“Cannabis should be legalised.”

To a large extent I agree with this statement; cannabis should be legalised. I do feel, that legalizing cannabis would help resolve many of our country’s problems and difficulties, for example street-crime or burglary indirectly related to drugs. However I also feel that it could cause other types of problems if people don’t understand the effects of it. To many people, they see cannabis as a dangerous and damaging drug, however the effects of cannabis are sometimes not as bad as alcohol or other legal drugs.
Keeping drugs illegal will only carry on the on-going drug related cycle: people get caught with possession of drugs, their third time getting caught they get a sentence, go to prison, come out, and it happens all over again.
To keep one person in jail for one year, for drug abuse, is forty thousand pounds.
When cannabis users come out of prison, they often have nothing to go back to, many find themselves back in their old life almost immediately with the same contacts they had before; the drug dealers. Even if they wanted to quit, quitting is not an easy process itself. Refraining from cannabis won’t result in physical withdrawal symptoms, unlike the nicotine in tobacco. However some long-term users do report psychological problems when it comes to being weed-free. This can range from difficulties in coping with social situations to sleep problems and heightened anxiety.
Rastafarians don’t have a specific way of living or religious attitude toward prayer, however they usually meet weekly to hold ‘Reasoning sessions’, as to where they have time for chants, prayers and singing. At ‘reasoning sessions’ marijuana may be smoked to produce ‘heightened spiritual states.’ Rastafarians smoke marijuana because to them, it is regarded as ‘a herb of religious significance’ and ‘to heighten the feeling of community and to produce visions of a religious and calming nature’. According to Leonard Barret, Rastafarians first began using marijuana due to feeling out-casts and the way they were treated in society. They believe that the use of marijuana is sacred, following biblical texts. I feel that using marijuana should be legal for many reasons, and religious beliefs should be one of them. Rastafarians are a group of people who use marijuana because they need to, because they feel that it is important and sacred, as said in the Holy Bible, Exodus 10:12:
-‘…Eat every herb of the land.’
And again in the Proverbs 15:17:
-‘Better is a dinner of herb where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’

Yet, I can see why other people would disagree with this statement and I, because alternatively, legalizing cannabis could cause the amount of usage to rise and we don’t know the full effects of it yet. Legalizing cannabis could go two ways: 1. People, teenagers, stop because it is not considered ‘cool’ or ‘rebellious’ if everyone does it. 2. Because it is legal more people do it, at parties, friend’s houses etc.
Neither of those ways are for certain, and it is more likely that with cannabis being legal and ‘un cool’, people will try a more dangerous and illegal drug e.g. Cocaine. Not only are people worried that it may become more common, but do we really want to introduce legalization for drugs into our society, where our children are allowed to do it? Is it worth it?
The main worry about the legalization of drugs is that there are many dangers to taking drugs and the effects that it can have on yourself and others around you. However to this day, drugs are a part of our society, and whether you have taken them or not, you probably know someone who has. Many people know cannabis to be a drug with the side-effects of paranoia, memory loss, anxiety, confuses reality and non-reality, addiction, makes you lazy, depression, orientates everything etc. So it is not a surprise that not many people want to legalize it, however 87% of people who take cannabis have never had any of these effects, and 84% of people say they wouldn’t take it even if it were legalized.
Despite this, the religious attitude toward illegal drugs and even legal drugs, affects many people. None of the six major religions permits followers to take illegal drugs. Some small groups within them may for specific reasons. But the vast majority of believers think that taking such drugs is inaccurate for many reasons; they believe that taking anything that has a negative influence on the body or mind is wrong, and some religions also believe that disobeying the law, or government, would be false, because God established it.
Jews, Muslims and Christians (apart from Rastafarians and the Ethiopic Coptic Church) are strongly against taking illegal drugs because they believe that God has give your body to you as a gift; ‘Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.’ – 1 Corinthians 6.19. Meaning destroying it would be disobeying God. Buddhism is also strictly against taking drugs, as said in the fifth precept, ‘Abstain from anything that causes intoxication.’

Yet the most important points we have yet to discuss is: Why do people take drugs?
There is not one answer to this question, for everyone who tries, takes, and sells drugs has a reason to do so, whether it is for money, welfare or to forget about reality. People take drugs for various reasons, many to help themselves move on, escape from reality, to fit in, to be a rebel, to experiment, to ‘grow-up faster’ or to relieve boredom. However although people take drugs because they believe it is the solution, it often ends up that the drug becomes the problem.
Yet drugs in general can benefit our society and the way we live, if we do it right. By keeping it illegal are we needlessly handing over many millions to the hands of criminals when the government could tax it?
Are we wasting police time and resources?
If we do legalize it we could control the use and concentration of certain drugs. Not only would the percentage of drug related crimes go down, but also the percentage of deaths caused by over-doses, contamination of shared needles, accidental poisoning, or accidents caused by the influence of drugs.
In conclusion, I feel that drugs should be legalized but monitored by the government, not only would the government benefit, but so would our society, in the safer environment created by directing the import of drugs and addicts, because as I have said before drugs are part of our society, we have tried and tried, but there is no one way to get rid of them, at least if we have control of them, we can regulate the amount used and obtain it.