Legalization of Marijauna

Sources from http://www.drugwarfacts.org... will be cited by the number corresponding to where it was found. Understand that I believe that possession and the private use of marijuana should always be legal. Driving while intoxicated should not (and already is illegal). Smoking in public should be a local issue, as it is the preference of the people living there that should decide whether marijuana can be used publicly. Trafficking of drugs is the only thing that should be federally regulated, as it is an international issue and directly falls under their jurisdiction. Also understand that whether or not you use (or would use) marijauna is your choice, having marijuana legalized only means you can legally make the choice for yourself. At all times you can decide not to use it, but those millions of americans who do are facing excessive criminal penalties for behavior that affects only them, NOT YOU. You have the constitutional right to not use marijuana, but I believe that it should also be your right to choose for yourself. Even though I feel that the health effects are moot in regard to personal choice, I feel it deserves special attention given its relative safety (in the opinion of our own scientists, mind you). The long half-life of THC prevents "crashing" after using the drug and greatly reduces the chance of dependency. Little to no withdraw symptoms were found with average marijuana use. * paraphrased from the IOM report "Marijuana and Medicine" There is no scientific evidence that marijuana use leads to 'harder' drugs. * need citation Addiction rates: Nicotine - 35% * almost twice as addictive as cocaine and kills 25 times more people per year (if all 17000 deaths from all illicit substances were contributed to cocaine). Cocaine - 19% Marijuana - 9% Death rates: Tobacco - 435,000 /yr Alcohol - 85,000 /yr All illicit drugs - 17,000/yr Marijuana - 0 (can not overdose) * center for disease control ** Alcohol related deaths kill 5 times more people per year than ALL illicit drugs Effects: *Tobacco Very mild calming feeling, Yellow teeth/nails/skin, emphysema, lung cancer, etc. *Marijuana Obvious acute effects, bronchitis (long term) -- notice I did NOT list cancer. ** A california study observing heavy marijuana users over the course of 8 years found that marijuana smokers were no more prone to cancer than non-smokers. "Both Australian studies suggest cannabis may actually reduce the responsibility rate and lower crash risk. Put another way, cannabis consumption either increases driving ability or, more likely, drivers who use cannabis make adjustments in driving style to compensate for any loss of skill (Drummer, 1995). This is consistent with simulator and road studies that show drivers who consumed cannabis slowed down and drove more cautiously (see Ward & Dye, 1999; Smiley, 1999. " * #30 "Since 1969, government-appointed commissions in the United States, Canada, England, Australia, and the Netherlands concluded, after reviewing the scientific evidence, that marijuana's dangers had previously been greatly exaggerated, and urged lawmakers to drastically reduce or eliminate penalties for marijuana possession." *#32 "...It criminalizes large numbers of otherwise law-abiding, mainly young, people to the detriment of their futures. It has become a proxy for the control of public order; and it inhibits accurate education about the relative risks of different drugs including the risks of cannabis itself." * #37 "Statements in the popular media that the potency of cannabis has increased by ten times or more in recent decades are not support by the data from either the USA or Europe." * #39 The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second. The budget has since been increased by over a billion dollars. * Office of National Drug Control Policy ** Don't you think this could go to more important expenditures? If this money was divided equally between the 48 continental states each state would receive approximately 395 million dollars annually. This money could be used to improve our hospitals, schools, roads, and provide financing for finding eco-friendly power sources. Just this year 540,658 arrests have been made for cannibis. FBI statistics reported 829,625 arrests in 2006 for cannibis, the highest ever in one year, and of those arrests 738,915 (89%) were for possession alone. An American is now arrested for violating cannabis laws every 38 seconds. *Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation