Saturday, April 4, 2015

Why the New York Times Editorial Board Agrees to Stop the Prohibition of Marijuana

NY Times Editors Endorse Legalizing Marijuana

The NY Times wrote an opinion piece on why marijuana should be legalized. The culture of America is leading to be in favor of cannabis. Solid reasons for why the editorial board of the NY Times are in favor are the following:

  1. Alcohol and tobacco's health effects, impact to society and law and order are no different than the concerns of Marijuana.
  2. Legalizing at a Federal level allows for citizens to not be vulnerable to policy shifts when there is a new president.
  3. There were 658,000 arrests for marijuana in 2012. The arrests show a racist tendency for incarceration. The costs of litigation and ruining careers of the incarcerated would be alleviated.
  4. Health and addiction seems to be not a concern like it is with alcohol and tobacco for adults.

The editors did acknowledge the reports that marijuana can effect the development of adolescent brains. Just like alcohol and tobacco they saw a reason to prohibit sales to people under the age of 21.

The 6 part series had 15,000 comments published within 2 weeks which 12,658 were in favor of marijuana legalization. The comments ranged from being in favor because of having a right to choose what you put into your body to seeing the perils of how the criminal cost of it is ruining our society. Health care workers also commented on how they do not see the same adverse effects in the ER for marijuana like they do for alcohol.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/opinion/high-time-times-readers-online-make-their-own-cases-for-legalizing-marijuana.html

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