all around the world marijuana is being
decriminalized or even made legal but is
this really a good idea in the online
debate the harmful sites are often
downplayed so let's look at the three
most powerful arguments against
legalizing marijuana argument number one
in the last few decades marijuana has
been engineered to become much more
potent today marijuana is so potent that
it's actually a strong drug that may
cause psychosis the main active
ingredient of marijuana is THC and
there's strong evidence that THC is
related to psychosis regardless of other
risk factors marijuana also contains a
substance called CBD that seems to
counteract this effect it's even being
tested as a treatment against psychosis
and anxiety but because it doesn't make
you high growers have gradually
decreased the amount of CBD in marijuana
of the last few decades while increasing
THC levels sample testing showed that
THC levels have risen from around 4% in
the 1990s to nearly 12 percent in 2014
shifting the ratio of THC to CBD from 1
to 14 in 1995 to about 1 to 80 in 2014
it's unclear how precise those tests
were however overall recent findings
suggest that the more marijuana you
consume and the stronger it is the
higher your risk of developing psychosis
but how high is the risk of psychosis
for the general population
a study from britain found that while
marijuana use has risen significantly
between 1996 and 2005 the number of
schizophrenia cases a type of psychosis
remained stable the risk of marijuana
induced psychosis remains the highest
for people who already have a high risk
of psychosis to begin with for them it
seems more likely that marijuana speeds
up the development of their condition
rather than causing it
as far as we
right now so the reasoning goes if fewer
people have access to marijuana the
lower the risk of marijuana induced
psychosis but actually you could argue
that precisely because marijuana is
illegal more people will end up with
psychosis prohibition makes illegal drug
stronger and more potent because this
way you can ship more product in a
smaller space and sell it at a greater
profit this is what happened during the
prohibition of alcohol in the u.s. where
hard liquor became the norm and the same
is happening with marijuana now imagine
a world where liquor is the only alcohol
available you have the choice of either
not drinking at all or getting much
drunker than you would like to this is
the situation for many marijuana smokers
today people didn't stop drinking during
Prohibition and the numbers show that
laws don't deter people from using
marijuana we can't make marijuana go
away but we can make it safer if
marijuana were legal there would be more
options for consumers and regulators
could for example insist on a high level
of CBD just like most people don't drink
an after-work bottle of vodka
many people would gladly consume the
after-work beer version of marijuana
argument - marijuana is a gateway drug
if it's legalized there will be a spike
in the use of much more dangerous drugs
a 2015 study found that about 45% of
lifelong marijuana users took some other
illegal drug at some point legalizing
marijuana could reinforce this trend as
more young people try legal marijuana
they might end up trying harder drugs
but it turns out that the real gateway
to drug use comes much earlier
cigarettes one study showed that teens
who started smoking before the age of 15
were eighty percent more likely to use
illegal drugs than those who didn't and
a 2007 study found that teenagers
between 12 and 17 who smoked were 3
times more likely to binge drink 7 times
more likely to have used drugs like
heroin or cocaine and were also 7 times
more likely to resort to marijuana
but if that's the case how could making
more drugs legal stop the use of hard
drugs at first it's important to
acknowledge that people don't use drugs
because they're legal or not if you want
to buy any drug you'll always find
someone happy to sell the real question
is why do people develop an unhealthy
relationship with drugs at all studies
show that certain conditions make people
especially vulnerable to drugs and
addiction a difficult childhood early
trauma low social status depression even
genetic factors which drug they get
addicted to is more often than not a
matter of chance
addicts take drugs to escape their
problems but drugs don't solve any of
those problems and instead become a new
problem but punishing people for their
unhealthy coping mechanisms doesn't
change anything about the underlying
causes either so some argue we need to
take a completely different route in
2001 Portugal had one of the worst drug
problems in Europe so it was desperate
enough to try something radical
possession and use of all the legal
drugs was decriminalized he would no
longer be arrested instead authorities
launched a major health campaign people
who were found with a small amount were
referred to support services and got
help with treatment and harm reduction
drug use was seen as a chronic disease
not a crime the results were stunning
the number of people who tried drugs and
kept using them fell from 44% to 28% by
2012 the use of hard drugs decreased as
well as HIV and hepatitis infections and
overdoses making drugs legal might
overall help society much more than it
harms it
argument number three marijuana is
addictive and unhealthy it needs to
remain illegal to keep harm at a minimum
while marijuana addiction is more
psychological than physical it is still
a real problem
the demand for treatment for marijuana
addiction has more than doubled in the
past decade alone in total about 10
percent of people who try marijuana will
become addicted this is also related to
higher THC levels a study released in
2017 track the potency of marijuana and
Dutch coffee shops over a period of 16
years for every 1% increase in THC 60
more people enter treatment nationwide
in terms of negative health effects some
studies linked marijuana used to
increase blood pressure and lung
problems while a 2016 study found that
marijuana use was unrelated to physical
health problems except for a higher risk
of gum disease some studies showed that
marijuana use alters teenagers brains
and decreases their intelligence but
when more recent studies took drinking
and smoking into account the results
were inconclusive
overall research shows that taking any
drugs while the brain is still in
development is bad for you but the truth
is we don't know yet how unhealthy
marijuana is we need more funding for
research which is hard to get while
marijuana remains illegal we can put
what we know into perspective though 16%
of people who consume alcohol become
alcoholics and 32% of people who try
cigarettes become smokers we know for
sure alcohol affects your brain destroys
your liver and causes cancer while
tobacco clogs your arteries destroys
your lungs and also causes cancer 3.3
million people die from alcohol abuse
each year while smoking kills more than
6 million people nobody is suggesting
tobacco and alcohol are harmless just
because they're legal also nobody is
seriously proposing to prohibit them
even though they are extremely dangerous
legality is a way to exercise some
control over them
especially when it comes to protecting
young people it's often much harder to
buy legal drugs for teenagers than to
buy illegal ones official sellers can
get hefty fines and lose their license
if they sell to underage kids legality
creates incentives here the drug dealers
can't exploit so making marijuana legal
doesn't mean endorsing it it means
taking responsibility for the risks it
poses it could also open the floodgates
to tons of new research that shows us
how harmful it really is and to whom
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conclusion marijuana is a drug and just
like any other drug it has negative
consequences for a sizable portion of
the people who use it
it is not harmless the best way to
protect society from its negative
consequences seems to be legalization
and regulation thanks to our partnership
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