Medical Marijuana Wins Another State
As New Jersey becomes the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana use this leaves 36 states that don’t allow people to use a plant that can help them with medical conditions despite its medically proven merits. New Jersey should be applauded for taking a step in the right direction and legalizing marijuana for severe ailments like cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis. New York should be next to enact a more sensible policy instead of losing tax revenue to New Jersey.
Politicians and pharmaceutical companies circulate ridiculous exaggerations for their own monetary gain that play on the fears of ignorant people who have no experience with marijuana. This bill has little to do with our health but everything to do with collecting state taxes. The direct effect will be an increase in revenues for the Port Authority via the GW Bridge, Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and a rise in people transplanting from neighboring states with a rise in real estate prices in New Jersey. The reason it has taken this long to legalize medical marijuana is due to the fact that this business will not be as lucrative as prescription drugs and politicians kickbacks will be much less from the sale of medical marijuana as they would through big pharmas. It is preposterous that lawmakers are currently overruling doctors who are forced to prescribe drugs much powerful as Oxycotin, Ritalin and Prozac than the much milder marijuana.
If the concern is about sending the wrong message to kids we should then ban ads for alcohol and cigarettes. Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes and anyone with a fake ID can purchase these substances at the corner store or order PD’s from Canada. Minors already have easier access to marijuana than cigarettes according to nationwide studies thanks to the underground market that has grown over the last half century while the war on drugs has managed to waste away $1 trillion of our tax dollars and yet drugs are just as easy to come by as they were before the war started. This futile effort has limited economic benefits with no tax revenue but pales in comparison to what the drug lords and cartels withdraw from our economy. Marijuana is considered the least damaging and dangerous of the controlled list. Decriminalizing marijuana use on a broader scale is the only way to extract money out of the hands of drug cartels and start emptying our prisons. It is understood that if marijuana is consumed in large quantities it may be harmful but doesn’t this apply to all aspects of drugs? If anything is consumed in large quantities it may be harmful, this is no reason to make it illegal. The only time it will become difficult for minors to obtain is when the plant is legalized and sold in authorized stores instead of on the corner. Purchasing in a store would also deter the introduction to more destructive drugs. The crime rate would go down greatly and possibly alcohol use would go down to a certain extent.
Alcohol is a factor in most violent crime cases in America as well as responsible for a large portion of vehicular fatalities, but it is legal and cleverly marketed to minors. Cigarettes kill over 400,000 Americans a year and prescription drug fatalities hover around the same figure. During alcohol prohibition bootleggers were around every corner, people still drank and gang violence became a national problem. The year after prohibition ended, the murder rate in America was half what it was under prohibition. Why do we continue to waste resources in an unwinable war? Today marijuana is funding organized crime, the same way prohibition did in the 20’s.
Most of the scientific literature available to the public agrees that marijuana addiction has less detrimental effects than alcohol, cigarettes and prescription drug addictions. Yes, marijuana can cause cancer, same as cigarettes. It is not as harmless as is often stated but what makes marijuana similar to cigarettes are the pesticides/additives being soaked into the plant by the cartels. As marijuana becomes legalized the states and federal government could produce a substance with much less potent levels.
Watching state by state passing these laws is similar to how states adopted the lottery. In the 1980’s a handful of states allowed lotteries. States insisted lotteries were the root of all evil. But, as politicians slowly overspend state budgets lottery was adopted in all 50 states to fund education. As current state deficits balloon it is only a matter of time before each state adapts New Jerseys stance on marijuana.
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