Final Paper: Legalizing Marijuana

Final Paper: Legalizing Marijuana

Introduction

In principle, marijuana is a psychoactive drug or a source of altering consciousness. Physically, the effects are moderate and mostly negligible. The first point of action of marijuana is the brain, particularly the higher brain centers that affect consciousness. Marijuana can also produce more subtle medical effects by direct action on tissues, such as receptors on immune cells. The social consequences of prolonged use of Marijuana are several. It includes social withdrawal, the transition to a more hard drugs, and relationship to crime. Large doses of marijuana can trigger a toxic psychosis which is manifested by hallucinations seeing or hearing things that are not there, paranoia feel that the people we want and false beliefs. Under the influence of marijuana, we could make decisions that are regretted later. Marijuana affects coordination, concentration and reactions and may make dangerous activities such as biking, driving a car or operate machinery (Alters, 2007).

Discussion

In the U.S. there is endless debate about the results of prohibition prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, but no one disputes that at least the end of this outburst a thriving business law against organized crime, generating huge revenues from taxes and allowed the spirits that are sold are of good quality, while during Prohibition they were merely very harmful chemical compounds, as it was impossible to smuggle alcohol low alcohol such as beer and wine, by volume, and was much more profitable the high alcohol content, similar to gin and rum (Johnson, et al., 2008).

Classical Ethical Theories

Utilitarianism, Deontology, And Virtue Ethics

Let us first, in a nutshell, explain each of these three ethical theories so that we create a ground for the resolution of our specific problem through understanding these theories in the first place.

Utilitarianism is based on the sole criterion for the optimization of the "greatest happiness for the greatest number of people", postulating that the welfare of all is good for all men. Utilitarianism is that conception according to which goodness and utility coincide and, consequently, also the duty and usefulness. This idea, however, has its difficulties. Indeed, the utility is a triadic relationship between what is said of the utility, the interests of the person against whom it is said to be useful that, and the circumstances in which it carries out the valuation or utility computing (Musto, 2004).

Kant's theory is an example of a deontological or duty-based ethics: it judges morality by examining the nature of actions and the will of agents rather than goals achieved. The main feature of Kant's philosophy is a compromise between idealism and materialism. Subsequently, the science has narrowed to the debt problems of human performance, considering the duty as an inner experience of coercion that defines ethical values. In the more narrow sense, deontology has been designated as the science that studies specifically medical ethics, rules and norms of interaction between the doctor, his colleagues and the patient.

The virtue ethics deny that morality is reduced to a set of moral principles or rules to follow and claim that morality is ...