Legalizing Marijuana Essay -- Legal Issues, Drugs

What exactly is marijuana? Marijuana, also known as pot or hemp, is a naturally grown substance that contains THC. THC changes how the brain works and gives the user a high that relieves many different pains and even helps erase bad memories. The hemp plant can be found in just about any place, but has to be kept in heat. Marijuana is from a naturally grown plant so why not be able to use it legally? Well, there are many reasons against the legalization of marijuana and there are also many very good reasons to legalize it for medical and recreational use. So to the government and everyone against legalizing marijuana, too bad! It’s natural and people are going to smoke no matter what the laws are, so why not just make it legal? Making the use of marijuana legal everywhere will more than likely help stop the chaos between the smokers and nonsmokers and reduce the outrageously high total of 858, 408 who are arrested annually for marijuana possession and use. So why exactly should marijuana be legal? Well, there are many reasons both opinions and facts, but why does it need to be legal? According to many of my sources, marijuana has been found to be less dangerous than both alcohol and tobacco products. â€Å"Marijuana is safer than many over the counter drugs.† (Young, Francis L. 2) Judge Francis L. Young, from the DEA, declared that marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. â€Å"Long term heavy marijuana use does not produce the severe or grossly debilitating impairment of memory, attention, and cognitive function found with chronic alcohol use.†(British Medical Journal Lancet 4) Only a small number of marijuana users eventually smoke enough of it for a long period to suffer impairments matching those ... ...ady! The laws changed for no reason. â€Å"Prior to 1937, at least 27 medicines containing marijuana were legal in the U.S. Many of these medicines were made by well-known pharmaceuticals that are still around today. Eli Lilly being one of there that sold medicines containing marijuana had to stop production because of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. It was legal once so let it be legal again. Legalizing marijuana will let the terminally ill and very sick people get what they need to help them without the trouble. It will also decrease the number of arguments and legal battles to legalize or to not legalize the substance. Marijuana is from a natural plant that is not meant to harm or affect people in anyway. The government and anyone against legalizing marijuana need to realize that there are things far more worse than marijuana. Make it legal and stop the drug war!

Discuss the view that the Civil Service has too much influence over policy

The Civil service is the administrative branch of the UK government, set with dealing with the everyday running of the country, rather than a ministerial role, which focus on only some areas. It is they that carry out the more mundane roles, although some Civil Servants do have more exciting life styles with jobs such as testing weaponry that is to be bought by the Ministry of Defence. The Civil Service is to advise ministers on the decisions that need to be made, to brief ministers on the issues involved and to present options to make the minister's decision making easier. At no stage though should Civil Servants be responsible for decision making. There is a clear dividing line between the decision-making role of the minister and the supporting role of the Civil Servant. as Margaret Thatcher put it ‘Civil Servants advise; ministers decide'. Servants are not elected and because of this they should not have the power to make decisions. Decision making is the responsibility of the politicians and it is they who should take responsibility for the success or failures of departmental policy and they should not be held accountable for their advice or for departmental policy. In the case of policy errors or mistakes in implementation it is the minister who has to resign, not the Civil Servant – the Civil Servant should not be held responsible because they have no role in decision making. This can be seen through the resignation In April 2004 of Beverly Hughes. She forced to resign as minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Counter Terrorism when it was shown that she had been informed of procedural improprieties concerning the granting of visas to certain categories of workers from Eastern Europe. While this cannot wholly be seen as their fault, it was they, not the civil servants that advised them that had to resign over the events, due to the fact that they are responsible for the final decision. Ministers have a large workload and have limited time as is shown by the fact that the Core hours in the House of Commons are until 10pm on some evenings, and parliamentary debates sometimes continue into the night, with Ministers having added Committees to sit on and other government business to attend to, as a result, they rely heavily on their Civil Service advice and this puts the Civil Servants into a privileged and influential position. Any advisor should have some influence, if they don't there is not much point in them being there. However, if ministers lack the time to check Civil Servants' advice, the danger is that they will become a mouthpiece for Civil Service policies. Civil Servants also have the opportunity to ‘control' the minister by restricting the supply of information to him or by presenting it in such a way as to limit his options, as was shown by the limited information given to Beverly Hughes. It would be wrong to suggest that this happens often, it remains true that the Civil Service has