Prohibition and Marijuana: History Does Repeat

Decriminalization or to non decriminalize. That is the big question. Will the decriminalization of ganja be the abutting revolution of America? ganja ban has been in event since 1937, with trends that closely resemble those of inebriant prohibition-meaning an increase in crime, distrust, and dissension. If the goal of ganja prohibition is to stop Americans from using it, hence it has fai locate, just like the other prohibition failed to make America a dry out country.It is important to go back and visit at the factors hunting to hemp prohibition-especi altogethery the stages of burlesque, silence, and the guile of severe penalties-before looking at the effect of prohibition during the last half-century. Let me fig one point out that I am an advocate of hangmans halter, and impart not fence in that marihuana is not harm slight. seek shows that cannabis damages short term memory, distorts perceptions, impairs impression and complex motor s slays, alters sh opping m wholly rates, and has the po ten dollar billcy to trigger severe anxiety, paranoia, and lethargy (www. ndsn. com).Yet I in any case feel its effect be in m whatsoever ways less harmful than those of inebriant and tobacco-for instance, alcohols likely to take a leak cirrhosis and tobaccos links to lung cancer and heart disease. Both ar considered carcinogenic. In addition, alcohol is cited as a factor in half of this countrys highway fatalities, half of wholly arrests made for any criminal charge-including homicides-and quartern of all suicides. In 1972 the National mission on ganja and medicine nuisance estimated the fond costs of Americas alcohol clothe to be $15 meg a year (www. ndsn. com) it has steadily increased since then.When comparability tobacco, alcohol, and hemp, there is ironlike evidence that marijuana has the least habit-forming former (www. peretto. com). However, this does not hide the fact that all troika can have a strong impact on a n singular. As with all doses, they are capable of disrupting home support, alter job performance, and causing breakup from society. In my opinion, all medicines share this power on equal terms beca utilization of the emotional problems of the deal who intake them no single dose has to a greater extent potential for harm than any other in terms of social impacts. eon hemp has been gr protest in America since 1611 (Grinspoon, 1971, p. 1), the practice of smoking marijuana did not become widespread until the 1920s-a purpose of strong drug in margin during the bang-up social experiment of alcohol prohibition. marijuana mathematical function was highest among deal who also utilize opiates, primarily recent immigrants. In the 1930s, the parking lot belief that immigrants were inhumane and violent include a strong belief that marijuana was part of the ca practice. Since it was associated with opiates, marijuana was quickly define as a narcotic (Thies, C. F. , 1993 p. 71) , and by 1931 all but two states had passed anti-marijuana legislation.The final exam two did so by 1937, the said(prenominal) year the national governing created the hemp Tax Act . For which no task stamps were ever issued. Not once during this tip of prohibitive legislation was any enquiry conducted on marijuana and its set up, nevertheless it was near universally assumed that marijuana was a narcotic, ca gived psychological dependence, provoked violent crime, and led to insanity. The first of three strategies use to urge on marijuana was silence. It was believed that if youth didnt hear to the highest degree marijuana, they wouldnt become curious and experiment with it.Therefore, in the 1930s discussion about marijuana was forbid in all familiar schools, and from 1934 to 1956 the doubtfulness Picture Association of America outlaw all films showing the use of narcotics (www. juralize. com). The strategy did not work as soundly as hoped, so anti-marijuana groups a dopted the next strategy exaggeration. The goal was to scare potential marijuana substance abusers. Even such reckon distributor pointicals as the American Journal of care for went on with this strategy, publishing such warnings as Marijuana users will suddenly shimmer with finishous violence upon whoever is nearest to them.They will run amuck with a knife, axe, gun, or anything else that is close at hand, and will kill or maim without reason. F. T. Merrill of the Opium Research Committee wrote While numerous crimes have been traced to its abuse, its fantastic virulent effect, leading some measures to insanity, makes its use dangerous to the individuals and to society in planetary . . . it leads to uncontrollable irritability and violent rages, which in around forms cause assault and murder (Grinspoon, 1971, p. 17).During my look I found a medical checkup handbook written in 1970 that continued to wrap up these myths as fact, personnel casualty so far as to demand that the playscripts hashish and assassinwhich do have a common line of descent in terms of word biographyhave a cause and effect relationship. In the similar manual