Editorial

Since starting middle school we have been educated against the use of drugs and alcohol. One of the most commonly mentioned drugs was marijuana because of its appeal to people in the high school age group. Marijuana has been mentioned in the news more lately then in the past. The main debate on the issue is whether or not the use of marijuana should be legalized or not.
I personally side with legalizing marijuana use. One of the reasons they say it’s illegal is that it is a dangerous drug that causes severe health threats. This is absolutely false as marijuana is one of the safest drugs out there, even more safe then most prescription drugs. Adversaries of legalization say that when smoked marijuana can cause lung disease and cancer because of the carcinogens in the smoke. This is also untrue as the amount of carcinogens inhaled while smoking marijuana is less that those inhaled while sitting at a campfire. Many ways have been created to use marijuana without having to smoke it making it even safer. Another strike against marijuana legalization is that if it is legalized then harder drug use like cocaine and methamphetamines will increase. They believe this because they label marijuana as a gateway drug, meaning that use of this drug will lead to harder drug use. The majority of people who smoke marijuana never progress onto harder drugs. I once saw a commercial saying that if you smoked marijuana it would lead to death. This is an absolute false statement. It has been clinically proven that to overdose and die from smoking marijuana a person would need to smoke 100,000 times the normal amount they smoke and in about the same time frame. A typical person would pass out before finishing one tenth of that amount.
Some states have updated stances on marijuana. In parts of California marijuana is legalized as a medical treatment and available to those with a prescription from their Dr. Other places have decriminalized marijuana so that when people are caught with marijuana, it is confiscated but no fine is given to the person possessing it. Both of these options are much better than the current “War on Marijuana” that the majority of the country supports.
Marijuana legalization is a topic that is gaining steam as of late. More evidence for the positive results of legalizing marijuana has been supported. Through legalization the government could stop spending money to tell people to not smoke it and could even tax it.