaves untouched the Department of Health’s existing authority to ‘issue reasonable regulations …'”

The effect the amendment will have on turnout for the general election is unclear.

“This would be coming up in the context of a presidential election,” said Gregory Koger, a professor of political science. “We were already expecting voter turnout to be high, above 60%. That being said, this initiative could bring additional voters to the polls who are more interested in increasing access to marijuana than voting for either one of the two candidates.”

Recreational pot is fully legal in 24 of the 50 states, with 13 others, including Florida, having legalized medicinal marijuana. Five states have decriminalized pot.

A Gallup poll from November showed 68% of Americans thought marijuana should be legal.

In Florida, where medicinal pot was legalized in 2016 with 71% of the vote, a University of North Florida poll from November found that 67% said they would vote for the recreational marijuana amendment.

A Florida Chamber of Commerce poll, meanwhile, found only 57% of Florida voters supported the amendment, which would not be enough to meet the 60% threshold for passage.

“The national Gallup poll has got 52% of conservatives supporting legal marijuana,” Koger said. “It’s splitting them in half. … It sort of puts the Republican Party in an interesting position. I imagine there would be some degree of tension on this issue. So I’m intrigued to see how they manage that conflict.”

For Democrats, the impact on turnout could be less than in a lower-turnout midterm year but still noticeable, said Daniel A. Smith, political science chair at the University of Florida

“Democrats should benefit,” Smith said. “Democratic positions are aligned … and voters should be able to make an easy connection between the candidates with a D next to their name and their support for these measures.”

The state justices on Monday also ruled on a proposed amendment to allow abortion access , saying voters in November would be able to determine its future in Florida. At the same time, the court upheld the 15-week ban on abortions, thus enabling a six-week ban to go into effect 30 days after this ruling.

Future Florida Leaders, a progressive young-voter organization, wasted no time in announcing Monday it would immediately start distributing “College Democrats-branded condoms and rolling papers” on college campuses. The goal would be to raise awareness of the marijuana and abortion rights amendment.

But the pot referendum might allow Republicans “to have their cake and eat it too,” Smith said.

“There are certainly a lot of folks in this state who have their medical marijuana card but are also MAGA supporters,” Smith said. “Those hard-core Trump supporters are not going to be thinking about this issue as aligning their position with the Democratic Party. That’s just not going to happen.”

Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst who runs the MCIMaps site, said the effect on turnout for Democrats “really depends on the campaign.”

“I don’t think that by itself, it’s automatically going to have a super-notably statistical change,” Isbell said. “… The only way it’s going to have a real effect is if there’s a heavy campaign about it.”

He cited the 2014 medical marijuana initiative, which largely was detached from the governor’s race that year and did not boost turnout among Democrats. That measure failed, while a better-organized measure passed two years later.

David Jolly, a former Republican Congress member from St. Petersburg and co-founder of the Forward Party, said that much of the public has started to tune out marijuana opponents after their worst-case scenario predictions for medicinal marijuana haven’t panned out.

“We haven’t seen those negative consequences of it as a society,” Jolly said. “And I think that’s one of the reasons you see such broad support for [recreational use] now.”

John Morgan, head of the Orlando law firm Morgan & Morgan, who spearheaded the 2016 medicinal pot amendment, also said he believed the recreational measure would get widespread support.

“It’s bipartisan now,” Morgan said. “Only a few very old white men are still against it, and they don’t know why.”

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Amendment 3: Florida’s recreational marijuana ballot measure, explained

T AMPA, Fla. — Florida voters will decide this November whether recreational marijuana should be legalized for adult use. But if the measure passes, what happens next?

The state Supreme Court signed off on ballot language for the proposed constitutional amendment on April 1. If at least 60% of voters approve the measure , it will usher in an expected multibillion-dollar industry and open the marijuana market to consumers beyond those who have gotten a referral from a doctor — as the law currently requires.

If passed, Florida will join 24 states that have legalized recreational pot.

Here are seven key questions about Amendment 3, answered.

Question: Will it smell like weed everywhere if the amendment passes?

Answer: Top Florida officials say one of the major concerns with the ballot initiative now before voters is marijuana’s pervasive stench.

