Legalization of Marijuana

I already discussed earlier under Homeland Security stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the US by working on the demand side of the equation so that the suppliers go away.  But now I need to address marijuana.  

The subject of drugs and alcohol is a difficult one for me because I neither drink nor take drugs, so all of my thoughts on it are hypothetical and it makes me worry that I’m missing some critical component of the argument from either side of the issue.  I’ve never been drunk before, never been high.  I wouldn’t even know where or how to get drugs of any kind, even if I wanted to.  And as far as drinking goes, I’m not against it and I wish I liked it, but I just can’t get past the taste of alcohol (and believe me I’ve tried!).  

We’ve been talking about the legalization of marijuana for decades as a nation, weighing the pros and cons till exhaustion, and now there are several states where it is becoming legal to use, grow, and distribute, yet federally we still have laws and law enforcement treating it as an illegal substance.

For me the bottom line about this issue comes down to several key components:

  • Those who really want it are still going to find a way to get it….do we really want to criminalize that and thereby subject them to prison time and turn scofflaws into hardened criminals, not to mention fill up already over-crowded jails with them?
  • As long as we monitor its role in society carefully, particularly for me such things as DUI’s, then we need to give legalization a chance for a sustained period of time (like 10 years) and see if it turns out to be the boogeyman so many believe it to be, or if it is ‘much ado about nothing’.  
  • We need to amend our federal laws to not keep something criminal that individual states say for now is okay.  
  • If, after a sustained review period of 10 or so years, and if new scientific evidence should be brought to bear that it is harmful to society as a whole and that it is better off being made illegal again, then that is what we must have the political will to do, but right now, it is high time (no pun intended) we gave legalization of marijuana a full and complete chance and see what happens.