Illegalization of Marijuana: An Analysis based on Mill’s Position

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Illegalization of Marijuana: An Analysis based on Mill’s Position
Introduction
Illegalization of marijuana is a subject that presents mixed arguments based on the ethical and moral propositions on which the issue is founded. However, a critical analysis of the viewpoints presented by the agencies that support or prohibit the legalization of this drug reveals multiple arguments that culminate at the pragmatic position of presenting the populace with policies that will lead to an optimal reduction in the levels of harm caused to the user. In the scholarly works of ancient philosophers such as John Stuart Mill, the principle of harm was considered as one of the greatest necessities for enforcement of any mode of legal action (Hickenlooper 243). According to Monte, Zane, and Heard (241), the harm principle was considered as a basis of excluding a clique of societal activities from the issues of law enforcement. However, there is sufficient evidence that this moral code lacked sufficient ground to determine what needed to be included.
In the current societal settings, the principle of harm occupies its position as a condition that is necessary but lacks the desired degrees of sufficiency based on the non-trivial viewpoints of harm being established for moral offenses. As a consequence, a critical analysis of the non-trivial points put forth to examine the policies and laws established to criminalize the use of marijuana reveal many restraints on the liberties of the affected individuals. For instance, the restraints imposed on the user’s religious practices may not be addressed with adequacy to reveal the underlying utilitarian costs and gains; an aspect that calls for inclusion of greater moral weights in order to override the fundamental freedom of exercising one’s religious beliefs. Therefore, the current study seeks to undertake a critical analysis of the issues surrounding the criminalization of marijuana by presenting John Stuart Mill’s position regarding this issue and the possible problems based on Mill’s point of view.
The laws put forth to decriminalize the use of marijuana in countries such as the United States are bi-faceted as they encompass the aspect of prohibition and the punitive action imposed on the users (Blumenson and Nilsen 282). The two dimensions- prohibition and application of punitive action- impose detrimental effects on the liberty of the affected persons. While prohibition seeks to limit the individual’s ability to gain access to the drug, thereby demeaning the subject with the freedoms associated with the availability of the drug, it leaves loopholes on whether the affected person has the moral freedom to use ban.
Ideally, only those human activities that impose or risk serious injuries wrongfully need to be criminalized. According to Mill, “the liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same reasons which show that opinion should be free also prove that he should be allow...