Criminalization And Decriminalization Of Marijuana

Laws are supposed to protect the rights of citizens and communities, “it is the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may be enforced by the imposition of penalties” (Schauer, 2015). Marijuana also known as Cannabis is a well know plant that is sometimes used and misused and is considered a substance that originated from immigrants whom entered into America back in the 1920’s. Prior to the immigrants using the Cannabis plan, the Chinese professionals such as doctors would utilize this plant to treat certain illnesses and they would use it to treat pain during childbirth (Doweiko, H. E). Despite this wonderful plant which clearly has its purpose some people can become …show more content…
I will attempt to discuss the psychopharmacological properties of the substance, how widely the substance is used, if the substance is addictive, side effects that marijuana has, the effects on criminalizing the substance, problems that might be caused or prevented by decriminalizing the substance, and the specific groups that are impacted most by criminalizing or decriminalizing this disorder. Furthermore, I will attempt to discuss recommendations for the substance to be made available for recreational, medical, or other use under controlled …show more content…
Criminalizing simply means to be punished for violating the law. This is serious in the United States of America because the effects of families and communities. Since the 1930 Americans have been expressing their beliefs and opinions, pros and cons about legalization of marijuana. Over the past decade, more and more marijuana users are exposing their attitudes about getting arrested over utilizing small amounts of marijuana and the media is having a field goal with it. Recently a group of researchers conducted a general social survey and sought to find out “the relationship between media exposure and attitudes towards the legalization of marijuana”. They examined articles published between 1995 to 2012 as well as marijuana user’s thoughts and feelings towards criminalization and found that “the media had very little impact on the American people who smoked marijuana between 1975-1990, but television and newspaper impacted American people attitudes largely in 1991-2012 whereas they begin to vote to legalize/criminalize marijuana (Stringer, & Maggard, 2016). This study underscored the value of media and its impact on the attitudes of marijuana users as it relates to criminalizing and legalizing the law. However, it did not focus on more specific information of the effects of criminalizing