There is much debate about the idea of legalizing marijuana, but in the end, the justifications as to why it is illegal are simply wrong. One of the most common arguments as to why marijuana should be illegal is that it is a gateway drug. There are two reason why this is wrong.

1) Causation Fallacy

Any politician, individual, or even medical association making this claim are wrong. Simple logic shows that labeling marijuana as a ‘gateway drug’ is misguided.

While it is true that many people that do cocaine have also done marijuana, it does not mean that smoking marijuana causes one to do cocaine. This is a causation fallacy.

There is also a correlation between runners and people that eat healthy. But that does not mean one causes the other. The correlation is a result of the fact that healthy people tend to do both. Similar to drugs, it is the person’s personality or lifestyle that will lead them to do both marijuana and cocaine.

2) The Law Creates the Gateway Affect

Much like there exists a positive correlation between marijuana and cocaine use, there is also a correlation between people that use protein powder (or other supplements) to build muscle and people that take illegal steroids. However, the correlation between protein and steroids is much lower than the marijuana-cocaine correlation even though steroids are much more effective. Why would the correlation be so much less when looking at these two examples?

It is simple: There is a clearly defined separation between using protein powder and steroids - the law. If a law was passed making protein powder was illegal, it would take away this legal separation between protein powder and steroids. So if someone wanted to do something as minor as take protein powder, they would have less of a disincentive to do steroids, since both options are illegal. It narrows the ap between the two options making it more likely a person choosing to do one option would also do the other.

It is not the fact that marijuana is a gateway to cocaine use, it is the act of making it illegal that creates a gateway.

Marijuana Laws

Society is not against marijuana. It has been proven not to be associated with increased cancer risk and is likely less harmful than fast food. Plus, it is readily accepted, especially when you consider 94 million Americans have tried it. It causes much more harm to society by making it illegal.

By making marijuana illegal, politicians create many more problems:

• The act of making marijuana illegal leads to an increase in crime and violence (did we learn nothing from alcohol prohibition?)
• It decreases our resources for enforcement of other laws (including cracking down on harder drugs)
• It increases society’s burden to deal with people convicted of using marijuana (10 million Americans)
• It results in a massive decrease in potential revenue from taxes and farm income ($23 billion annually for the US economy).

This post is not to meant inspire individuals to stand up and fight for marijuana legalization - you likely already had a stance on the topic. Rather, it is meant to educate you so you can call out politicians that try to feed the public pure BS with no regard for the good of the public and only care about their perception in public.

I challenge any politician to make a logical argument as to why marijuana should be illegal. You will lose.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Justice/Political.