“This is going to be part of your community,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said recently. “I’ve gone to some of these cities that have this everywhere. It smells.”

The extent of marijuana’s odor is really a question of where Floridians will be allowed to smoke.

Q: Will recreational marijuana actually be “everywhere” should it become legalized in November?

A: Supporters of the amendment say the Florida Legislature can create smoke-free zones, as they have with tobacco. In 2022, for example, lawmakers passed a bill allowing local communities to ban smoking and vaping at the state’s beaches . Measures like these followed a 2002 state constitutional amendment approved by voters banning smoking in most enclosed indoor workspaces.

“The Florida Constitution and the proposed amendment expressly empower the Florida Legislature to enact time, place, and manner regulations of marijuana usage in public places,” a spokesperson for Smart & Safe Florida , the group sponsoring the ballot initiative, said in a statement.

A portion of the amendment says that nothing in its language prohibits the Legislature from passing laws consistent with the amendment.

Marijuana will also remain illegal at the national level, meaning smoking will still be forbidden on federal lands and college campuses that get federal funding.

But DeSantis said he interprets the amendment to mean the Legislature can’t regulate the personal recreational use of marijuana at all.

Marijuana use, which under the proposal would be allowed for those 21 and older, would not be “subject to any criminal or civil liability or sanctions under Florida law,” the amendment says. Possession of up to 3 ounces for personal use would be permitted.

Q: Will the number of marijuana users rise?

A: Yes, it’s likely. A 2021 study examined marijuana consumption patterns in states that had legal medical marijuana, then added recreational pot. Researchers found that the odds of cannabis use in the past month rose among white and Latino people ages 21 and older in states that legalized recreational use.

However, Black residents did not see their odds of use increase, according to the researchers, who analyzed national survey data on more than 838,000 people. Nor did it rise among those ages 12 to 20, who were still barred from recreational use.

In a 2022 study of identical twins, researchers found that people living in states that legalized recreational marijuana used cannabis 20% more frequently than those living in states where it remained illegal.

Q: Could car crashes increase?

A: Possibly. Researchers have yet to come up with a definitive answer on whether legalizing recreational marijuana causes an increase in traffic injuries.

A 2017 study found that three years after Washington and Colorado legalized weed in 2012, their fatal crash rates were not statistically different from those in similar states with no recreational marijuana. But the same researchers in a larger 2019 study found that Washington and Colorado did see significant increases in fatal crash rates after commercial dispensaries opened in 2014.

Experts at the Virginia-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in a 2022 study found that Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California saw increases in injury crash rates after legalization and the start of marijuana sales, while Nevada experienced a decrease. Yet only Colorado and Oregon recorded a bump in their fatal crash rates: a 1.4% increase and 3.8% increase, respectively. The other three states saw small declines.

Scientists know that marijuana can cause drivers to have difficulty judging the distance between vehicles, which leads them to slow down, said Charles Farmer, one of the study’s authors and vice president of research at the institute. But they have yet to determine the blood level of THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive ingredient, that results in impairment, he said.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles says driving while impaired by drugs is illegal , but, unlike with alcohol, “there is no specific impairment limit with marijuana.”

Some states, including Colorado, have launched public campaigns to warn drivers not to get behind the wheel while high, Farmer said.

“Whether it’s worked or not, I don’t know,” he said.

Q: Why has marijuana policy been left up to voters?

A: The Legislature has historically been hostile to legal marijuana. Even after voters approved an expansion of medical cannabis via a 2016 constitutional ballot initiative, it took lawmakers more than two years to pass legislation allowing for smokable medical pot. Since then, lawmakers have looked to restrict the potency of marijuana in numerous bills, and the Legislature has never seriously considered passing a law legalizing cannabis for recreational use.

The DeSantis administration has also been slow to award companies the medical marijuana licenses required by statute.

To date, there are nearly 878,000 patients and 25 licensed treatment centers with more than 600 dispensaries. Twenty-two additional licenses are reportedly expected to be awarded this year.

Q: Where can you buy recreational weed if voters approve the amendment?

