Marijuana Leagalisation Article Analysis

The legalisation of marijuana in Australia has been an ongoing issue for many years now, and due to the numerous questions it leaves us asking, many debates and opinions have formed over time. On Sunday the 20/12/2012, the Herald Sun Debate section published an article entitled ‘Would the legalisation of marijuana threaten young Australians?’ which left John Rogerson, CEO of the Australian Drug Foundation arguing that yes, Cannabis will put them at risk, while Greg Barns, barrister and spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, opposed Rogerson saying no. Legalisation would mean that marijuana would no longer be an illicit drug, and perhaps something we see as often as alcohol or tobacco. Rogerson begins with a rhetorical question conveyed in a logical but firm tone of ‘Why would we want to add another harmful substance to the mix…?’, going on to talk about other issues that are yet to be tackled.

This remark leaves the reader feeling as though we as a country have enough to deal with, and by legalising marijuana we are only cutting out more problems for ourselves. The reader is left to think about focusing on our other circumstances, and a feeling of guilt about pushing aside those. Rogerson uses confronting evidence after mentioning a decline in the use of cannabis since just over a decade ago, and his professional opinion is used to convince readers of his case. The study he writes on talks about not only adults, but students as well, saying that ‘About 15 per cent of today’s secondary students have used cannabis’ which is a drop from 1999. His other research on the ‘risk of mental health problems’