ARE CRIMINAL CASES And THE MEDICAL ARENA? WHY?

Are criminal cases increasing or decreasing in the medical arena? Why?

Are criminal cases increasing or decreasing in the medical arena? Why?

Health care, increased crime and social aspects are the three general areas which marijuana is not beneficial. One of the definite proven disadvantages of marijuana is the fact that it is more dangerous than cigarette smoking. Two marijuana cigarettes (joints) create more airway impairment than do an entire pack of cigarette (Miner 44). One joint contains three times more tar than cigarettes do and marijuana is considered four times more dangerous (Courtwright 54). Marijuana dramatically increases the pulse rate and blood pressure during use. Many politicians and some medical professionals project that lung cancer cases will increase if marijuana is legalized. (Miner 44). These are all valid arguments, but cigarette smoking is legal, and the end result for many years of use is the same as marijuana; lung cancer.

The American Civil Liberties (ACLU) advocates the full legalization of the use, possession, manufacture, and distribution of drugs (ACLU 1). The ACLU believes that marijuana being illegal is unconstitutional. The following is an excerpt from their policy on drugs, which was adopted in 1994: "Criminalizing the use, possession, manufacture, and distribution of drugs violates the principle that the criminal law may not be used to protect individuals from the consequences of their own autonomous choices or to impose upon those individuals a majoritarian conception of morality and responsibility. Enforcement of laws criminalizing possession, use, and manufacture of distribution of drugs engender violations of civil liberties. Because drug enforcement is aimed at behavior, which is inherently difficult to detect and does not involve a complaining "victim," it necessarily relies on law enforcement techniques. Such techniques include the use of undercover operations, arbitrary or invasive testing procedures, random or dragnet seizures, and similar measures that raise serious civil liberties concerns. These enforcement techniques lead in practice to widespread violations of civil liberties guarantees, including those secured by the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments" (ACLU 1).

The enforcement of the drug laws criminalizes the possession, use, manufacture, and distribution of marijuana and this is what is causing the violent crime. If a "marijuana black market" did not exist there would not be any reason for illegal activity to be associated with marijuana. Allen St. Pierre, Assistant National Director of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML), says that legalization will wipe out the already 60-billion dollar black market by placing marijuana in the open market. (NORML information pack 3). This war on drugs is wasting the money, as well as the lives of American people. The widely recognized opinion maker William F. Buckley, Jr. writes: "...The time devoted to tracking down, arresting and then trying marijuana users and then trying marijuana users is perhaps the greatest exercise in lost time in contemporary activity. In the last two years, approximately 750,000 arrests were made in our mad, quixotic effort to stamp out ...