Eleven U.S. states and many liberal nations have turned to decriminalization of marijuana in order to save costs, reduce incarcerations and give their residence a higher quality of life. This policy, which dramatically reduces the punitive measures taken against consumers of cannabis, is not the correct course of action because it is illogical, does not address the negative implications of consumption and has not lead to additional relaxation of drug policy.
First of all, decriminalization makes no sense. Under such a policy, it is considered acceptable to possess small amounts of a drug, but it is still be highly illegal to buy, sell, produce, import, export or stockpile drugs. Applying such a legal standing for any good or service is absolutely asinine. If such a policy was advocated to deal with weapons, medicine, alcohol or the domestication of endangered species, people would be utterly opposed.
The worst part of decriminalization is it does not solve the most negative effects of drug use. Drug use has many negative effects, include monetary support for violent groups, both at home and abroad. This occurs because domestic gangs and international drug cartels are the main suppliers and distributors of drugs. Decriminalization does nothing to address this problem. Even worse, it increases revenues for these criminal organizations.
Decriminalization applies only to the supply side of the drug market. This means that while demand for drugs will increase, the supply of them will remain the same. Unlike policies of medicilization, legalization or the Netherland’s model of coffee shops, decriminalization does not allow for a legal source of marijuana. As a result, the price goes up which leads to higher revenues for gangs and drug cartels.
The reason most drug reform advocates support a decriminalization policy is because they believe it will lead to full legalization, but this is entirely false. Canada, Brazil, Germany, Australia and many other liberal democracies have gone down the road of marijuana decriminalization. Despite their alteration of drug laws, full legalization has been voted down every time it has been proposed. Though it may seem logical that decriminalization leads to further reduction of restrictions, empirical evidence has repeatedly proven this to be false.
The biggest reason decriminalization is considered is because of United Nations drug policies. Through its history, the U.N. has consistently affirmed the importance of maintaining a global prohibition on drugs. Various conventions, reports and treaties all ignored the impact of drug prohibition on the stability of the producer nation. In a semi-sincere attempt to adopt an alternative to the current approach, the 2009 U.N. World Drug Report praised Portugal’s move to decriminalize.
Despite their mild relaxation of stance, the U.N. and its agencies still maintain a policy that requires nations to keep marijuana illegal. In the same report, U.N. officials argued vehemently against full legalization of cannabis on the grounds that it will lead to destabilization of developing nations. In fact, under U.N. laws, a member nation is forbidden from legalizing a wide host of substances including marijuana. This policy, which takes away a nation’s sovereignty over its market, is both the cause and effect of the popularization of decriminalization of marijuana. It will be interesting to see how the international community reacts when a specific U.S. state or approves full legalization. Though California is not a U.N. member; it is still somewhat bound by international law.
The U.N., and many others who support the decriminalization of marijuana are ignoring the implications of such a policy. Contrary to some people’s hopes, decriminalization will not lead to full legalization as seen from empirical evidence. Additionally, such a policy would accentuate the negative implications of drug use by not allowing for a legal source. Though some of these detriments can be mitigated with medicalization, or a coffee shop model, decriminalization still falls short of solving the global drug problem.
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kdbp1213 2 years, 1 month ago
legalize, tax, & regulate it similarly to alcohol. let's focus on violent crimes and crimes against children.......... i'd like to see more rapists, murderers, armed robbers, etc. go to jail/prison.
it's freedom of choice, folks. do it in the privacy of your own home; go to a drug-bar like drinkers goes to an alcohol bar.
we tried to criminalize alcohol and it did not work.
matthewmurrayday 2 years, 1 month ago
There should be NO DECRIMINALIZATION of marijuana or any other illegal drug. Furthermore, we should demonize those who use drugs recreationally or in any other manner. These people should be put in jail for long periods of time. They are failures at life.
mustafa 2 years, 1 month ago
"go to a drug-bar like drinkers goes to an alcohol bar"
Whenever this subject comes up I ask the same questions. Will there be pot smoking allowed in alcohol bars or whatever. If so would pro-pot people please answer the question: would someone there who wants to smoke a cigarette still have to go outside?
JJanowiak 2 years, 1 month ago
How Christ-like of you, Matthew.
jssooner4 2 years, 1 month ago
A bit of irony. People are willing to spend millions of our tax dollars to keep people in prison when they are no danger to society, e.g. they used or dealt drugs. Some of these tax dollars go to healthcare for prisoners. However, for all of us law-abiding, drug free individuals, there shall be no free healthcare because thats socialism. Moral of the story, if your sick and you want access to healthcare, start selling some drugs. You will go to jail and then you will get all the health care you need. God Bless America.
gavinp 2 years, 1 month ago
Matthew you are right. There should be no decriminalization of marijuana. There should be legalization!
The thinking of people like you has already prevailed for decades and it is the reason we are in the situation we find ourselves in today. The U.S. has the most people in prison per capita in the world. Every year, more than 700,000 people are arrested for marijuana possession alone. That is more than all the people arrested for violent crimes put together.