considerable power. This is deemed as the Minister having gone native and in October 2010, claims were made that Jeremy Hunt had â€Å"gone native†. Also, when Alan Johnson took position of the Home Secretary, he had relatively little experience in the policy of governing the UK and was therefore more reliant on the Civil Service than he may have chosen to be. Manipulation of information may occur. Ministers, such as Alan Johnson, rely on officials to supply them with background facts upon which to base decisions. Skilful officials may be able to present statistics and research findings in a way as to influence final conclusions There is evidence to suggest that the civil service has been politicised due to the increase of special advisers with too much power. It can be argued that Special Advisers can work effectively with civil servants, and it is a relationship of mutual benefit, not a matter of regret. The role of the UK Civil Service is to help the Government of the day develop and carry out their policies and administer the public services for which they are responsible. Ministers have to be able to trust civil servants to be discreet otherwise politicians may feel the need to surround themselves with political appointees whose main virtue is their loyalty to that politician rather than having ability to formulate good policy and then have it implemented. A special advisor can give more biased opinions and can be there to help the Minister, rather than the department, policy or government. Spin doctors such as Alistair Campbell had great influence over policy on the basis of how it would appear to the public, and this can be seen in particular over the time Blair spent talking to him, rather than to the Civil Service over plans for the Millennium. There is also evidence to suggest that individual departments to develop long term policies of their own. When a new minister of government comes to power, the department will seek to impose its own ‘culture' upon them. The Treasury is most often suspected of such tactics, as it is notoriously opposed to increased public expenditure or any radical spending plans, caused by the fact that it has to keep the long term in mind, and the fact that a likely change in government will see most of the polices undone anyway, causing undue harm on the economy. If the senior Treasury officials can persuade each new Chancellor of the Exchequer of the virtues of keeping spending low, their influence automatically grows. An example of this was in 1999, when Chancellor Gordon Brown was resisting calls for extensive increases in spending on health and education, some critics suggested he had ‘gone native', suggesting that Brown had been influenced by the Civil Servants, adopting their norm of behaviour and so losing his enthusiasm for spending. Overall, the Civil Service do have more power over policy than their supposed political neutrality should let them, but it is to be expected in the modern world of political advisors, and the competitive world which seeks public recognition. While the senior civil servants, due to the permanence and long serving nature do have a great deal of power, the average civil servant has less power, and is more reliant upon presentation of the facts in a favourable way then anything else, something which is true with Ministers and Government as a whole.

A Great Impact Of Fracking On USA - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1316 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/08/16 Category Technology Essay Level High school Tags: Fracking Essay Did you like this example? Fracking has created a new world for everyone in the U.S. Production of crude oil has increased by far over the years and there is plenty of information about it. People say negative and positive comments about it, but its not likely most of them will be negative from the years of increased technology that has helped the world of fracking. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "A Great Impact Of Fracking On USA" essay for you Create order Its known to be the number one leading cause of crude oil starting around the 1990s and will stay there as it has helped the world out anonymously in the past decades. The world now evolves and both realises on fracking as many different things takes oil like: vehicles, tools, roller coasters, as many things as you can think of oil is most likely being used for it. Fracking has started a newly improved economy in the U.S today. Fracking has been criticized for its multiple consequences that it has since it has started in the late 90s to early 2000s (Oil). It involves multiple steps like shooting a mixture of water and sand under high pressure under rock formations to break up rocks and dirt to get to the oil (Oil). Many people think of fracking as deadly, or unproper to our soil and to our land. As we have had multiple bad tragedies happen throughout the U.S because of fracking. Even though fracking can be bad, up to seventy five percent of the water, or the toxic water comes back up through the fracking hole and is stored in ponds or is taking away to treatment plants so the water can be turned back to normal (Reville). As fracking can be harmful and very dangerous to our soil and our water, it also has many goods then it does bad. Fracking has turned out to be a big boom as it produces more barrels of oil, it has about a sixty seven percent increase in production then regular drilling did (kilian). Fracking has allowed the U.S to produce way more oil then it ever has in decades of production (Oil). There are multiple doubts about fracking because of its harmful ways to the economy but, it has also improved way more then when it first started in the late 90s. As known, crude oil has came into the world as a new way of production for the United States.