~ Reasons to Legalize ~ Marijua

Reasons to Legalize

Marijuana is the linchpin of the War On Drugs. When we as a nation learn the facts and behave rationally, marijuana will inevitably be legalized, the War On Drugs will end, and the need for new prisons will disappear.

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, there is no proof that a causal relationship exists between stop arresting responsible marijuana smokers cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis and other drugs. Basic scientific and clinical research establishing causality does not exist.

As for DNA damage, brain damage and cancer supposedly caused by cannabis, no epidemiological evidence exists that links cannabis to any disease.

Despite 80 years of drug prohibition, at the cost of billions upon billions of dollars, and at a great loss of our precious civil liberties, anybody of any age that has a couple of bucks can buy illegal drugs. They're cheaper, more pure, more diverse and more widely available than ever before. The illicit drug market is an unregulated, free-market with no age limit and no ID required.

"Everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. stop arresting adult marijuana smokers

Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."

In summary, don't let anyone tell you that the war on drugs is only a metaphor. It's a war. Just remember the words of James Reston: "......In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion."

A quotation from Supreme Court justice

William O. Douglas

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.

And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."

This is the most punishing decade on record,'' said Vincent Schiraldi, the institute's executive director, noting that the nation's inmate population at the start of the 1990's was 1 million, an unprecedented number at the time. To double that -- adding another million in just 10 years -- is to equal the growth of the prison population during the previous 90 years.

According to a recent report by the Justice Policy Institute, the US prison and jail population topped two million for the first time on February 15, 2000. With that astounding total, this country has amassed the largest prison population, as well as the highest incarceration rate on earth.

With just 5 percent of the worlds population, the U.S. has a quarter of the worlds prisoners. Also alarming is the Institute's study noting that in the last two decades, state spending on corrections across the country increased by 100 percent while spending on higher education decreased by 6 percent.