More than 100 million Americans have tried marijuana. Are you in favor of sending them all to jail Matthew? After all, that is almost half the country. You favor caging people for using a substance less addictive than alcohol and tobacco, with much less health consequences.
How about some fun facts matthew? It is virtually impossible to overdose on marijuana. While alcohol and tobacco are responsible for approximately 100,000 and 500,000 American deaths annually respectively, marijuana is responsible for 0. Marijuana does not cause cancer or emphysema. In fact, the government has known since the 70's through their own studies conducted in Jamaica (with several corroborating it since then including a huge study conducted by UCLA) that chemicals in marijuana actually give people a lower chance of getting cancer. In addition, it slightly attenuates the risk of those that engage in the use of products that do cause cancer, e.g. alcohol and tobacco.
Keep up the good work Matthew and keep prosecuting those darn people using non-alcoholic/non-tobacco/non-pharmaceutical drugs. Its totally working. Keep paying the government to wage war on its citizens.
Or we could just legalize marijuana and deprive all the organized crime of a large percentage of their income, increase tax revenues for states, stop sending non-violent offenders to jail for something less harmful than alcohol, and treat people like they are responsible adults who can make choices about what to do with their own body.
p.s. Michael Phelps smokes Cannabis. Is he a failure at life?
dio 2 years, 1 month ago
Matthew, you are right. We should flay alive all who took illegal drugs and nail their skins to the city walls. Everybody knows that people should drug themselves LEGALLY, not illegally, duh. Enjoy your alcohol poisoning and your Ritalin/Ambien addiction.
matthewmurrayday 2 years, 1 month ago
So you really think that cannabis/marijuana can be used as medicine? BOLOGNA! Marijuana DOES destroy people. Since you people are SOOOOOO BIG on OU-UT, think of this: Ricky Williams was a running back for the Longhorns (insert any insult against UT here). Yet he was suspended from the NFL because of several drug violations. Marijuana! What else? If the NFL is tough on marijuana, why shouldn't the criminal justice system?
Also, don't try to tell me that it's not "Christ-like" to not criticize marijuana use/possession. Let me tell you something: Christ would have OPPOSED any type of drug considered illegal. If something is done under the care of a doctor and God prescribes it, that's different. But the Bible is very strict on drugs outside of caffeine and legal drugs (i.e., prescription drugs taken properly). "Christ-like"? Yes, I am being Christ-like IN TELLING THE TRUTH!
And dio, I sure as hell don't take Ritalin/Ambien. You want to place anyone who doesn't fit the confines of the party-first, study-last "student" here at OU or anywhere else in a category normally reserved for people who really are bad. As I said in another post, you're typical of 99% of the students here at OU: ignorant, thuggish, simple-minded. If you think anybody deserves to be overmedicated just to satisfy YOUR pleasures, then YOU'RE the one with the problem.
And I'm not a troll. I AM disgusted with the ignorance and the hatred people have for me here at OU because I study more than you do.
dio 2 years, 1 month ago
@matthewmurrayday
Pitiful and idiotic, that is what your answer looks like. You totally missed the point. If you want to demonize people highlighting the absurdity of your claims, then go ahead. Claim you are the purest soul who ever walked this earth while vociferating threats and knocking people out with bibles. In that case I think you got the definitions of ignorant, thuggish and simple-minded wrong.
The whole notion of what constitutes a legal/illegal chemical is barely a century old and detached from any moral considerations and, sometimes, rational claims. There is no such thing as a "legal drug" in the bible, at all. Furthermore, an astonishingly harsh punishment for benign acts harmless to others is both absurd and revealing of a mind-blowing stupidity.
A potent and harmful drug can be perfectly legal (and hence, according to you, A-OK with your gods, like some prescription drugs you may have consumed yourself), while at the same time the use of minute amounts of a benign substance can be condemned by religious wingnuts for no valid reason.
You are a good guy. Enjoy your Ritalin/Ambien/grain alcohol, but stay away from pot, jesus said it's bad.
matthewmurrayday 2 years, 1 month ago
Let me put it to you a different way: You are advocating that people should get into car crashes and abuse family members because of marijuana use.
You believe that "coolness" when it comes to marijuana use should be the law.
WHEN ACTUALLY...
The people that are posting here that say legalizing marijuana is a good thing are the people who use it or know someone use it. Really, that type of attitude doesn't surprise me a bit, since 30-40% of Zero-U students use an agent of Satan.
And don't give me that crap about Jesus using marijuana. I'm sure He is frowning upon you as he sees this. God is, too. Telling someone that marijuana use is okay is not good at all.
"Get your facts straight!" (Mike Gundy)
gavinp 2 years, 1 month ago
"And don't give me that crap about Jesus using marijuana. I'm sure He is frowning upon you as he sees this. God is, too. Telling someone that marijuana use is okay is not good at all."
Changing the law isn't telling people that marijuana use is ok. It's telling people they shouldn't have their entire lives destroyed and be sent to jail because people like yourself can't get past the decades of propaganda to see the truth.
