YES FOR PROP 64

Kaylie Rankin

Vote yes for proposition 64, which will legalize recreational marijuana in California.

By doing this, the sales of marijuana will be taxed and no one under age of 21 will be allowed to use or have possession of the drug, which wouldn’t be a change from current law.

If passed, the law would permit an adult to possess up to six plants.

According to voterguide.org, Prop 64 “controls, regulates, and taxes marijuana, and has the nation’s strictest protections for children.” According to ballotpedia, people can’t grow it near schools or smoke in public, but they can be in possession of up to one ounce.

When medical marijuana was first legalized, a lot of cannabis shops were raided by the D.E.A.  All marijuana use laws, medicinal or recreational, are at the state level and not recognized by the federal government.

But after states such as Colorado, Oregon and Washington recently legalized marijuana for recreational use, the federal government has backed off a bit.  Now that people are more accepting of marijuana use and other states have already legalized it, I believe that more people will vote yes on Proposition 64.

Let me assure you that you won’t see people growing acres of pot or every other person smoking a joint on the street. Prop 64 is intended for smoking and growing a little.

The truth is, a little weed won’t kill you. It’s better for the environment than cigarettes, and it is less harmful to your body than alcohol.

According to herb.com, “There has yet a single reported death linked to cannabis overdose.  You would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times your average dose in order for marijuana to kill you.”

Plus, it could be used for more good than bad. Nothing good can come out of drinking or smoking cigarettes.

Will smoking a lot everyday hurt you?

Of course too much of anything is bad for you, but it will not have the same effect on you as alcohol or cigarettes.

Alcohol can destroy your liver, and cigarette use has a strong correlation to lung cancer, asthma and throat cancer.

Marijuana doesn’t have the 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes that are harmful. It’s all natural and has less risks.

 For centuries, people have grown and smoked marijuana for medicinal and non-medicinal reasons.  It wasn’t until the very recent past of civilization that it was demonized. It’s been said to be the teens’ “gateway” drug, meaning that if people smoke pot, it will encourage them to do other drugs.

You could say the same thing about alcohol, and alcohol is as available as orange juice to someone of legal age. Why not marijuana? I would rather see people smoke pot than drink because it’s the lesser of two evils.

NO FOR PROP 64

Shirin Afrakhteh

While the medicinal use of marijuana has been very helpful in treating diseases such as glaucoma, epileptic seizures, Dravet Syndrome, and many others, the recreational legalization will have far more drawbacks than benefits.

The legalization of cannabis, as presented under Proposition 64, would give underage individuals more access to the drug. Making the drug accessible will have a heavy impact on the performance of students  in California, and it will most likely cause an irreversible drug epidemic. By the time school systems would have caught up to the problem, the effects would be widespread and difficult to control.

The legalization of cannabis would give underage individuals even more access to the drug than it is now.

“I’d say about 40 percent of the freshman grade (at Cal High)is doing it,” stated a student. “If it was legalized, more people would do it in school.”

There are many severe health effects that come from smoking cannabis,  particularly for individuals who are under 18.

Paranoia, psychosis, short-term memory problems, panic, and loss of sense of self identity are just a few of the negative short-term effects of the drug.

For teens who already face many problems with depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, drugs will only make their problems worse.

While many people use the drug to escape problems such as mental illness, the effects are very temporary. The consequences of drug use may be permanent.

On top of this, the easier access might increase social pressure on students who don’t use marijuana. With more access to it, students might find it difficult to refuse even if they are morally against it.

According to the American Psychological Association, abnormalities in the brain’s gray matter, which is associated with intelligence, have been found in 16 to 19-year-olds who increased marijuana usage in the past year.

Heavy marijuana use in adolescence or early adulthood has been associated with poor school performance, higher dropout rates, greater unemployment and lower life satisfaction.

Even if a drug outbreak could be controlled, the damage would have already been done, and students would have to deal with the effects for a long time.

Additionally, according to drugfreeworld.org, heavy drug users eventually move on to harder-hitting drugs to get the same effect later. In fact, approximately 90 percent of cocaine users started out using marijuana.

While the use of marijuana will not dramatically impact the lives of those who use legally, it will be much easier to acquire for underage individuals, and it can have harmful, and potentially lethal, effects on them.