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Starting in the early 2000s, there were just 23,000 fracking wells pumping about if not more then 102,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Now there are over 300,000 fracking wells pumping over 4.3 million barrels a day (Oil). Now that is a big change in the United States. Technology and equipment are getting far more advanced today then they ever were. Crude oil is a unrefined petroleum that sits deep underground until it gets fracked, getting shot into the air from underground from the mass amount of pressure being used (Kilian).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fracking has known to be the number one producer of crude oil all over the states for the past twenty years now. It is the new highly recommended way to produce and manufacture multiple gallons of oil. Innovations has made expensive fracking way more efficient in the past years. High oil prices before and after the Great Recession came into high amounts of investment dollars, fueling a big technological revolution (Oil). Crude oil prices have set a new high of $US 56.50 a barrel, after a report showed steep decline in petrol stocks (Shovelan). Oil prices can either go up in price, or it can go down in price. It has always been about the economy on what to raise or lower oil prices to. Crude oil, is a liquid in the earth with hydrocarbons, organic compounds, and usually very small amounts of metal that sits underneath the earth until us humans get to it. Hydrocarbons are usually the number one component in crude oil, but thats not always the conclusion. Sometimes it could vary from 50 percent all the way up to 90 percent depending on how the crude oil is extracted from the earth. The organic compounds in crude oil like: nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur usually make up to 6-10 percent of the crude oil while metals like copper, vanadium, nickel, or iron, take up no more than 1 percent of the crude oil itself. Crude oil itself today can make our world completely different especially by us fracking it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fracking has many steps and is very difficult for us to do but as technology gets stranger and better, we find ourselves using time more wisely and having helpful hands such as technology get the job done quicker. The combination of fracking and horizontal drilling has had shale gas production has grow up close to almost 20 percent in the mid 2000s, by 2035 it should raise over 50 percent (Reville). Fracking typically consumes about 20,000 to 80,000 gallons of water per well, however, the new methods of fracking use up to over 4 million gallons of water per well (Reville). Even though fracking has been very deadly from the beginning, technology has well improved the ways and has made health hazards at an all time low (Barth).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fracking is the new bete noire of conservationists, as they tend to grab or frack the last bit of crude oil from fossil fuels in inaccessible rocks in unsuitable places (Bikram). Fracking is likely to become the new dash for gas as the country is trying to find cheaper replacement of energy for our country (Bikram).   Crude oil and natural gases are the new part of the world as more and more   are found every day, it is used as an everyday key for cars, houses, machinery, etc. According to the IEA (International Energy Agency), the economic extraction of shale gases increased enormous amounts of natural gas from 125 years to 250 years (Reville).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When fracking first started in the U.S, everyone thought it was going to be a huge bust as many didnt know how it worked or if it was even necessary since we had regular drilling already. It involved huge amounts of water and sand just to break the ground under high amounts of pressure so the oil could blow into the air and could be caught by huge dug up holes surrounded by big tarps or anything that wouldnt let it leak back into the ground. Fracking involves shooting a mixture of mostly water and sand under high pressure against a rock formation until it fractures. The sand fills the fracture, forcing crude oil out of the rock formation (Oil). Fracking has allowed the United States to increase its oil production faster than at any time in its history (Oil). The use of hydraulic fracturing in conjunction with horizontal drilling and micro-seismic imaging has made it possible to extract crude oil from rock formations characterized by low permeability (Kili an).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fracking has become the new revolutionary key to surviving more years in this planet. Many people may not like the way it is done or how our water or sources are used, but it is helping our planet way more then it is hurting it. As some families think its toxic or harmful, so many more are making money off of it or just love it. It has became a new huge pice of our technology and it is only getting stronger and stronger everyday it is used. Fracking is all over the world including Saudi Arabia, Canada, the U.S, Iraq, and many more places. Once an idea, became into a mulit billion dollar operation throughout the entire world, so much anger and frustration as well as happiness and kindness. So much hardwork and effort put into something that could help throughout our entire country that could either put this world into debt, or it coudve made it worth billions. Fracking has helped the entire U.S, and has created new technology for ua to find out about.