A: State medical marijuana licenses are awarded to companies that are required to handle every part of the marijuana supply chain from seed to sale. It’s an expensive — but highly lucrative — proposition for the companies lucky enough to get a piece of the action. Some Florida licenses have been sold to other firms for tens of millions of dollars.

The initiative before voters — which has been funded almost entirely by the largest Florida medical marijuana company, Trulieve — would, at least initially, give licensed medical marijuana companies the exclusive rights to sell recreational pot. They’d likely start selling out of existing medical marijuana dispensaries.

Florida’s combined medical and recreational marijuana industry will make an estimated $8 billion to $10 billion in annual revenue, said Nic Easley, chief executive officer and founder of 3C , a national and international cannabis consulting company in Denver.

“This really is a way to let a small number of people make a lot of money,” said state Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican who opposes the ballot initiative.

Q: Could the Legislature change the way the market works?

A: Other states like Colorado don’t force marijuana companies to grow, process, manufacture and sell pot the way Florida currently does. Were voters to approve the recreational marijuana measure, the Legislature could always tweak the law, opening the market to smaller companies.

But Fine, who’s running for state Senate this November, said he doesn’t expect the Legislature to take up any sweeping regulatory changes that would affect the structure of the marijuana market. Instead, he expects his colleagues to focus on any safety concerns associated with legalized recreational pot.

In the world of recreational cannabis, big medical marijuana companies will likely continue to dominate the market, said Easley, the cannabis industry consultant.

©2024 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Cannabis users 'will have a new place within our society': Germany legalises home cultivation

Cannabis is classed as a narcotic in Germany but that will change from April 1.

Europe correspondent @SiobhanRobbins

Monday 1 April 2024 07:23, UK

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In a large grey facility just outside the East German city of Dresden, security is tight.

The large metal door which bars the bright white corridors is the same type used to protect Germany's gold reserves.

Behind it, Demecan grows cannabis for medical use, something that became legal in 2017.

The strict security is due to the fact the drug is classed as a narcotic under German law.

But today that will change, with a new law decriminalising possession and home cultivation, a change managing director Dr Philipp Goebel hopes to capitalise on.

"For us, it was very good news when this law was passed," he said.

"Now we are allowed to grow more cannabis, which we can then also sell directly to the pharmacies.

"And the second part, which is very important to the patients, is that cannabis now is declassified.

"It's not a narcotic product anymore, which means that any doctor can now prescribe it."

Under the new law, adults will be allowed to possess up to 25g of the drug in public, hold 50g at home and grow a maximum of three plants.

From July, private "cannabis clubs" can supply 500 members on a limited basis.

"It's not the law we expected," said Steffen Geyer, a long-time cannabis activist and head of the association of Cannabis Social Clubs, "but it's a good law because we will have 180,000 less prosecutions in the next year".

He added: "That will be a big relief for cannabis consumers.

"You can have 25g of cannabis with you without being in fear of arrest and fear of problems with the police.

"Cannabis consumers will have a new place within our society.

"We will no longer be the black sheep of the recreational community.

"We will be just like the people who use alcohol, or use chocolate, or coffee or tea."

But there are restrictions.

For example, a person has to be over 18 and smoking around areas such as playgrounds and sports centres is not allowed.

The potency of the THC, the psychoactive substance that makes you high, will also be limited, especially for under 21s.

To avoid "drug tourism" the only way to obtain recreational cannabis will be to grow it at home or via "cannabis clubs."

In both cases, people have to have been resident in Germany for at least six months.

Read more: Still no medical cannabis trials for NHS Medicinal cannabis 'safe and effective' for cancer patients Families urge government to fund medical cannabis research

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Getting the new law across the line has been quite a battle.

The government has claimed it will help curb the black market, tackle drug crime and ensure a safe, quality product but opponents say it ignores health risks, especially for young people.

"At the moment, the justice system, the police and local government are voicing a lot of criticism because the new law cannot be enforced properly," said Erwin Rüddel, opposition Christian Democratic Union politician and head of the parliamentary health committee.

"There are worries over the effect that the consumption of cannabis has on the mental health of people under the age of 25, and the fact that it is impossible to control if someone has 25 grams or 30 grams in their possession.

