Throughout the whole month I kept updating this blog which main focus was to find the best solution about the war on drugs. My initial hypothesis was along the lines of this article, which talks about legalizing all drugs in order to end the drug wars, which consequently would end the homicides of innocent people. Another upside was that if drugs were legalized the government could tax them and make millions of dollars out of it, which could be used to improve health care and education. However as I kept researching I realized I was wrong! The solution is not to give into the criminals who produce and smuggle the drugs, the solution is to not go out and fight them. What I mean is that the best thing is to end the war on drugs, but since marijuana is the most used illicit drug and has no deadly effects on the body it can be legalized and regulated.
So my new solution is to legalize marijuana, and as we all know this has been a topic of discussion for over more than three decades. One of the initiatives was filed by Oakland medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee. Lee helped push a tax on the city’s medical marijuana that was supported by more than 80% of the votes. He says that marijuana can be taxed and sold just like alcohol and cigarettes are that is something that I completely agree with.
Just to make this clear I don’t smoke marijuana or have ever tried it. And the reason why I believe this solution will work is because both sides end up winning, one side gets their drug legalized and the other side knows that it is only marijuana which won’t create major problems in society.
There are some groups that support marijuana legalization such as NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), whose mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the repeal of marijuana prohibition so that the responsible use of marijuana by adults is no longer subject to penalty. This was also one of my major concerns and it is that many people get ridiculously long jail sentences because of possession of marijuana. Since 1990 nearly 5.9 million people have been arrested on marijuana charges. 88% of the charges were just for simple possession of marijuana and the remaining 12% of charges were categorized as dealing or manufacturing. But if it is legalized people won’t have to worry about it and their lives won’t be ruined by having done time. A chocking fact a found was that in 2000 marijuana arrests exceeded the combined number of arrests for violent crimes, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Another group that is in favor of the legalization of marijuana is LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). One of the things that caught my attention the most about their website was that they have a picture of Al Capone and of Pablo Escobar, with the saying “same problem…same solution.” LEAP is made up of members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who speak about the failures of the existing drug policies. They say that the policies have failed to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs. Now I think about this group and I think is very ironic that the people who are supposed to be enforcing the prohibition, are actually against it. But then again I agree with them and the fact that even policemen believe marijuana should be legalized just makes me feel more confident about my solution.
Another group which supports my solution is DrugSense. But unlike LEAP and NORML, DrugSense’ goal is to provide accurate information about the drug policy in order to raise awareness of the extreme damage being caused to the United States and the world by our current flawed and failed "War on Drugs." They aim to inform the public of the existence of rational alternatives to the drug war, and to help organize citizens to bring about needed reforms. This group is great because it relates to the second part of my solution, which is to end the war on drugs.
Lastly I found what could be use as a “mold” to follow which is Amsterdam once marijuana is legalized. In Holland is technically against the law to possess marijuana, but it doesn’t matter since this law is not enforced. There are many coffee shops were people can go and buy a personal amount of marijuana and smoke it. As long as a person doesn’t smoke in public the police don’t do anything, but since people know that they have the freedom to smoke in cafés, they don’t risk being caught outside smoking. I believe that if we follow this example there would not be a need for war on drugs and people can enjoy smoking marijuana without going to excesses.
Lastly I found a list of politicians and famous people who smoke or smoked marijuana and it didn’t affect them at all. As far as politicians go the ones in favor of legalizing marijuana are from California, such as Jim Gray a superior court judge. And as for famous people the main person who demonstrated that marijuana didn’t even affect his performance when he was competing during the Olympics. Michael Phelps after winning 14 gold medals was caught smoking out of a pipe, and then he had to apologize. But if you ask me I don’t see why he had to apologize, he proves that marijuana doesn’t affect us in our physique or mentality the only thing it does is gives the person a feeling of euphoria and temporary care free feeling. And as for more politicians the head of state Barrack Obama, admitted that had smoked marijuana and so did Bill Clinton. There is a complete list of about 200 celebrities who smoke marijuana in this website.
During this month I grew as a person and as a thinker, I learned that my hypothesis is not always right and that sometimes I am not well informed when I create hypothesis which means that there is room for error. I believe my biggest growth was that I had to admit that I was completely wrong, but I did not agree with just leaving the situation as it is, no, I came up with a new solution that has proof of working in other places of the world and that it is backed up by many organizations and public personalities.
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