In a survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, they reported that “teens could more readily access pot than beer or prescription drugs.“ What makes alcohol different from marijuana is that alcohol is legal, regulated through age restrictions, and taught in public education about its awareness.
For instance, in high school, there are no such things as alcohol dealers or tobacco dealers, which leads to the need of a middle-man who is of age to buy such products. That middle man is often an older student who has to go out of his way to buy alcohol or tobacco which is a great hassle, whereas marijuana is easily found within the student
population. People may argue that it is the pure danger of marijuana that led to its prohibition, but contrary to popular belief, it is said that marijuana was made illegal in the US for population control of Mexicans and Black people. Harry J. Anslinger, the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics remarked that the reason for the ban of marijuana was “its effect on the degenerate races.” There is no scientific evidence that such known side effects as schizophrenia, heart attacks or cancer are actually caused by marijuana and therefore the danger of the drug cannot be the reason being illegal. However, due to marijuana smokers being disoriented and having loss of coordination and logical thought, it would be more reasonable to make certain activities or actions illegal when influenced by marijuana instead, similarly to alcohol. Lastly, the research showed that keeping marijuana illegal is more expensive than lobbying it. Apparently the government’s “War on Drugs” results in millions of dollars in losses when locking people related to marijuana in prison, paying for their food, housing, health care, attorney fees, and court costs. All this is paid by taxpayer money which are meant for and could be used for other things concerning the country. Also, as stated in the above, the government is missing out on tax opportunities that could be in turn used for more effective drug education programs. If marijuana were legal the government would have much more money to spend on important problems. Even in our neighbourhoods, hundreds of students are smoking cannabis. Instead of having a large portion of our population having to smoke illegally, it would be more advisable to free the ban and profit from the perks of legalizing marijuana.