Crime and deviance
our jail systems are filled to the brim with drug traffickers and drug abusers. Even in countries like Canada where the government has intensified measures to fight this 'war' with stiffer laws and awareness programs, the drug problem is getting much worse. The war on drugs seems to be an impossible battle, that may never be resolved or won. Policy makers turn their heads to the fact that legalizing 'softer' drugs may be an option to lowering this ailment in societies all over the world. Contrary to the normative outlook that legalizing a drug like marijuana would guide our economy and workforce into a stage of stagnation and counter production, marijuana could actually perpetuate the growth of our economy. Policy makers and the general public simply rule out the possibility that the legalization of a 'softer' drug like marijuana would reduce government spending on current law enforcement, and if there was a tax placed on marijuana it could actually be benefical to our country's revenue. This would also lead to a harder, more concentrated fight on harder drugs polluting their citizens, like crack, heroin, and other highly addictive vices. Marijuana is an exception to the fact that all drugs have potentia
Most that use pot enter their usage with the view that everyone else is trying it, why shouldn't I? Mommy and Daddy's room smells like that funny stuff in the parking lot, does that make it okay for me to do it too? These same easily persuaded pot smokers are the same people that give policy makers reason to label marijuana a "gateway" drug, they approach physically detrimental drugs with the very indifference in which they approached pot. Just go along with the crowd regardless of how physically debilitating they crowd's habits are to your physical and mental state. My junior year in high school eleven acquaintances of mine went into various clinics to rehabilitate from "crystal meth," a drug growing in popularity that has extreme negative affects on the central nervous system, and essentially destroys your life in every facet once hooked. All individuals involved but one used marijuana habitually before snorting this toxic ailment known as "meth." It is harsh realities like these that can only lead one to think that marijuana is a gateway drug. However, at the same time all drank regularly and smoked cigarettes regularly- it wasn't the group that my mother encouraged me to "hang out" with, but acquaintances at the same time. My friends truly had "addictive personalities" and nuerotic tendencies- all felt that they could stop usage at any time, and the way their lives revolved around getting "stoned" years earlier showed me this neutralization was fictional. All eleven basically lost all contacts, trust from loved ones, and the ideas of who they really were in the washing machine of illegal 'hard' drug addiction. This is one trend that few pot smokers partake in, but it clearly does happen. lly lethal affects when taken in large doses. "While over one hundred thousand deaths annually are directly linked to acute alcohol poisoning, no one in the 4,000 years of marijuana's documented use has ever died from an overdose." It seems illogical in looking at this statistic that marijuana is outlawed, alcohol has a much more negitive affect on individuals (our workforce) and on our society as a whole. There are negative effects to marijuana, but they seem miniscule in comparison as I see it. For example, in two places in the Western world where use of small amounts of marijuana is legal- the Netherlands and Alaska- the rate of marijuana consumption is arguably lower than in the continental United States, where marijuana is banned. In 1992, 6.3 percent of American high school seniors smoked marijuana daily, but only 4 percent did so in Alaska. In 1995, 5.5 percent of American high school seniors used marijuana daily, but in the Netherlands the rate was only 0.5 percent. Freq
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1825
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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