The Legal Response Of Marijuana Possession

First, from 1900 to 1940, marijuana, including opium and cocaine were considered part of everyday drugs. As time went on, the U.S. cracked down on crack and opium, eventually outlawing them, but continued to be very “loose” with the use of marijuana. Hoxter a weed smuggler explains how he began in the 1960’s trying weed and years later saw himself unloading four hundred pounds of pot in Vancouver. The story of this man ends in his isolation and argument of why he couldn’t smoke weed even if he stopped selling? He asked a parole officer and she didn’t know what to respond. It is true what Hoxter states, fifty years ago alcohol was illegal and now it’s not, was it bad then? Will weed be legalized? And will the conflicts have been in vain? (Schou 8). Around the late 90’s and early 2000’s, scientific studies started to produce jaw-dropping results. Scientists started to discover that marijuana can significantly help people who have become ill. Medical Marijuana has been tested to help people with cataracts, cancer and severe depression (Zeese 1999). With this new worldwide discovery, the argument about medical marijuana ignited. States wanted to only make medical marijuana legal so it may help sick people, but the government did not want any form of marijuana legal. The law that was known throughout the United States was any form of marijuana was illegal. But now with this new discovery, doctors in states across the country want the

Cannabis began being outlawed all across the U.S. during the 1900’s and has remained illegal ever since, until recent years when states began legalizing it (huffpost.com). Although many people believe that the reason behind the prohibition of cannabis was based on genuine concern for the possible consequences it may have on the well-being of people if it remained accessible to all, the truth is that the drive behind the U.S.’s prohibition of cannabis was founded on racism. During the early 1900’s cannabis was considered an “ethnic drug” due to the fact that many Mexican immigrants smoked the plant (huffpost.com). With the tension in Western states regarding the migration of Mexicans into the states, laws concerning the use regulation of

“Drug policy regarding the control of the traditional illicit substances (opiates, cocaine, cannabis) is currently moving through upbeat times in almost all Western countries. Prohibition on the basis of repressive law enforcement not only seems to fail on a large scale, but also to create vast additional costs, problems, and harm for drug consumers, who often find themselves in extreme social, economic, and health conditions” (Fischer 1995: 389).

Back in the 1900’s when there was a large immigration influx of Mexicans into the U.S., citizens not only saw there was an influx of their customs. This included the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes (Burnett and Reiman, 2014). What most Americans didn’t realize is that it is the same as what they knew as cannabis, which had been used in many medicines for years and was found in may American households. The U.S. had been known to control immigrants by having an excuse to search and deport certain races by outlawing the use of their traditional medicinal drugs, like had been done with Chinese immigrants and the use of opium in San Francisco (Burnett and Reiman, 2014). Texas adopted this way of thought by using marijuana to control Mexican immigrants. Claims were made that marijuana was able to “cause men of color to become violent and solicit sex from white women” (Burnett and Reiman, 2014). From accusation like this, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 came into being and

Which overall shows that the Constitution would have left this issue to the states. In 1920 prohibition came into effect, which was the ban of all alcohol. However, because it was not specifically stated in the Constitution whether the national government could interfere with this issue, an amendment was added. Eventually, this was changed and another amendment was added to remove Prohibition and the previous amendment. There are many similarities between prohibition and the issue of marijuana. When prohibition started, it produced a lot of gangsters and illegal activity, because suddenly it was illegal to have alcohol. Which related to marijuana because the government has kept it criminalized and because of that, there has been crime related to the drug. This shows that people are going to do what they want regardless. People drank and sold alcohol regardless of its criminalization, and weed is so prevalent in our society that quite a lot of people have been already been consuming it for a long time. According to the Forbes article, a study has shown that the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado “has not had much of an effect on the prevalence of cannabis consumption” (How is Marijuana Legalization Going?), so in other words, people who have already been consuming marijuana, are mainly the people who have continued

Many have long argued that prohibition simply does not work. ( ) Today, the strict policy on cannabis is reinforced by severe punishment. In reality, police forces have been growing more lenient to cannabis use, prioritising more pressing areas, indicating a change in law enforcement attitude to the drug. ( ) This may also suggest a change in social culture. The flaws of prohibition are present today regarding the so-called ‘War on Drugs’. People who are otherwise innocent are swept into the criminal justice system because of cannabis use. (6) Thus, they face the problem of a criminal record and may even become involved with harmful activity whilst in the criminal justice system. This situation has wrongly allowed cannabis to be a powerful

Mark Rodriguez English 3 Honors Christina Nidowicz 29 October 2017 Annotated Bibliography Dr. Tedros. “Substance Abuse.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 2017, www.who.int/topics/substance_abuse/en/. Dr. Tedros, director of the World Health organization, refers to the harmful and hazardous use of psychoactive substances. He explains how the use of these drugs can lead to a change in behavior, a strong desire to take the drug, difficulty in controlling its use, and a severe change in behavior. He then explains the many policies his organization has to prevent the use of non medication cannabis.

