Marijuana Laws essays

Marijuana Laws essays Drug use and abuse is by no means a new phenomenon, but in the United States the problems associated with drugs has recently received much attention in the media, in politics, and in the scientific communities. In particular, drug use among teenagers has been the focus of many studies. Eric Sterling notes that "illegal drugs such as heroin and marijuana were more easily available to high school seniors in 1998 than at any time in history," suggesting that drug control measures issued by the US government are failing miserably. Marijuana has received the strictest criticism of all the drugs in the illegal pharmacopeias, ostensibly because it is the most popular illicit substance. An estimated 76% of Americans aged twelve and over who use illicit drugs use marijuana; almost half of these people don't imbibe any other drug like cocaine or heroin (NIDA). The news is peppered with drug-related death stories, most of which ironically do not involve marijuana use but "harder" drugs like cocaine, crack, heroin, amphetamines, and "designer" or "club" drugs like ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine (crystal meth for short). On the contrary, marijuana has no known overdose level. Still, the War on Drugs, which began decades before Ronald Reagan officially launched the campaign, largely targets marijuana, its users, buyers, and sellers. Officially classified as a drug with no known medical benefits, marijuana has not received any worthwhile laboratory treatment or objective scientific analysis as opiates or cocaine has; many prescription pharmaceuticals pose greater health and addiction risks than the hardy weed known botanically as cannabis sativa. The real drug problem in the United States, therefore, is not the widespread use of marijuana, although marijuana use does incur many detrimental psychological and physical side effects. Rather, the drug epidemic in America is bolstered and propagated ...