Mary Jane battles it out with Jack Daniels

Ryan Plourde / Staff Writer / The USD Vista

There is no doubt that excessive use of either alcohol or marijuana can have negative effects on the human body. Heavy consumption of alcohol can lead to impaired judgment, slowed reactions, memory loss and after long-term abuse, liver disease. Excessive marijuana use can lead to impaired judgment, slowed reactions, memory loss and, after long term abuse, lung disease.?

But the real reason for the current ban on marijuana stems back to President Nixon and his war on drugs. Nixon is said to have banned marijuana based on false information, which claimed that it “had negative effects on the country’s lesser races.” Now, this information on marijuana’s effects on the country’s “lesser races” has since been disproved, yet marijuana is still illegal. The question is why? Why is alcohol legal while marijuana is still not, after all the effects of both sound dangerously similar?

Alcohol is defined as ethanol, especially when considered as the intoxicating agent in fermented and distilled liquors. That means that alcohol is a liquid that contains ethanol, which is a flammable liquid that is also present in fuel. According to the Greater Dallas Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, short term effects of alcohol consumption include impaired judgment, slurred speech, disturbed sleep, nausea and vomiting. Long term effects of alcohol use include addiction, permanent damage to vital organs, several different types of cancer, gastrointestinal irritations, sexual dysfunction, high blood pressure and lowered resistance to disease. Now, alcohol in and of itself is not necessarily bad. Don’t forget that a glass of red wine every so often is proven to increase the health of the human heart, but over-consumption can be? quite bad.? In the February 2001 article “Substance Abuse: The Nation’s Number One Health Problem,” the U.S. Department of Justice reported over 100,000 alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. each year.

“Mary Jane” is no saint herself. Marijuana is defined as the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant that yield THC and are smoked in cigarettes for their intoxicating effect. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, short-term effects of marijuana use include impaired judgment, increased heartbeat, bloodshot eyes, a dry mouth and a reduction of short-term memory. Long-term effects of marijuana use include psychological dependence, memory loss, decreased fertility, chest pain in people who have poor blood circulation, increased risk of emphysema and cancer. Despite these effects, not all marijuana use is bad. After all, it is used to treat many medical problems including glaucoma and the negative effects of chemotherapy. It is important to note that the Drug Awareness Warning Network Annual Report, which lists all drug-related deaths, has never reported a death from the use of marijuana.

I am not questioning the legality of marijuana in this country, but I am saying that it is hypocritical for alcohol to be legal while marijuana is not. Both alcohol and marijuana, while they do both have some positive purposes, seem to have many of the same negative effects. Certainly driving under the influence of either can be deadly. The only real difference seems to be that there are death reports for excessive consumption of alcohol and not from the sole use of marijuana. So really one of two questions must be answered; why is marijuana illegal or why is alcohol legal?