The first marijuana laws weren’t directed at blacks and Mexicans by statute, but they were sponsored by law enforcement and an extension of Jim Crow tactics. Historians Richard J. Bonnie and Charles H. Whitebread, authors of The Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States, documented a pervasive racial bias that motivated the formation of these laws. Only a few press clippings were necessary to drum up enough fear to pass those early marijuana laws. “All Mexicans are crazy, and this (marijuana) makes them crazy,” was a quote from the floor of the Texas Senate which passed the first state marijuana law in 1914. From 1915 to 1937, 27 states passed laws against marijuana.

Although the government did everything it could to enforce this, it failed to do so because of society’s unwillingness to part with alcohol. Many American people consumed alcohol before Prohibition and to them, Prohibition was not legitimate in the their eyes. Because of their acrimony of the law, the American people were willing to smuggle illegal trade and smuggling to satisfy their needs, undermining the laws of Prohibition. Similarly today, many illegal traders and smugglers sell marijuana even though prohibition laws against marijuana are in place. Society today has similar mindset when it comes to Prohibition in the 20’s. If people desire for marijuana, than they will acquire it through illegal trades and markets, much like the Prohibition in the 20’s. Although it can be argued that the US is slowly allowing the legalization of marijuana and preventing further consequences such as the Prohibition, the US is still very indecisive and hesitant on legalizing marijuana. The US, in most parts of it, still refuses to legalize marijuana, believing that prohibition will limit trade of marijuana. However, the situation is similar to the 20’s, because if there are consumers than “it (marijuana) will be provided.” Society’s indifference to laws of Prohibition in the 20’s and prohibition today has led to the public undermining these laws. In spite of this, another major factor

As time goes on, social attitudes adapt and change. 70-80 years ago, marijuana was demonized in films such as reefer madness and demonized as the drug of choice of the minorities. An example of a lie from this point in time was that marijuana was used by blacks and Mexicans to rape white women. The time has come for America and the world to change its philosophy on drug use. The drug war is a lost cause because it’s built on racism and prejudice, the effects of drugs are exaggerated, it creates prison overcrowding, it allows violent cartels to become incredibly powerful and because it is a hypocritical philosophy.

After looking at the effects of the prohibition and illegalization of marijuana it is easy to see that putting a restriction on the recreational use of alcohol and weed is useless and only harms the wellbeing of society. The similarities between the two eras are eerily alike. Both eras have laws that hurt society, reduce overall health of the public and threw useless and petty crimes through the roof. These topics help prove the point that a prohibition hinders the advancement of society and if the laws were lifted, the well-being of the populations would significantly be

Sometimes seen in today’s media is the activity of marijuana enthusiasts and their difficult mission to have their drug legalized for recreational use. Through the efforts of these activists in the United States, decriminalization and legalization of marijuana has been considered and in some cases deemed legal by many states. However, its consideration of legalization is not a spontaneous decision by the United States government nor the individual states, but is the result of ordinary citizens who support the use of marijuana actively disobeying the law and persistently expressing their ideas of how the laws surrounding marijuana should be defined. This large campaign has seen activity in Canada as well with steps being made to decriminalize

Marijuana is currently a recreational drug used by many people all around the globe. The use of marijuana can be traced all the way back to 7000 B.C. In the past 50 years, many countries have taken a stand against the use of marijuana and have made it illegal. The Drug Enforcement agency of the united Stated and the International War on Drugs are measures that were taken to ban the use of marijuana as well as many other different drugs. since this ban on marijuana and other different types of drugs, the crime rates have risen tremendously, and the illegal drug trade has become much larger. A study recorded by the United Nations in the year 2005 wrote a report titled, “World Drug Report 2005” gives the estimated cost of the drug market to be

The illegal status of cannabis was established at federal level through the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act under Nixon´s Presidency in 1970 (Caulkins et al. 2012: 20). Two years after, 1972, the National Commission on Marijuana

In the United States of America there are a lot of controversial issues that have been debated upon for a long time. The issue that should be discussed and given more incite in order to help the U.S. grow into success again is the legalization of marijuana in the country. The debate of legalizing marijuana in the country has gone on for a long time and still has not yet come to a conclusion. The issue has brought some states to take matters into their own hands and have actually legalized marijuana in their states such as California, Colorado etc... According to Governing.com the U.S. in total has 30 states that have legalized the use of marijuana. In these states 29 legalized medical marijuana and 8 have added legal recreational marijuana