Briana Voyer's Legalization Of Drugs

Marijuana is one of the most discussed and controversial topics in the U.S today. Many say that it has medicinal benefits and should be made legal. While many say that it has a “high potential for abuse” (Medical) and should remain illegal. Among the arguments, proponents for medical marijuana have presented a stronger argument for legalization through their use of research and evidence.

Drug decriminalization is opposed by the majority of Americans. Leaders in drug prevention, education, treatment, and law enforcement are against it, as are many political leaders. However, pro-drug advocacy groups, who support the use of drugs, are making headlines. They are influencing legislation and having a significant impact on the national policy debate in the United States. Although, pro-advocacy groups claim decriminalization of drugs will lower incarceration rates and boost the economy, drugs must stay illegal in America, if not, more people will use, causing negative effects on health, families and communities.

For many years, a real push has been looming on the idea of legalizing now illegal drugs. This has become a hot debate throughout nations all over the world, from all walks of life. The dispute over the idea of decriminalizing illegal drugs is and will continue on as an ongoing conflict. In 2001, Drug decriminalization in all drugs, including cocaine and heroin, became a nationwide law in Portugal (Greenwald). Ethan Nadelman, essayist of “Think again: Drugs,” states his side of the story on the continuing criminalization of hard drugs, in which he stand to oppose. Whether it is for the good of human rights or not, decriminalizing drugs may be a good head start for a new beginning.

My team and I evaluated a case where legalizing drugs would bring a greater happiness to society and that a small population of drug users would get addicted. We believe that legalizations on hard drugs would lead to bad behavior and a spike in addiction rates. Specifically, on drugs like Alcohol, Cocaine, or Heroin, etc. As what Jeremy Bentham would say, “It is the greatest good to the greatest number”. We want everyone to be happy by having a healthy society and peaceful world. My group follows Bentham’s utilitarianism theory which it benefits the society. Making drugs illegal would benefit society as hole. Legalizing drugs would terminate families, increase crime, and money, health would take a sudden decline.

Recently there has been a lot of news surrounding the legalization of Marijuana in Canada. The legalization is to actually take place in 2017. However, the discussion of this topic has already begun. Many people are requesting the government to allow pardons on past possession charges. It is their opinion that if the drug is going to be legalized sooner or later, it is justified to pardon the past offences. The article even mentions two men whose lives are affected by the criminal record of having minor narcotics. They both state that they are unable to travel abroad (namely to america), and have personal issues such as landlords refusing to rent to them. It is their opinion, alongside others, that just because of a small charge their lives do not need to be affected so much. Especially considering that the government is going to legalize the drug anyway. The article also mentions how the previous conservative government made it harder to receive a pardon. Due to this, many people have be unable to erase the marks of their past and begin on a new clean slate.

In 2015, 1,488,707 people in the United States were arrested on drug charges. Nearly 84 percent of those arrest were for possession only. As one can imagine these arrest impact the American justice system greatly. Within America's prisons in 2010 more than half of all inmates were serving time based on drug related charges. The prisons within America are greatly overcrowded, and I believe that decriminalizing drug use could offer assistance in this situation.

For many people, the thought of making drugs easily accessible for consumption by the masses may be frightening. After all, we have drug laws in place because they have the potential to be harmful. It also may not be difficult to imagine that it could very well be subject to failure due to a numerous amount negative externalities that may occur. Our nation has been engaged in a war on drugs for several decades now. The effectiveness of this war, however, is a topic that has continuously been debated. Some argue that universal legalization of drugs, an alternative that has never been tried, may have a greater benefits when compared to the present state of the war on drugs. On the other hand, the opposition believes that legalization would only pave the way for a vast amount of crime and many wasted resources.

The marijuana legalization movement is one of the most controversial social movements of the modern day. Efforts to reform marijuana policy have been organized since the mid 1900s. There are two major organizations leading the battle for marijuana decriminalization. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and the Marijuana Project Policy (MPP) are both looking to reschedule and eventually legalize marijuana for the use of responsible adults. These two organizations provide various strategies that, along with additional tactics from other sources, have strongly influenced the position of the marijuana legalization social movement. The mobilization of resources is strongly influenced by the two leading organizations

Drugs should be legalized and/or decriminalized in the future in Washington State and the Unit-ed States. However, along with legalization should come counseling for drug abuse and should give the pros and cons to using drugs. Since smoking was legalized and more information has come out about smoking there is 50% less smokers and it is less of a public issue. And as far as the concern with there being more people using drugs and driving a car, yes we will have drivers using just as we have drivers drinking and driving. Also with legalization will come more control for the purity of drugs and users will be less like to become dependent because of this. One other issue is that more money needs to be spend on rehabilitation. Incarceration is

Leblanc, D. (2016, January 12). Legalizing marijuana will come with strict controls, MP Bill Blair says. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/legalizing-marijuana-will-come-with-strict-controls-mp-bill-blair-says/article28137320/

In her argument “Legalizing Marijuana”, Tamira Sherrod acknowledges that marijuana is illegal; she elaborates on this specific situation explaining the many reasons why it should be legalized. Tamira is a first year student in college at Neumann University who has background knowledge on marijuana and understands how it doesn’t have as much of a negative effect on the body that people seems to think. Tamira is very familiar with situations having to do with marijuana and people who have been penalized for it. In most of these cases there were actually potential people who had things going for themselves. For instance her 26 year old brother, he isn’t one who takes part in marijuana, but yet he was in the presents of his friends while they were consuming it and he was still penalized.

The arguments that I have just laid out are not perfect and they have some apparent flaws that some philosophers would strongly disagree with, while there are other arguments that some of the great philosophers would agree with. I will critique the arguments that I have just laid out using the perspective of three different philosophers who all have their own ideas of how the state should function and the role of the citizen. The three philosophers that I will use in this critique will be Karl Marx, John Stewart Mill, and John Locke. The reason why I picked these three philosophers is because they all agree with some aspects of my writing, while disagreeing with others. One will disagree with the role of the state and the citizens, but

Marijuana has a long standing history of being one of the most controversial substances in America. While the history or the Cannabis plant indicates not only acceptance as a useful plant, but even advocated as a source of revenue and medicinal usage, much of the United States government propaganda over the last 100+ years has led Americans to accept very slighted and often false information about the plant and its uses. Based on the origin of the illegalization of marijuana and the inconsistent findings of its effects in comparison to other substances, both legal and illegal, marijuana should be decriminalized and treated as a recreational substance just as alcohol and tobacco are.

Drug legalization is an enduring question that presently faces our scholars. This issue embraces two positions: drugs should not be legalized and drugs should be legalized. These two positions contain an array of angles that supports each issue. This brief of the issues enables one to consider the strengths and weakness of each argument, become aware of the grounds of disagreement and agreement and ultimately form an opinion based upon the positions stated within the articles. In the article “Against the Legalization of Drugs”, by James Q. Wilson, the current status of drugs is supported. Wilson believes if a drug such as heroin were legalized there would be no financial or medical reason to avoid heroin usage;

Nonetheless, does legalization of illegal products, such as drugs, diminish black market activity? James Q. Wilson, a former professor at UCLA and Harvard, stated in one of his columns “Our federal drug laws are irrational,” readers then demanded him that we should solve this problem by legalizing drugs (Wilson). It would be so simple and easy if the legalization of drugs could only work to solve our nation’s black market drug problem. However, this has not worked in any of the cases that have been tried. In Colorado, where marijuana is legal, growers were growing marijuana and shipping it to other states where it is illegal. Even though it is legal in nine states, these growers are still selling it on the black market to avoid the legal regulation