Cover image via Angus & Mearns Liberal DemocratsA Youth Parliament representative has called on the Malaysian government to regulate the use of marijuana, which is also known as cannabis, weed or ganja
Muhamad Ridhwan emphasised that he was advocating for the regulation, and not legalisation of marijuana. He explained that if the usage of weed is supervised, there is a possibility that no one would be addicted to it.
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While the Selangor representative made such bold claims, findings from scientific studies about the effects of marijuana are still being debated, as the results are most often conflicting with one another
[Certain studies](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/19/is-marijuana-addictive-it-depends-how-you-define-addiction/) show that marijuana does not cause chemical or psychical addiction but [some have argued](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2797098/) that marijuana can cause psychological addiction.
Meanwhile, the current laws that are governing drug offences in Malaysia are being described as 'draconian'
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Despite such stringent laws, an undercover story by The Star's R.AGE in November 2014 revealed that students in Malaysia actually have easy access to marijuana, which suggests that these laws have failed to deter drug tradings
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Malaysia is not the only country with such harsh laws as many other Southeast Asian countries are also well-known for having the strictest anti-drug laws in the world because they still retain the death penalty for certain drug offenses
Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam have laws that may punish drug offenders with the death penalty.
Philippines has imposed a moratorium on the death penalty while Cambodia has abolished the death penalty sentence altogether. However, the former still punish drug offenders harshly while the law enforcement in Cambodia is more lax.
In 2007 alone, 85 people were executed in Vietnam for drug-related offenses.
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On the contrary, certain states in the United States have legalised marijuana. However, out of 23 states in the U.S. that have legalised marijuana, only 4 have legalised it for recreational use as the rest only allow for medicinal purposes.
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