Abstract On Legalizing Marijuana

Legalize it
I Abstract There are many reasons why marijuana should be legalized. Throughout this paper, evidence will be given to show how the positive outcomes of legalizing cannabis outweighs the negative. Not only does marijuana have many medicinal characteristics, but this plant would help the society overall. Marijuana is the most widely used illegal substance in the United States, and has created a multibillion dollar industry (Datwyler and Weiblen, 2006). The effects legalization of marijuana would have on the society may include but are not limited to; a decrease in the trillion dollar deficit, increase government revenue, cut down illegal cartel operations, allow for cut in unnecessary government spending, and redirect law enforcement
Being illegal causes the price to inflate and makes it easy for profit to be made. Drug dealers deal to any age, kids reportedly say they can get illegal drugs easier then the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol. The cost of marijuana law enforcement is more then $7.7 billion each year (Shepard and Blackley, 2007). The legalization will also allow the government to cut the budget allotted for policing cannabis. Over 750,000 people are arrested each year in the United States due to marijuana (Shepard and Blackley, 2007). As a result to all of the marijuana related arrests the prison and jail population has increased. Due to this over population in jails and prisons there is a need for more places to put these “criminals”. In turn this created costs for the construction of new prisons as well as costs for imprisonment. Private prisons are making a hefty profit and even have pushed for longer sentences on minor
Prohibition does not work, which is seen when evaluating Americas experiences with alcohol. One of the reasons for the acceptance of alcohol is because of presence thousands of years ago, however the use of cannabis goes back way further. Almost all of the youth that have been charged with an offense pertaining to cannabis have chosen to go through a treatment program. These youth were forced into a treatment program as an alternative to serving jail time or going to juvenile hall. Although the use of cannabis can be habituating, its use can be discontinued and therefore is not addicting at all. Although there are some views that it is addicting. The belief that using marijuana will lead to the use of other illegal substances is also completely wrong. Studies show that there is only one out of one hundred marijuana users that go on to try cocaine and less then one out of one hundred that try go on to try heroin, which was originally created by Bayer (Tarter and Vanyukov, 2006). Due to the illegal nature of marijuana, users are put into situations where they might come into contact with a dealer whom could offer them harder drugs. In this aspect the fact that its illegal is the only gateway to other illegal substances (Tarter and Vanyukov,