Everyone is conscious that marijuana, even not being legal, is used and produced everywhere. It has become a permanent part of contemporary society. Do people really think that the use of marijuana is going to stop because it is illegal? If it was legalized, even the government could benefit by making marijuana farmers pay taxes for a license to allow them to grow it.
The biggest problem that concerns most Brazilians, as we all know, is violence, violence and more violence. Violence in Brazil is terrible and believe it or not, most of it is caused by drugs. In “favelas” – shantytowns - children are selling marijuana illegally and more than 20 people die on a daily basis because of fights and disagreements that involve, or are related to, the drug. Indeed more people die in Brazilian shanty towns per year than in the Palestine – Israeli disagreement or American action in Iraq, to present day. People are even changing their style of life to protect themselves from the violence. The Police, which is very badly structured doesn’t help much.
International drug trade, which is obviously illegal, causes millions of deaths. Legalization could remedy the situation as a whole. As marijuana is the most consumed drug, if it were to be legalized the illegal “passing on of drugs” –drug trade - would be much smaller, resulting in much less violence.
Recent research conducted by the Dutch government concluded that, relatively, the Netherlands had less marijuana users that other European nations. This is entirely due to its legality. For as it is legal many people that would use it because it’s illegal, don’t use it.
The government as I already stated, would also be profiting with the proposal of legalizing marijuana. If they can gain the money of consumers of marijuana, why give it to the drug dealers and encourage more violence and more deaths? The excuse they come up with is that they do not want to legalize marijuana because they worry with the health conditions of the population. If that statement is profoundly true, why are tobacco and alcohol also not prohibited? Why use some and not others?
Of course drugs can be very bad in some cases, I am not in favor of all drugs but I am in favor of marijuana and its legalization as it was proved not to be addictive. Being legalized, most of the violence and conflicts in Brazil will end and small children would not be explored to pass on drugs any more, and they would have an opportunity to have a good life, which they certainly do not have. Yet, the legalization shouldn’t be so simple. I think that if it was legalized, marijuana should only be consumed in private properties, not in the streets.
Another point that is very discussed in favor of not legalizing marijuana is that the legalization would encourage a lot the use of drugs amongst adolescents. This is not an excuse. Instead of prohibiting, why not start with a campaign to clarifying everything about the use of drugs, educated by families and schools, not with statements such as “ don’t do drugs” or “drugs are bad for you” because these are very inefficient. I think campaigns should be done by giving options and showing both sides like “drugs are easy to reach, and they can cause immense pleasure but there are prices to pay such as overdose, suicide, depressions and even death, there are some people that handle this and don’t suffer these causes, but some do suffer a lot, the choice is all yours”.
As you can see, there are many relevant points to support the legalization of marijuana. Violence, economy, conflicts, abuse and many other problems would be solved and improve. The lives of all Brazilians would be less worrying and more pleasurable. My last question, if all of this could get better, why not legalize marijuana?
