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AS FAR AS THE EYE By Erin McGarvey Gavel Media Staff
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The future of marijuana laws in America
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any people who smoke marijuana regularly do so openly, and in some states the police are no longer allowed to object. Earlier in 2012, the states of Colorado and Washington legalized the recreational use of marijuana for those over the age of 21, beginning to turn the fight for legal acceptance of the long-recognized social habit. Those marijuana lovers and politicians in favor of legalization point to a wide variety of signs in their favor. For one, forcing the police to turn a blind eye towards pot would allow them to focus on cracking down on the trade of illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The illegal drug trade is booming. It has become a concern so large
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that the UN now grapples with it. Yet in New York City, according to a report in The Huffington Post, since the year 2000 marijuana arrests are made more frequently than those for violent crimes. The allocation of resources could be increased for more serious crimes. Hundreds of tons of illicit drugs are being transported worldwide according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. An violation for marijuana possession is usually a relatively minor offense, resulting in only a misdemeanor in the state of Massachusetts providing there is no intent to distribute. However, a mark on your record you may have gotten as a teenager will follow you for the rest of your life, decreasing your chances of getting a job. According to
the National Employment Law Project, 90 percent of employers conduct criminal background checks on their applicants. Although marijuana does not lead to the intense dependency and physical and mental changes from abuse of Class A drugs does, if you’re caught holding the substance, you have a mark on your record. This police work is expensive as well. Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron has estimated that the savings for the federal government for a national legalization of marijuana could be billions of dollars. With all the uproar over Congress’ inability to work out a plan to reduce the deficit, Miron views this as an easy solution. The savings could be used to strengthen the police so they could focus on the illicit drug
May 2013
trades, especially in inner cities where they are perilously undermanned. Moreover, if marijuana could be sold legally, it could also be taxed, providing further revenue for the states and the federal government. Those in favor of keeping marijuana illegal, such as Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick — and its possession and sale is still against federal law — bring valid points to the table as well. First, they discredit the idea that marijuana is as harmless a drug as many other drugs Potency has increased since the halcyon days of the 1960s and 70s. The concentration of THC, the psychoactive ingredient that gets you high, doubled between the years 1993 and 2008. THC stimulates the parts of the brain that control pleasure, memory, and concentration. Some scientists believe that the increased potency causes the THC to linger in and negatively affect these areas of the brain even after the high is gone. Nora Volkow, a doctor of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, argues against one of the biggest arguments for pot. It actually can be addictive, especially for the young teenagers eager to experiment. Approximately one in six users will develop an addiction and will tend to smoke more than those who begin doing so in www.bcgavel.com
their late teenage years, she said to The New York Times. Like with serious drugs, quitting can lead to serious withdrawal symptoms, like “anxiety, trouble sleeping, lack of appetite, mood swings, irritability and depression.” The gateway drug argument also holds weight. A 2012 Yale University study discovered that those who develop addictions to debilitating drugs such as heroin or cocaine often begin with marijuana, then go on to more and more dangerous routes to get a better high. Of course, keeping marijuana illegal has not stopped the worldwide drug trade from flourishing. Staci Gruber, director of the cognitive and clinical neuroimaging core of the imaging center at McLean Hospital in Boston, points to her own studies that suggest that those who begin smoking pot regularly before the age of 16 perform significantly worse on cognitive tests of brain function than those who begin at a later age. Scans found alterations in the frontal cortex of the adolescent smokers, suggesting they have been made to become more impulsive. The brain is still developing into early adulthood, so regular smoking could logically cause changes. Legal or not, people are going to be smoking weed. On any college campus, with no parents present and enough
privacy, it is exceedingly common. Massachusetts allows the use of medicinal marijuana, along with 17 other states and Washington, D.C., according to a boston.com article in November. A voter initiative for legal non-medicinal use is not expected until 2016. Such votes are expected to be much more difficult to get on the East Coast than in the liberal western states, where the stereotypes hold that a stoner can be found wherever you look. For better or worse, politicians like Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and even President Barack Obama want to make changes so that no one will have to hide their marijuana use. Paul, viewed as a potential presidential candidate for 2016, is actively seeking lightened laws, according to statements he made on Fox News Sunday; he. While the president is not actively promoting legalization, Obama said in a December interview with Barbara Walters that “it would not make sense for [the administration] to see a top priority as going after recreational [marijuana] users in states that have determined that it’s legal.” Should more politicians take their side, Colorado and Washington may quickly be followed by states across the country in the legalization process.
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