the word amuck was associated to a characteristic of the drug according to its author, the word, which means to kill, was the word the natives of Malay would shriek as they dashed go across the street, maddened by hashish, in a murderous frenzy (Williams, 1970, p. 140).From the official calcium police officers guide of the same period came this warning Marijuana is the immediate and direct cause of the crime committed . . . the user is very often dangerous to encompass or control, has no fear, feels no pain, and whitethorn commit crimes of violence. Penalties for marijuana use fluctuated with touristed belief regarding its level of danger. If battalion believed the effects were particularly bad, the penalties were stiff, but during some decades public attitudes were more lenient, therefore penalties were trim. Drug use declined, fear increased, and so did penalties throughout the 1950s. mavin of the first federal mandatory prison house sentences was established at that clock time 10 years minimum for marijuana deliverership, and a mandatory destruction sentence for interchange marijuana to a minor (Theis, C. F. ,1993 p. 46). During the mid-sixties and 70s, penalties declined as use increased, with eleven states decriminalizing possession for personal use (Thies and Register, 1993, p. 389). Then, in the 1980s, drug use declined and penalties rose. The three strike class was established, under which a mandatory life sentence without parole essential be habituated up for third-time offenders.Judges no nightlong have the power to use their own discretion in sentencing, but are involve to base their punishment on the most serious readily incontrovertible charge, including a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of managing a major marijuana plantation of 60,000 plants. It appears that the current attitude toward marijuana prohibition is ground on the belief that relaxed policies lead to coarse use. Statistics argue otherwise nationwide, marijuana use in 1984 was measured at 26. 3%, and in the eleven states that decriminalized marijuana, it was 27. 3%. In 1988 the percentages were 15. and 16. 1, respectively.In those eleven states, decriminalization meant that individuals were no longer arrested for simple possession. In ten of those states there is a $0-100 fine for possession-the way out of a threat by the federal government to with impart highway money for states that did not have minimum punishment standards (Thies and Register, 1993, p. 387). Going outside the country for other example of how legalization does not lead to greater use, Holland has witnessed a 40% descend in marijuana use since the Dutch government legalized it in 1976 (Grinspoon, L. 1971, p. 4).During the same time period, marijuana use has diminish in the United States, s o it cannot be definitively argued that all stronger penalties or decriminalization is better at affecting the number of mass who use marijuana. It seems clear that social policy, and not legal policy, had the greater effect in Holland. Accusations of marijuanas addictive powers are also under approach from well-designed research studies. During the Nixon administration (1972), the federal government reviewed existing studies and concluded that marijuana did not possess physically addictive traits.The great mass of articles published in medical journals since that time have agreed. For example, Dr. Jack Henningfield of the dependance Research Center (part of the National work on Drug poke fun) and Dr. Neal Benowits of the University of California be heroin, cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, and marijuana in terms of their power to induce psychological dependence. Nicotine was first, marijuana last. Marijuana also ranked last in terms of producing a physical tolerance to the drug, and was deemed least likely to produce signs of withdrawal upon quitting (Theis, C. F, 1993, p. 92).It seems as though the primary settlement of the three-pronged attack using strict penalties, silence, and exaggeration has been increased ignorance. Regardless of research findings refuting long-held claims about marijuana addiction since 1972, the old arguments of the thirties continue to be used when establishing refreshful soft drug laws. Peoples tendency to hold onto their initial beliefs means that most of their experience on the topic of marijuana is ground on what their parents taught them.While it is the responsibility of all parents to t apiece their children values, this is not an acceptable instauration for creating law. If the purpose of prohibition is to eliminate the use of a substance, then marijuana is certainly some other example of how prohibition fails. In 1979, 68. 2% of all 18-25 year olds had tested marijuana at least once, and 35% said that they were regular users (U. S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1991). While those respective numbers have decreased to 50% and 13%, its clear that marijuana is still readily available and used by a voluminous number of Americans.Two other detrimental effects of marijuana prohibition are the large amounts of money spent on enforcement and prose put offion, and prison overcrowding. The percentage of the American population life sentence in prison has increased from . 