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Lincoln Memorial University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Abstract

There are opposing viewpoints on whether marijuana should be legalized. Democrats and Republicans have different attitudes toward the drug. Democrats believe marijuana should be legalized for medical patients, if it is prescribed by a physician and is needed to reduce severe pain. In addition, Democrats believe that the war on recreational marijuana has been a waste of time and government resources. Many Democrats are in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana because it is considered normal by social standards. Republicans, on the other hand, oppose legalizing medical marijuana because they believe other drugs can be prescribed by physicians to reduce pain experienced by medical patients. In addition, Republicans believe that legalizing medical marijuana will lead to legalizing recreational marijuana, which is dangerous and a threat to public safety and health. According to Akers’ social learning theory, individuals learn behaviors according to the frequency, importance, intensity, and duration of the social learning experiences. Children will learn how to act through communications with intimate others, by definitions defined as favorable by others, and by observing how other individuals are rewarded and punished. Because public safety and children’s health are important social issues, and the government controls society, it is important to know if the behaviors of high school students are being affected by the different social learning environments created by the government. The researchers examined electronic second-hand data on marijuana use, which were collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The results of logistic regression for repeated measures indicate that there is no statistically significant relationship between male high school students who have ever used marijuana and political party.

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