Over the past centuries, the world community has divided drugs into the ones that are legally acceptable and the ones highly hazardous for society. However, when it comes to such drugs as marijuana, people cannot still give a definite answer on their impact on society. Since its appearance thousands of years ago, marijuana has come a long way from a healing herb to an illicit drug, still widely used by the world community. Marijuana, which is also known under dozens of nicknames such as weed or pot, is now the most widespread illegal drug across the US (Levinthal, 2014). People tend to use it for a simple recreational purpose or in order to relieve muscular pain on an almost daily basis. Moreover, the vast majority of marijuana abusers claim pot to be safer than alcohol or tobacco. People who abuse alcohol are at a higher risk of death than those who consume marijuana on a daily basis. The patterns of marijuana abuse are now extremely popular in pop culture, especially when it comes to American TV shows, so people see TV characters using marijuana almost as often as they observe cigarette smoking.
The popularity of cannabis across the country is no more impossible to ignore on the governmental level. It is now especially crucial due to legal drugs causing severe harm to US residents while being regarded as “safe.” Thus, legislators should decide whether the abuse patterns should be embraced as an inevitable part of American social life, or there should be more severe regulations in terms of marijuana consumption and spreading. Moreover, would society benefit more from making marijuana legal instead of alcohol or cigarettes? Why or why not?
Reference
Levinthal, C. F. (2014). Drugs, behavior, and modern society. London, UK: Pearson Education.