Protecting Pot: A Closer Look at the Inconsistency of Public Perception and Drug Laws

Marijuana, or pot as it is commonly called, is a preparation of the cannabis plant that is smoked in order to achieve a high that leads to a sense of euphoria or relaxation. While it is most commonly smoked, marijuana can also be eaten plain or mixed into foods for ingestion. It is currently illegal to use recreational marijuana in the United States, with the exceptions of Colorado and Washington. Although it has similar effects to alcohol and is often taken in the same way as a tobacco cigarette (both of which are legal), marijuana is classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency as a Schedule 1 substance. This means that in the eyes of the law, marijuana is just as dangerous as recreational drugs such as heroin, LSD or ecstasy. By taking a closer look at the effects of marijuana and comparing them to effects of currently legalized substances, it will be easy to see that recreational use of pot is not only justifiable but potentially safer than things such as alcohol or cigarettes. These facts will demonstrate to Americans that pot should be legal by today’s standards.

Marijuana is always referred to as a “drug.” This gives it a sort of stigma among Americans that makes pot seem like a very intense and harmful substance. In reality, if pot were compared to the effects of drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco, it would be easy to see that its effects are almost the same. Millions of Americans drink alcohol every day, even though it is a poison in the sense that it makes the drinker incapable of having normal control over their actions. Pot has the same effects on the human body, and yet is still not allowed. Additionally, if you drink enough alcohol in one sitting, you can even die. This is not true of marijuana. While it is possible for someone to smoke enough pot to make bad and potentially dangerous decisions (as is true with drinking too much alcohol), it is impossible to die from overdosing. To put this fact in perspective, over 25,000 people died in 2010 due to alcohol related deaths. There were no recorded cases of any people dying from a marijuana related death.

Studies show that both smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol cause the same immediate effects: impaired judgment, slowed reaction time, changes in behavior or mood, affected motor skills and an increased risk for getting in an accident. However, it is legal to buy all the alcohol you can drink in the United States as long as you are over the age of 21 years old. While marijuana might increase the risk of testicular cancer in men, alcohol increases the risk of breast, esophagus, liver, and throat cancer in both men and women. Alcohol can also have devastating effects on the liver, causing fatty liver disease, cirrhosis (irreversible scarring of the liver), and hepatitis.

The effects of smoking marijuana have almost the same negative health effects as smoking cigarettes. In a study done by Dr. Mark Pletcher of the University of California, San Francisco, healthy adults who smoked cigarettes had a decreased lung capacity the more they smoked. However, participants who smoked marijuana developed an increased airflow rate and had no decreased lung capacity. Pletcher explains that one reason for this result is that cigarette users smoke 10-20 cigarettes or more a day, while marijuana users typically “lit up” only two to three times per month. However, Dr. Pletcher is unsure what the effects of heavy marijuana use could bring. While some may think that the above study shows that marijuana shouldn’t be legal because of its potential to cause lung problems, they are ignoring the fact that marijuana users simply don’t smoke as many times as cigarette users do. Cigarette users inhale so much more carcinogenic smoke than pot users, but this is due to an important factor: addiction.

When comparing alcohol to marijuana, one finds that one in twelve people in America are addicted to or abuse alcohol. The addictive properties of marijuana are not yet fully understood, but doctors realize that it does not have a high potential for abuse like other drugs it is classified alongside. Even compared to cigarettes, marijuana is a better choice because it is not physically addictive like the nicotine in tobacco. Because of this, marijuana users don’t chain smoke, and thus smoke much less on average than do tobacco smokers. While marijuana does contain more tar than cigarettes because it is unfiltered, this doesn’t matter when the usage of marijuana is so out of proportion to cigarettes.

My question to Americans is this: How is it that we are allowed to smoke ourselves into terminal lung cancer and drink ourselves literally to death, but smoking a joint every now and then is so dangerous that it deserves civil punishment? It seems ridiculous that the government is allowed to regulate self-poisoning and determine which carcinogens are better than others. Marijuana has overall less negative health effects than either alcohol or cigarettes, and yet one can get arrested just for carrying it around. To be perfectly clear, marijuana is not good for your health. While it can be utilized for some medical purposes, the recreational use of pot is beneficial only because it makes the user feel good. The point is that the negative effects of marijuana use are practically the same or less than alcohol or cigarettes, which are both legal. It is illogical that recreational pot is still illegal in the United States. A review of medical studies will prove to anyone that marijuana is no more dangerous than cigarettes or alcohol, two harmful yet staple substances of many American lives.