The Ethics of Legalizing Marijuana

 

The ethics of marijuana is arguable.  Some people (slowly becoming the minority) think it is a dangerous drug and it is morally wrong to partake in drug abuse.  Most of the people who believe this way do not have any experience with the marijuana.  They see it as being as bad as crack or heroin.  The way the mainstream portrays it is that it is a “gateway” drug-that it is a stepping stone to harder drugs such as heroin, cocaine or crack.  Marijuana is less harmful than the legal drugs that our country pushes on us.  Is that ethical?

Cigarettes and alcohol are so heavily marketed but they are extremely harmful and highly addictive.  It is not okay or ethical to have ads for cigarettes in magazines and on billboards trying to sell to minors.  Commercials for alcohol are on television all the time-times when children are watching, like during football, basketball, baseball and soccer games.  Is this ethical?  According to the CDC, “The number of alcoholic liver disease deaths in 2010 was 15,990.  The number of alcohol-induced deaths, excluding accidents and homicides was 25,692 in 2010.”  (CDC,2 )    These are pretty staggering and shocking statistics and yet many people believe alcohol to be a safer drug than marijuana. 

Cigarettes are much more dangerous than marijuana.  According to the CDC, “Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, accounting for more than 440,000 deaths, or one of every five deaths, in the United States each year.”  (CDC,5 )  Those statistics are shocking, also.  Marijuana does not contain nicotine which causes people to become addicted to cigarettes. 

There are many ethical issues surrounding marijuana legalization and although it is much less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, it is still illegal.  If marijuana is not going to be made legal in the United States then cigarettes and alcohol should be made illegal.  We saw how that worked out in the 1920s during prohibition.  According to the article “Prohibition in the United States”, “The lack of a solid popular consensus for the ban resulted in the growth of vast criminal organizations, including the modern American Mafia, and various other criminal cliques. Widespread disregard of the law also generated rampant corruption among politicians and within police forces.”  (Wikipedia, 23 ).   This is an example of what illegal marijuana is doing for the Mexican drug cartels and gangs.  Marijuana should be legalized in the United States so criminals do not profit from it.