Ah, good ol’ weed.
Full disclosure: I wrote this for a simple assignment, but became a bit progressively zealous as I was doing reading for it. I intend to go through it and find additional sources to bulk this up some more. I also did not follow any specific formatting beyond my arbitrary whims.
Living in Chicago, the questions surrounding Marijuana’s legalization (and lack thereof, in years prior) are exponentially curious given the deplorable roots of this classic debate. Is marijuana bad? Is it good?
We fail to acknowledge that the root of these questions is simply racism.
Instead of asking about the morality of a substance, it would behoove society to ask WHY we are asking these questions in the first place.
Two main points merit addressing:
For starters, I believe it is lacking in sound logic to base the merit of marijuana’s legalization on whether or not crime rates would lower.
This is not to say that one would be apathetic to crime, it is just faulty reasoning to base one upon the other: where there are people, there will be crime. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary*, one definition of crime is “a grave offense especially against morality”.
It goes without saying (but for practical purposes, will be stated) then that crime can be subjective, in a sense.
Of course there is a crime in which one breaks a law, such as running a stop sign. Then there is the crime of lying to a spouse…
Both do not necessarily involve the law, but can be defined as crimes.
Suffice it to say that crime exists so long as people exist.
In order to change society we must start with the foundation, which involves education. It is high time that we eradicate this false dichotomy in the conversation surrounding marijuana. Furthermore, while it does not seem that abundant and substantial peer-reviewed research* exist, one document titled “Effects of Marijuana Legalization on Law Enforcement and Crime: Final Report” was publicly released in July of 2020 by the Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference Service. What we can glean from this extensive publication surmounts to the reality that “… [a] link between dispensaries and crime, whether positive or negative, whether significant or not significant, does not in and of itself suggest that legalization will increase or decrease crime overall”*.
The next point is the crux of my argument: the racist reality of the criminalization of marijuana.
In the beginning of my post I mentioned the curious nature of this debate, specifically in Chicago. Despite the fact that Illinois has had some of the slower growth in terms of the Mexican/Hispanic population compared to many other states at a 9% increase since 2010*, all it takes is a local to tell you that the Mexican population is especially abundant in Chicago and its neighboring areas (e.g. West Lawn, Waukegan). There are times when I drive down a road that makes me feel as if I am actually AM in Mexico and I absolutely love it, but I digress.
In my past life, I believed that not only was marijuana bad, it was sinful. One of my brothers went to surprising lengths to educate me and help me unlearn this cultural bias. The sad reality is that in the 1930s, lawmakers utilized marijuana as a straw man to control the Mexican immigrants in Texas*, akin to 1875, where opium was made illegal in San Francisco to try to control Chinese immigrants*.
One claim made with an audacity that I cannot fathom was, and I quote, “marijuana’s ability to cause men of color to become violent and solicit sex from white women”* -cue the sound of a record scratching- excuse me, WHAT? Anyone with a reasonable IQ level and any familiarity with marijuana and its affects would know full well that a claim such as the aforementioned one is not only absurd, it is a flat out lie (which in some circles, a lie would be considered a crime, would it not? Food for thought).
While it saddens me that drug use (NOT marijuana, to be clear) can be very harmful to individuals and society, I am of the mind that there are limits to what the government should be enabled to have a say in. If people respond to incentives, then it is time we acknowledge that most people are tempted to do things when told they cannot. This doesn’t require a source, as it is seen every day, in our personal lives and at large.
In other words, yes, the government should legalize other drugs such as mushrooms and cocaine.
However, I would argue that it shouldn’t even be within the government’s scope of authority to determine such a thing like the legality of a substance. Allow people to make their own choices and deal with those consequences, whatever they may be. Improve education at a ground level, enact fair school zoning laws, take funding from the military or “Space Force” and put it into the education system at the GROUND LEVEL. There are too many factors at play to make the discussion surrounding marijuana black and white, but I conclude with this:
One thing that is without a doubt black and white regarding marijuana, is those negatively impacted in contrast with those creating the rules which govern.
In this regard, it has certainly been a black and white issue, or better stated, a white vs black issue.
Sources:
1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crime
2. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/255060.pdf; Page 19
3. https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/255060.pdf; Page 18–19
4. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/10/hispanics-have-accounted-for-more-than-half-of-total-u-s-population-growth-since-2010/#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20nation's%20largest,of%20the%20nation's%20Hispanic%20population.
5. https://drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-illegal-first-place
6. https://earlydruglaw.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/november-15-1875/
7. https://drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-illegal-first-place
