Legalization of Marijuana
Heather Toll
English 101H
March 1, 2015
The Legalization of Marijuana – Is There a Basis for a Common Ground?
There appear to be no unilaterally satisfactory answers to the U.S. citizenry’s legitimate concerns about marijuana use. However, there are likewise no such answers with respect to the use of tobacco and alcohol, and yet the latter substances have been accorded legal status by every state throughout most of the country’s history despite having well-established mind-altering and addictive qualities. At present twenty-three states have legalized the use of marijuana to some degree.
Interestingly, and ironically, these state statutes violate federal law because the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency (“DEA”) considers marijuana to be one of the most dangerous drugs in the United States. More specifically, by designating the substance as a so-called “Schedule I” drug, the DEA deems that marijuana users risk a “high potential of abuse and potentially severe psychological and/or physical dependence.”
Schedule 1 drugs, which include such substances as heroin, LSD and certain methamphetamines (e.g.
Ecstasy), are also considered to have “no currently accepted medical use.”
The Schedule I classification came into being with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act
(“CSA”) by Congress in 1970, at which time criteria were created for five schedules of drugs. The CSA, which was largely passed in response to a significant increase in illegal drug use during the 1960’s, called for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) and later the DEA (which was established in 1973) to be responsible for managing the content of the five schedules on an ongoing basis.
It bears mention that the debate regarding the legalization of marijuana is not just a 21st century phenomenon in the United States. In 1944 the New York Academy of Medicine researched the impacts
of marijuana use and issued its findings in a tome which came to be known as the La Guardia Report.
The Report concluded
English 101H
March 1, 2015
The Legalization of Marijuana – Is There a Basis for a Common Ground?
There appear to be no unilaterally satisfactory answers to the U.S. citizenry’s legitimate concerns about marijuana use. However, there are likewise no such answers with respect to the use of tobacco and alcohol, and yet the latter substances have been accorded legal status by every state throughout most of the country’s history despite having well-established mind-altering and addictive qualities. At present twenty-three states have legalized the use of marijuana to some degree.
Interestingly, and ironically, these state statutes violate federal law because the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency (“DEA”) considers marijuana to be one of the most dangerous drugs in the United States. More specifically, by designating the substance as a so-called “Schedule I” drug, the DEA deems that marijuana users risk a “high potential of abuse and potentially severe psychological and/or physical dependence.”
Schedule 1 drugs, which include such substances as heroin, LSD and certain methamphetamines (e.g.
Ecstasy), are also considered to have “no currently accepted medical use.”
The Schedule I classification came into being with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act
(“CSA”) by Congress in 1970, at which time criteria were created for five schedules of drugs. The CSA, which was largely passed in response to a significant increase in illegal drug use during the 1960’s, called for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (“FDA”) and later the DEA (which was established in 1973) to be responsible for managing the content of the five schedules on an ongoing basis.
It bears mention that the debate regarding the legalization of marijuana is not just a 21st century phenomenon in the United States. In 1944 the New York Academy of Medicine researched the impacts
of marijuana use and issued its findings in a tome which came to be known as the La Guardia Report.
The Report concluded