Should we legalize marijuana?

Running head : Should we Legalize Marijuana

Should we Legalize Marijuana

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[The name of institution appears here] Should we Legalize Marijuana

The history of penalizing oppressive measures to discourage the utilization of drugs is one which presents little support to those who think that the best approach to the "problem " of the extensive use of marijuana is Draconian legislation . The spread of tobacco smoking during the 16th and 17th centuries was the most theatrical "epidemic " of drug use in recorded history . The "foule weed

" was adopted by cultures so different -- literate and nonliterate , for instance that cultural and social determinants must have played an inconsequential role , if any at all , in its spread . In approximately all cases of tobacco use prohibitions against it failed , whether they were justified on grounds of impairment to health , religion , good taste , or by the threat of inducement to criminal activity . The history of the use of tobacco would appear to point out that social controls are powerless when a society is confronted by an attractive psychoactive substance , even though that substance serves no primary physiological need or conventional interpersonal function

In their initial response to the introduction of tobacco into most societies all through the 16th and 17th centuries , the authorities were in actual fact much more bigoted in their attempts to curb its use than are modern authorities . This is particularly surprising when one thinks that it is modern proof which has demonstrated undoubtedly the health dangers arising from tobacco use . One more very similar instance is provided by the 17th century spread of coffee drinking in the Arab Near East , despite the most extreme penalties , including death (Mitch Earleywine , 2002

The impotence of lawmaking in restraining the use of psychoactive substances is demonstrated again by fairly recent North African history When from 1956-1960 the farming of Cannabis sativa was banned in Tunisia and Algeria , vineyards replaced hemp fields , as well as alcohol consumption took the place of cannabis with no resulting improvement in public health . At the end of the 19th century in Ireland , there was an endeavor to restrain the use of hard liquor through temperance campaigns , heavy taxation , and (attempted ) strict enforcement of the tax laws . The campaign was a victory in that the Irish to a great extent reduced their intake of hard liquor instead , they switched to the substitute ethyl ether , which offered a short-lived intoxication involving a "hot all the way down " sensation , pursued by thunderous flatus , and , within ten minutes , a high , which could be repeated and which left no menace . The use of ether turned out to be so extensive that in one area of Ulster an eighth of the population were labeled "etheromaniacs " The succeeding alarm over the ether "epidemic " became so immense that the different pressure groups which had promoted the campaign upturned their field , and the Irishman happily returned to other psychoactive substances , remarkably back to his whiskey

In Japan , after World War II , amphetamines...