3 Arguments Why Marijuana Should Stay Illegal Reviewed

All around the world marijuana is being decriminalized or even made legal

But is this really a good idea. In the online debate the harmful sites are often downplayed?

So let's look at the three most powerful arguments against legalizing marijuana

Argument number one: In the last few decades

Marijuana has been engineered to become much more potent

Today marijuana is so potent that it's actually a strong drug that may cause Psychosis.

The main active ingredient of marijuana is THC and there's strong evidence that THC is related to psychosis

regardless of other risk factors

Marijuana also contains a substance called CBD that seems to counteract this effect

It's even being tested as a treatment against psychosis and anxiety

but because it doesn't make you high growers have gradually decreased the amount of CBD in marijuana over the last few decades while increasing

THC levels

Sample testing showed that THC levels have risen from around 4% in the 1990s to nearly 12% in 2014

Shifting the ratio of THC to CBD from 1 to 14 in 1995 to about 1 to 80 in

2014 it's unclear how precise those tests were. However

Overall recent findings suggest that the more marijuana you consume and the stronger it is the higher your risk of developing psychosis

But how high is the risk of psychosis for the general population?

a study from britain found that while marijuana use has risen significantly between

1996 and 2005

the number of schizophrenia cases a type of psychosis remained stable

the risk of marijuana induced psychosis remains the highest for people who already have a high risk of psychosis to begin with

Them, it seems more likely that marijuana speeds up the development of their condition rather than causing it as far as we know right now

So the reasoning goes if fewer people have access to marijuana the lower the risk of marijuana and juice psychosis

But actually you could argue that precisely because marijuana is illegal

More people will end up with psychosis

prohibition makes

Illegal drug stronger and more potent because this way you can ship more product in a smaller space and sell it at a greater profit

this is what happened during the prohibition of alcohol in the US where hard liquor became the norm

and the same is happening with marijuana now

Imagine a world where liquor is the only alcohol available

You have the choice of either not drinking at all or getting much drunker than you would like to

This is the situation for many marijuana smokers today

People didn't stop drinking during Prohibition and the numbers show that laws don't deter people from using marijuana

we can't make marijuana go away, but we can make it safer

If marijuana were legal. There would be more options for consumers and regulators could for example insist on a high level of CBD

Just like most people don't drink an after-work bottle of vodka many people would gladly consume the after-work beer version of marijuana

Argument - marijuana is a gateway drug if it's legalized there will be a spike in the use of much more dangerous drugs a

2015 study found that about

45% of lifelong marijuana users took some other illegal drug at some point

Legalizing marijuana could reinforce this trend as more young people. Try legal marijuana. They might end up trying harder drugs

But it turns out that the real gateway to drug use comes much earlier cigarettes

One study showed that teens who started smoking before the age of 15 were 80%

more likely to use illegal drugs than those who didn't and a

2007 study found that teenagers between 12 and 17 who smoked were three times more likely to binge drink

Seven times more likely to have used drugs like heroin or cocaine and were also seven times more likely to resort to marijuana

But if that's the case, how could making more drugs legal stop the use of hard drugs?

At first it's important to acknowledge that people don't use drugs because they're legal or not

If you want to buy any drug, you'll always find someone happy to sell

The real question is why do people develop an unhealthy relationship with drugs at all?

Studies show that certain conditions make people especially vulnerable to drugs and addiction a difficult childhood early trauma

low social status

depression even genetic factors

Which drug they get addicted to is more often than not a matter of chance

Addicts take drugs to escape their problems, but drugs don't solve any of those problems and instead become a new problem

But punishing people for their unhealthy coping mechanisms doesn't change anything about the underlying causes either

So some argue we need to take a completely different route in

2001 Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe. So it was desperate enough to try something radical

Possession and use of all the legal drugs was decriminalized

He would no longer be arrested instead authorities launched a major health campaign

People who were found with a small amount were referred to support services and got help with treatment and harm reduction

Drug use was seen as a chronic disease not a crime

the results were stunning the number of people who tried drugs and kept using them fell from

44% to 28% by 2012

The use of hard drugs decreased as well as HIV and hepatitis infections and overdoses

Making drugs legal might overall help society much more than it harms it

Argument number three

Marijuana is addictive and unhealthy. It needs to remain illegal to keep harm at a minimum

While marijuana addiction is more psychological than physical it is still a real problem

the demand for treatment for marijuana addiction has more than doubled in the past decade alone in

Total about 10 percent of people who try marijuana will become addicted

This is also related to higher THC levels a

Study released in 2017 tracked the potency of marijuana and Dutch coffee shops over a period of 16 years

For every 1% increase in THC

60 more people enter treatment nationwide in terms of negative health effects

Some studies linked marijuana used to increase blood pressure and lung problems while a 2016 study found that marijuana use was

Unrelated to physical health problems except for a higher risk of gum disease

Some studies showed that marijuana use alters teenagers brains and

Decreases their intelligence, but when more recent studies took drinking and smoking into account the results were inconclusive

Overall research shows that taking any drugs while the brain is still in development is bad for you

But the truth is we don't know yet how unhealthy marijuana is we need more funding for research?

Which is hard to get while marijuana remains illegal

We can put what we know into perspective though

16% of people who consume alcohol become alcoholics and 32% of people who try cigarettes become smokers

We know for sure alcohol affects your brain destroys your liver and causes cancer while tobacco clogs your arteries

Destroys your lungs and also causes cancer

3.3 million people die from alcohol abuse each year while smoking kills more than 6 million people

Nobody is suggesting tobacco and alcohol are harmless just because they're legal also

Nobody is seriously proposing to prohibit them even though they are extremely dangerous

Legality is a way to exercise some control over them, especially when it comes to protecting young people

It's often much harder to buy legal drugs for teenagers than to buy illegal ones

Official sellers can get hefty fines and lose their license if they sell to underage kids

Legality creates incentives here that drug dealers can't exploit

So making marijuana legal doesn't mean endorsing it it means taking responsibility for the risks it poses

It could also open the floodgates to tons of new research that shows us how harmful it really is. And to whom

Conclusion

Marijuana is a drug and just like any other drug

It has negative consequences for a sizable portion of the people who use it. It is not harmless

The best way to protect society from its negative consequences seems to be legalization and regulation

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