Battle #3 : Marijuana should be legalized - IIFT - FOR

Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages can produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year, as per a June 2005 report by Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University.

Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement — $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels.

These impacts are considerable, according to the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. For example, $14 billion annual combined annual savings and revenues would cover the securing of all “loose nukes” in the former Soviet Union in less than three years. Just one year’s savings would cover the full cost of anti-terrorism port security measures required by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002.

The stigma of impact on health

Marijuana does not cause brain damage, genetic damage, or damage the immune system. The MALICE team would probably be the most baffled by this funding. Their age old stigmas seem to get shattered right in front of their eyes and nothing like science to do the honours. Unlike alcohol, marijuana does not kill brain cells or induce violent behaviour. Rather Respiratory health hazards can be totally eliminated by consuming marijuana via non-smoking methods, i.e., ingesting marijuana via baked foods, tincture, or vaporizer.

We as proponents of legalizing marijuana, actually envision a free, safe and non discriminatory environment for any and all kinds of users. Which is why, until this point we haven’t even brought up matters literally, of life and death. Marijuana has significant upsides for individuals with certain illnesses. In glaucoma patients, it can reduce the dangerously high eye pressure that can lead to vision loss, and in some cases even cause death. In addition, pot can provide relief from chronic pain, reduce nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy, and limit the severe weight loss that results from AIDS and other diseases. As of January 31, 2014, there were 28 active grants funded by NIDA, in 6 different disease categories , investigating  the potential medical benefit of the marijuana plant (Cannabis sativa) or its constituentcannabinoid chemicals in human or animal models of disease. But of course, MALICE knows better than the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

 

First up is the age old monster, that marijuana is a “gateway” drug, leading to the use of more dangerous substances. Many studies have found that most people who used other illicit drugs had, in fact, used marijuana first. Although results such as these are consistent with the gateway hypothesis,correlation and causation are two very different beasts, with nothing proving using marijuana causes the use of other drugs. Those who are drawn to marijuana may simply be predisposed to drug use in general, regardless of their exposure to pot. More interestingly, individuals often smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol before they latch on to marijuana. So we really ought to be debating whether nicotine and alcohol are gateway drugs, and eventually criminalizing them too?

 

While we ardently hope that this piece may actually bring the debate regarding marijuana in the drawing room, or even to fruition, but with the kind of polemic and dogma associated with violent MALICE brigades, we would be awfully glad just to have gotten a word across. Consider some of the choicest nuggets of reasons depicted in anti-marijuana campaigns below.

- “You're either a supporter of MMYV, or you're a terrorist. Simple as that, end of story. “

- “If you're not an anti-marijuana activist, you're practically worthless to this world.”

 

“Each and every violent death in the the history of human’s existence can and has been directly linked to consumption of the cannabis sativa plant. The only way humans become violent and lust for blood is through smoking, snorting, injecting or eating marijuana.”

 

With such brilliant, fool proof, and utterly reasonable arguments, we shudder to think they might be smoking.

The problem is not marijuana. The problem is millions of people, brainwashed & indoctrinated to passionately and vehemently approach a sensitive matter with all the nuance of a hammer throw. The problem is all the people who have been denied even the basic right to discuss a relevant issue, in their own state and country, by brutal Puritanical prudism that prevents any meaningful discussion from taking place. Anything remotely related to marijuana turns into a high decibel moralizing “trip” taking people from marijuana use straight to damnation,and/or cocaine.

A particularly favored  argument of the MALICE  team is how addictive marijuana is. Or basically, how you will become homeless, penniless vagrant who shares his cardboard box with 2 cats and a blind rat. The reality? A large-scale survey published in 1994 by epidemiologist James Anthony, then at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, asked more than 8,000 people between the ages of 15 and 64 about their use of marijuana and other drugs. The researchers found that of those who had tried marijuana at least once, about 9 percent eventually fit a diagnosis of cannabis dependence. The corresponding figure for alcohol was 15 percent, and for nicotine, 32 percent. So although marijuana may be potentially addictive, 91 percent of those who try it do not get hooked.

In simpler words, the double soy cinnamon cappuccino Starbucks habit your average MALICE trooper has everyday, is more dependence than what most marijuana users will exhibit.

 

Another favourite chant the MALICE camp loves harping upon, is the millions of people marijuana kills. And as rational people, we definitely agree that anything that can cause thousands of deaths a year should never be legalized.

FACT: Marijuana doesn’t kill people. Whereas guns, historically are pretty renowned for the rather fatal effect they have on humans. And yet, you can openly buy, carry, traffic and even “lend” , without even a license, a weapon that routinely makes its way into schools, and actually kills a number of children each year. But get caught with a couple of grams of marijuana, and you will be thrown into jail, along with coke dealers, gangmembers and assorted felons. Because clearly, guns save lives, where as marijuana can kill multiple, at a distance, sometimes even silently. Oh wait. In their infinite MALICE, they might just have twisted things a few degrees. Like 180 odd degrees, perhaps?

Marijuana represents the lowest hanging fruits on the war against drugs, simply because it’s nothing close to any of the substances the police ought to fighting. Over 50% percent of all arrests in the USA now are marijuana related. This brings easy numbers, and cheap laurels to flaunt for police departments everywhere. The simple reason for this is the fact that the majority of these arrests are not the hard as nails Scarface style kingpins the media paints them as, but college students, working professionals, every day Joe’s looking for a break. And what a break they end up getting. Not only are these arrests quite racially biased, but often carry highly disproportionate consequences. When people are arrested for possessing even tiny amounts of marijuana, it can have dire collateral consequences that affect their eligibility for public housing and student financial aid, employment opportunities, child custody determinations, and immigration status. Marijuana is the bogeyman being used to make you think the world is turning into a safer place, when resources that should actually pursue serious criminals, drug traffickers, and even terrorist funding sources, instead go towards putting barely legal teens, into jail, which just for the records is a proven recipe for turning them into hardcore criminals. So in a nutshell, billions of dollars are year are basically spent into sending thousands of average, harmless folk into felon school, while simultaneously keeping the heat low on the real world felons.

To sum up, all we really want is that the purple haze surrounding this burning issue be cleared, the hysteria induced paranoid trance, fulled by a sensational media and Puritanical prudeness that has smoked up billions of dollars, and ashed thousands of promising individuals be blown away for once for. All we really want to ask is who is the one still hallucinating? A regular Joe who wants a safe, mostly harmless recreational recourse, or those who’d paint him to be the Devil himself, and damn him thusly, for something they believe against their “Morals”. Once if only, light up, maybe?

References:

http://www.nei.nih.gov/news/statements/marij.asp

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-pot/

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/international-analysis-uruguay-marijuana-legalization

http://legalizationofmarijuana.com/

http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/

 

-------------

This is an entry for the Great Indian B-School Debate. We are speaking for the topic: Marijuana should be legalized.

Team Name: The foreign Hand

Team Members: Purvabh Surana & Satyaki Mascharak