"Then there is the issue of controlling the 'cannabis clubs' and controlling if someone is really only growing three plants at home."

His party has pledged to repeal the law if it gets back into power next year.

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A recent poll showed the public is also divided, with a slim majority against it.

In a YouGov poll, 42% of respondents said they were somewhat or completely in favour of legalisation, while 47% said they were somewhat or completely against it.

Another 11% had no answer.

"I think it's bad because of the youth. It's dangerous," one male shopper in Berlin told us.

But a woman we spoke to said: "I think it's a good thing. Now they can ensure it's good quality and now the state can get the tax from it."

Supporters of the new law plan to welcome it with a "smoke in" at the Brandenburg Gate.

From 11:30 pm (10.30pm UK time) on Sunday evening, people have been invited to gather to smoke marijuana in public - but only when the law comes into force, according to German press agency DPA.

Despite some concerns, this is just the first step in a two-part plan.

If successful, it could pave the way for pilot projects allowing state-controlled cannabis to be sold in some licensed shops.

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With Germany legalising cannabis, Europe is reaching a tipping point. Britain, take note

Regulating cannabis use is no longer radical but an increasingly normalised strategy. The ‘tough on drugs’ approach is archaic

G ermany’s cannabis reforms were approved this week, overcoming the final legislative hurdle when the Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house, voted through the bill that passed with a huge majority in the Bundestag (lower house) last month. Germany is a significant addition to the growing list of countries defecting from the drug war consensus that had held for more than half a century. More than half a billion people now live in jurisdictions establishing legal adult access to cannabis for recreational use.

When Germany’s new law comes into force on 1 April, it will decriminalise possession of up to 25g of cannabis for personal use (and up to 50g in the home), allow requests to remove criminal records for past possession offences, legalise home growing of up to three cannabis plants for personal use, and establish a regulatory framework for not-for-profit associations within which cannabis can be grown and supplied to members.

When the cannabis reforms were initially announced by Germany’s coalition government in 2021, the plan was for a regulated commercial market more like Canada’s, established in 2018. A study has suggested that such a commercial market could create 27,000 jobs in Germany, and be worth €4.7bn annually in tax revenue and criminal justice savings. But these aspirations had to be reined in when it became clear that the commercial market originally envisaged would probably breach legal obligations under the UN drug conventions, as well as EU law.

Instead, Germany has opted for a form of “legalisation-lite” that provides channels for legal access via home growing or not-for-profit associations while, it hopes, avoiding the minefield of international law that a commercial market would have led to. A similar retrenchment has occurred with reforms in the Czech Republic and Luxembourg . All three countries have moderated their plans and essentially copied Malta, Europe’s unlikely cannabis reform pioneer, whose groundbreaking non-commercial home-grow and cannabis association model passed in 2021, becoming the blueprint for the new wave of EU reforms.

But while Malta has made clear that its not-for-profit model is a deliberate harm-reduction strategy to avoid risks of “big alcohol”-style over-commercialisation and corporate monopolies, Germany and other EU countries have unambiguously positioned their new models as a transitional step to a future of commercial retail, albeit more responsibly regulated . Germany has already announced that it will proceed with phase two of its cannabis plan, in the form of a time-limited retail “pilot study” in a number of cities. Like similar “experiments” under way in the Netherlands and Switzerland , it hopes to finesse the constraints of international law under the banner of “scientific research”.

But as the debate about the merits of different cannabis policy models plays out in a globe-spanning natural experiment, from 24 US states, Canada and Uruguay to South Africa, Mexico and parts of Australia, Germany’s move feels particularly consequential. More than 100 times the population of Malta or Luxembourg, and sitting at the heart of the European establishment, Germany has the economic and political influence to significantly reorient laws and thinking about drug policy in the EU and the wider international stage.

This influence is inevitably being felt in the UK as well. As longstanding arguments for reform move from theory into reality in respected neighbour states, they become harder to ignore and increasingly permeate the national consciousness. Why continue to waste billions on failed enforcement when we could generate billions in tax revenue like Colorado? Why drive 100% of cannabis users towards organised crime groups and street dealers, when about 70% of cannabis users in Canada buy their cannabis from licensed stores? Why should people have to buy dodgy street cannabis of unknown potency, when they can join a legal association and buy quality controlled products with mandated information on contents and risks, as in Malta or Germany? Why maintain policies that disproportionately criminalise Black people and overload our creaking criminal justice system, when we could redirect enforcement spending and tax revenue into community programmes benefiting those most affected by the “war on drugs”, as they do in New Jersey or Massachusetts ?

