Current Marijuana Policies Are Ineffective

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Here at the UConn, it is common to see a police officer forcing a student to dump out a beer on the "rape trail" (except for Spring Weekend, when anything goes) but it is far less common to witness an arrest for alcohol possession.

But what about marijuana? Get caught with even a fraction of a gram of those leafy green buds and you'll face some serious consequences, such as a criminal record, loss of housing, and even loss of financial aid. Unlike other drugs, including alcohol, marijuana cannot cause an overdose and actually causes less physiological addiction than caffeine. According to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, 400,000 Americans die from tobacco, 100,000 die from alcohol and even 500 die from aspirin per year. How many Americans die from marijuana use annually? Zero. Nevertheless, it is widely prosecuted and considered to be a harmful, illegal substance.

Marijuana needs to be legalized, or at the very least, decriminalized - and the movement to accomplish that is gaining momentum. As reported by CNN, 500 economists, including Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, called for the legalization of marijuana in 2005, arguing that legalization would lead to billions of dollars in revenue.

According to Jeffrey Miron, an economics professor at Harvard University, the government would save $7.7 billion per year if it didn't spend the money policing and prosecuting marijuana activity, and would make an additional $6.2 billion by taxing legal marijuana at rates equal to those of cigarettes and alcohol. That's $13.9 billion per year that the faltering economy could desperately use - and Miron's estimates are considered extremely conservative.

What about the impact that marijuana laws have on students? According to a publication released in 2006 by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), nearly 200,000 would-be college students have been declared ineligible to receive the federal financial aid they need to attend school because of a little-known provision of the Higher Education Act since its inception in 1998. Let's get this straight - to stop kids from using drugs, the government stops them from attending college? The logic of that decision is both ironic and absurd.

UConn's SSDP chapter spearheads the fight for legalization here on campus.

"To deny even the medical use of marijuana just because there might be recreational use is unethical and illogical," said UConn SSDP President Don Halas. "Many pharmaceutical drugs, such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Xanax and far more dangerous and addictive but are issued without regard to the growing abuse rate."

The issue of marijuana legalization extends far beyond the economy. Our prisons, funded by American taxpayers, are severely overcrowded - and a huge portion of the inmates are non-violent drug offenders. According to norml.org, "The total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2006 far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined, including murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault."

Marijuana does not cause third-party harm - the decision to smoke is up to the smoker, who doesn't need to worry about physiological addiction or overdose - but the War on Drugs has done more harm than good. The U.S. Office of Drug Control Policy expects next year's budget for the drug war to be around $12.7 billion, paid for by every citizen of the United States, many of whom will lose their freedom because of it.

Legalize it. Enough said.


News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: The Daily Campus
Copyright: 2008 The Daily Campus
Contact: The Daily Campus
Website: Current marijuana policies are ineffective - Commentary