Yesterday was April 20, the perfect day to rally signatures for Proposition 48, the marijuana legalization petition. My name was amongst the signatures. Does that immediately create an image in your head about the person I am? It shouldn’t.
When people debate the legality of marijuana, each side is instantly pinned with misnomers like “liberal, hippy pothead” or “Bible-thumping conservative,” and the debate ends up in the same place it started.
The reason for this stalemate is that the wrong information is discussed whenever the topic comes up.
Every time there’s a discussion about marijuana legalization, the exact same points that everyone has already heard ad nauseam are then rehashed ad nauseam. Stop with these vague “But alcohol is worse than marijuana” comparisons. When someone says “Marijuana isn’t physically addictive,” naturally the next response is going to be “But marijuana can definitely be psychologically addictive.”
Those arguments aren’t effective; they just perpetuate the subjectivity of the debate. We need to get past looking at marijuana as an “us versus them” new-age civil war. We need to start looking at the objective effects of marijuana legalization.
Here’s something no one can argue about — legalizing marijuana directly harms the Mexican drug cartels that are profiting off of the average American pot-smoker that currently has no option but to turn to the black market. No one can argue that innocent civilians’ lives are being lost en masse in South America directly as a result of marijuana prohibition.
Voting “yes” on Prop 48 means being able to purchase marijuana in a way that encourages entrepreneurship and creates legitimate businesses rather than in a way that funds the drug-fueled South American power struggle.
Here’s another plain fact: over 2.2 million Americans are currently in jail (America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world), and over half of them are incarcerated on drug crimes, the most common of which being related to marijuana. Mississippi has decriminalized marijuana, but decriminalization just isn’t enough. Yeah, if you just get caught with marijuana, you only get a ticket. But what lawmakers neglect to tell you and what most Mississippians don’t even know is that paraphernalia is not decriminalized. If you get caught with a pipe and a gram of marijuana, then you’re getting a criminal charge for paraphernalia possession and you can go to jail for up to six months.
How ridiculous is that? How often is someone going to get caught with marijuana but nothing to smoke it with? People are still going to jail in Mississippi over marijuana, and taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for their cells.
Another reason to opt for full legalization over the current situation of decriminalization is that it means improving our education. If Prop 48 passes in Mississippi then marijuana will be taxed, and all tax revenue will directly and fully benefit Mississippi’s schools. Currently, our tax money is in part going towards paying for jail cells for people caught with marijuana. If Prop 48 is passed, marijuana enthusiasts’ tax money will be going towards education.
If you look at it from that point of view, rather than from the “pothead vs conservative” perspective in which so many seem to be trapped, signing the petition is a no-brainer. So stop advocating for marijuana legalization by comparing its drawbacks to the drawbacks of alcohol or explaining how “It isn’t that bad” – these just aren’t worthwhile arguments.
What is worthwhile, however, is demonstrating that continuing this petty argument about whether or not someone should be able to legally smoke a joint is directly ending lives and destroying families on a daily basis, both in foreign countries and right here in America, and it’s holding Mississippians back from a better education.
You don’t have to smoke pot to see that.
Brandon Lynam is a sophomore international studies and Chinese major from Knoxville, Tennessee.