Endorsement of responsible cannabis regulation is increasingly normalised and mainstream. It is no longer a radical position but a pragmatic one, with real-world examples to prove it. And while Labour and the Tories, with an election looming, lack the courage to move beyond tired “tough on drugs” posturing, public backing for legalisation continues its inexorable rise, with polling now indicating majority support . As support for a reform platform becomes a political asset rather than a political liability, positions long held in private by those in power will increasingly emerge in public.

With London’s support for cannabis legalisation topping 60% , for example, its mayor, Sadiq Khan, has started openly exploring reforms . In the absence of principled political leadership from the government, change may boil down to this cold political calculus. We are fast approaching the tipping point and Germany’s reforms can only add to the momentum.

Steve Rolles is the senior policy analyst for Transform Drug Policy Foundation .

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Germany Has Legalized Possession of Small Amounts of Cannabis. Not Everyone Is Mellow About That.

Germany has legalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana

Ebrahim Noroozi

People smoke marijuana cigarette in front of the Brandenburg Gate during the 'Smoke-In' event in Berlin, Germany, Monday, April 1, 2024. Starting 1 April, Germany has legalised cannabis for personal use. As per the new law, Adults aged 18 and over will be allowed to carry up to 25 grams of cannabis for their own consumption. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Marijuana campaigners in Germany lit celebratory joints on Monday as the country legalized possession of small amounts of cannabis for recreational use over objections from doctors and police.

The German Cannabis Association, which campaigned for the new law, staged a “smoke-in” at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate when the law took effect at midnight. Other public consumption events were scheduled throughout the country, including one in front of the Cologne cathedral and others in Hamburg, Regensburg and Dortmund.

Germany becomes the third European Union country to legalize cannabis for personal use after Malta and Luxembourg. The government argued that legalization would undermine criminal trade in the drug, guard against harmful impurities, and free police to pursue more serious crimes while providing for protections against use by under-18s.

The new law legalizes possession by adults of up to 25 grams (nearly 1 ounce) of marijuana for recreational purposes and allows individuals to grow up to three plants on their own. Use is prohibited within 100 meters (109 yards) of the entrance to a playground or school. That part of the legislation took effect Monday.

German residents age 18 and older will be allowed to join nonprofit “cannabis clubs” with a maximum 500 members each starting July 1. Individuals will be allowed to buy up to 25 grams per day, or a maximum 50 grams per month — a figure limited to 30 grams for people under age 21. Membership in multiple clubs won’t be allowed.

The clubs’ costs will be covered by membership fees, which are to be staggered according to how much marijuana members use.

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The legislation also calls for an amnesty under which sentences for cannabis-related offenses that will no longer be illegal are to be reviewed and in many cases reversed. Regional authorities worry that the judicial system will be overburdened by thousands of cases.

Over the past 20 years, the general trend has been for European Union member countries to reduce cannabis penalties in various ways, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Those could include making possession a civil offense or diverting offenders to treatment instead of the criminal justice system, or less strict enforcement. In the Netherlands, cannabis remains illegal but sale of small amounts in so-called coffee shops is tolerated by the public prosecution service. A number of countries in Europe permit medical cannabis under differing sets of rules.

The law was passed by the current coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, against opposition from some of Germany’s federal states and the center-right Christian Democrats.

Christian Democratic leader Friedrich Merz has vowed that his party will reverse the legislation if it wins national elections expected in the fall of 2025. Any likely new government coalition, however, would include one of the parties that supported the law.

Leading garden stores surveyed by the dpa news agency indicated they would not be adding cannabis plants to their horticultural offerings. The German Medical Association opposed the law, saying it could have “grave consequences” for the “developmental and life prospects of young people in our country.” So did the union representing German police officers, which called it “the wrong signal.”

Copyright 2024 The  Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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