"Get your facts straight!" (Mike Gundy)
You did not post a single accurate fact in that entire comment. Enjoy.
My view is that one day you can be as hate-filled as you are today, and you can even keep telling people that they are horrible sinners all you want. But, regardless of what you believe, it won't send innocent people to jail.
gavinp 2 years, 1 month ago
"If something is done under the care of a doctor and God prescribes it, that's different. But the Bible is very strict on drugs outside of caffeine and legal drugs (i.e., prescription drugs taken properly). "Christ-like"? Yes, I am being Christ-like IN TELLING THE TRUTH!"
Caffeine has been proven to be more addictive than cannabis.
"And dio, I sure as hell don't take Ritalin/Ambien. You want to place anyone who doesn't fit the confines of the party-first, study-last "student" here at OU or anywhere else in a category normally reserved for people who really are bad. As I said in another post, you're typical of 99% of the students here at OU: ignorant, thuggish, simple-minded. If you think anybody deserves to be overmedicated just to satisfy YOUR pleasures, then YOU'RE the one with the problem."
Exactly. It's that persons problem. So you're going to make it an additional burden on the entire system by sending them to jail?
"And I'm not a troll. I AM disgusted with the ignorance and the hatred people have for me here at OU because I study more than you do."
It's very ironic that you are easily the most hateful person on this comment board and you are disgusted with it.
gavinp 2 years, 1 month ago
"So you really think that cannabis/marijuana can be used as medicine?"
Yes. A simple google search will bring up 1000's of studies proving the efficacy of smoked (or vaporized) cannabis as medicine for many different diseases including, but not limited to: glycoma, multiple sclerosis, cancer (of many kinds), etc. In fact, the medicines given to glycoma patients are very very dangerous with horrible side effects and can result in death of the patient. Those drugs are legal and prescribed. Marijuana has been shown to help many people with glycoma with no serious side effects, especially compared to dying.
"BOLOGNA! Marijuana DOES destroy people. Since you people are SOOOOOO BIG on OU-UT, think of this: Ricky Williams was a running back for the Longhorns (insert any insult against UT here). Yet he was suspended from the NFL because of several drug violations. Marijuana! What else? If the NFL is tough on marijuana, why shouldn't the criminal justice system?"
This is a story of marijuana prohibition hurting somebody, not the marijuana itself. The NFL is tough on marijuana because it is illegal. Not because it is harmful. Ricky Williams could've easily gone out and drank enough to get alcohol poisoning and killed himself legally. The NFL wouldn't have been any wiser. They couldn't care at all about alcohol. In fact they promote it in commercials during virtually every game. Because the NFL loves alcohol so much, should we all start drinking alcohol? Your argument makes no logical sense.
"Also, don't try to tell me that it's not "Christ-like" to not criticize marijuana use/possession. Let me tell you something: Christ would have OPPOSED any type of drug considered illegal."
Recently a different translation of the bible has shown that the recipe for the holy annointing oil that jesus used could've been mistranslated. It calls for "kanibashem" in the original hebrew recipe. This is thought to be the origin of the latin word Cannabis. Some priests have begun to produce the new recipe in California. Maybe you should do a little research before you just spew vile hate at people. It kind of makes you seem like Westboro.
gavinp 2 years, 1 month ago
"Let me put it to you a different way: You are advocating that people should get into car crashes and abuse family members because of marijuana use."
Please. The amount of people who get into accidents from drinking and driving is so much higher that having this conversation is almost totally worthless. Yes smoking cannabis impairs people and they shouldn't drive while under the influence. But that doesn't mean that people become so impaired they kill themselves or others regularly, like with alcohol.
Also how many people do you know who smoke a joint and then get violent and attack someone? 40% of violent crimes are committed under the influence of ALCOHOL, not marijuana. That statistic is straight from the government.
"You believe that "coolness" when it comes to marijuana use should be the law."
No, we believe that there should be a difference in punishing someone for a behavior that the entire society pretty much agrees is morally wrong (e.g. murder), and treating someone for a much more minor offense. Sorry but not everyone has the specific morals you do. Other people believe different things about the world and how it was shaped, so why should we legislate just your views into law? There needs to be a distinction between laws and morals, with people given the right to operate within those boundaries.
"WHEN ACTUALLY...
The people that are posting here that say legalizing marijuana is a good thing are the people who use it or know someone use it. Really, that type of attitude doesn't surprise me a bit, since 30-40% of Zero-U students use an agent of Satan."
What a great statistic you made up off of the top of your head! Keep it up, and maybe you can use something solid to eventually back up your claims; other than pure hatred for knowledge and keeping an open mind about things, of course.
What exactly constitutes an agent of Satan? "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." Genesis 1:29 So let me get this straight, in your view, a plant created directly by your "God" is the agent of Satan? Using that logic makes God Satan technically.
dio 2 years, 1 month ago
An "agent of satan"!? The guy is a moron.
gavinp, it is a very good debunking but the guy cannot make the difference between kool-aid and hydrochloric acid anyway. Facts do not register with this guy.