061 in 1880 to . 1 in 1920 to . 35 in 1995, with an associated tripling of real valuate dollars required to house inmates. Today, 62% of all inmates are in prison for drug offenses-the give of a 1,100% increase in drug arrests between 1980 and 1992, even though marijuana use dropped from 35% to 13% during the same period. The increase in violent offenders incarcerated during that time was only 50%.Of felons convicted of crimes related to marijuana possession, regress and trafficking during thi s period, 58% had no prior arrest history, 91% were not determine as organizers, leaders, managers or supervisors of drug-oriented organizations, and 92% did not own or possess a gun. In other words, the large majority of these felons should not be viewed as individuals endangering our society. I believe the main point of these statistics is that an frightful amount of money is spent each year on incarcerating non-violent and otherwise observing citizens.Not including the money spent on prison management and construction, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) now spends $1. 3 billion a year fighting marijuana. Overall, federal anti-marijuana efforts have cost taxpayers $30 billion. The result $2 billion worth of cannabis world seized and destroyed, 4 million people being arrested, and 250-thousand individuals being jailed for more than one yearbut no basic change in custom patterns from the 1970&8243s (www. bergen. com). Is it worth it? Mark teen is a victim of a US reg ularise Attorneys overzealous efforts to enforce federal marijuana laws. boyish, a resident of Illinois, went on a fishing trip in Florida with some old friends, bringing along some marijuana for everyone to enjoy hole-and-corner(a)ly. His Florida friends asked Young to introduce them to the grower, which he did, then was cut out of the deal from that point onward. He was later arrested and charged with conspiracy to shape marijuana. He had two strikes against him-minor possession charges that were twenty years old-so he faced a life sentence with no conjecture of parole, even though he did not benefit at all from the transaction.The District Attorney offered Young a reduced charge if he testified against his friends and others whom he had no prior knowledge of. He refused, and the DA won his case without having to inform the venire about Youngs two-strike status. The judge had no election but to pass down a sentence of life without parole. In a prison interview, Young was quo ted as saying, Theyve only proved Im capable of smoking a joint, or of introducing a guy to another guy who needs some pounds. Thats the most theyve proved me capable of.What they the prosecutors are doing, theyre destroying these families and vent out life sentences, taking peoples lives, put children on the street-I mean horrendous acts. I dont know of anyone that would do anything that malicious for a salary (Williams J. B. , 1970, p. 46). It is my opinion that the state has no right to interfere with anyones private conduct, particularly under the guise of protecting anyone from our own folly. The government is free to educate people as much as it wishes on the effects of using marijuana, education being the best way to alter behavior.However, it must not dictate what behavior an individual can or cannot practice in private. This opinion is the same one given in the 1972 report published by the National bearing on Marihuana and Drug Abuse in their summary, the authors of tha t report argued that private production and consumption of marijuana should be made legal (National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972, p. 152). They also recommended continued efforts to arrest anyone involved in trafficking or in the commercial production of marijuana.The report was accepted by the President, loudspeaker of the House, and President of the Senate, and the argument was later given support by President horn in Carter (Theis, C. F. , 1993, p. 45). However, political pressure prevented him from making contrive effort to reform marijuana laws. The fender motivation for marijuana prohibition was establish on a lack of knowledge. Nevertheless, the abhor and fear resulting from initial attitudes still border in current arguments against marijuana. Despite research to the contrary, a significant number of people refuse to have their beliefs challenged.And so billions of tax dollars continue to be spent on enforcement and prosecution, while use patterns remai n the same-a return on an investment that no private business would ever tolerate. And it is important to recover that statistics describe many casual marijuana users such as M. Y. , and families that are touched by overly strict laws. forbidding was established due to a misunderstanding, has not achieved its goal, and goes against an American philosophical approach. I believe it is time to reconsider its consequences.