No, marijuana should absolutely not be legalized. It is one of the most dangerous drugs that have serious effects on the brain. Marijuana also has effects on people's health that are lethal. Learning and social behavior of marijuana users tend to have problems that further worsen. Therefore, legalizing marijuana should not be done due to the effects that it causes.
The main concern with marijuana is the effects that occur in the brain. Why would you want to legalize a drug when it causes problems with “memory and learning; distorted perception; difficulty in thinking and problem solving; loss of coordination; and increased heart rate,” according to the Con marijuana article. It is also a fact that long-term marijuana abuse causes changes in the brain that is cause in other major drugs as well. Additionally, there is an increase in the activation of the stress-response system, along with nerve cells being changed. As a result, there should be no reason to legalize marijuana with such damaging effects to the brain.
Other health effects that marijuana causes are lethal. This includes impairing the immune system's ability to fight disease. With an effect like this, marijuana users could catch diseases very quickly and die without an immune system to protect them. An example of this would be the fact that marijuana increases the likelihood of developing cancer when used. Basically, marijuana is a trade off of your life for short moments of euphoric states because a user would die much quicker as opposed to a non user.
A very major and life changing effect of marijuana is that a users learning and social behavior is being affected. Problems include depression, anxiety, and personality disturbances. This can cause a chain reaction such as the depression leading to the marijuana user's suicide. Scholastically, a marijuana user has lower grades than those of a person who does not use marijuana. In addition, the user is less likely to graduate high school, resulting in a less successful life. As you can see, marijuana is a drug that severely affects a person's life in which they do not do as well as a person who did not use marijuana.
In conclusion, marijuana is a very harmful drug to society. A mere one use would damage the user's brain. The dangerous health effects that follow the use of marijuana have a high chance of killing the user. With the learning and social behavior effects, the user of marijuana would be destined to not do well in life. Adding all these negative effects up, marijuana is like a life destroyer; therefore marijuana should definitely not be legalized.
