Benefits Of Legalizing Marijuana

Since the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2012, in the states of Washington and Colorado, the debate on whether the federal government of the United States of America should also legalize the use of recreational marijuana has grown. In 1996 the first state, California, legalized medical marijuana. In the years following, a total of 22 other states and one district has legalized marijuana with different restrictions ranging from the type of marijuana to the amount of marijuana. In 2012, the first states to legalize recreational marijuana were Washington and Colorado, and since then, two other states, Alaska and Oregon have also legalized the substance. In 2015 the District of Columbia has made it legal to possess, gift, and grow
In 2011 the percentage of arrests relating to marijuana possession is 43.3 percent in all of the United States drug arrests and 6.2 for illegal sales of marijuana (“Persons Arrested,” 2011). That was even before the legalization of recreational use in Colorado and Washington. In 2013 the possession dropped a total of 2.7 percent and the sale arrests dropped 0.6 percent (“Persons Arrested,” 2013).. In August of 2015, Colorado alone recorded an annual revenue of thirteen million dollars because of the marijuana tax (Conroy). When the legalization of marijuana is passed, the drug related crime will go down, the amount of tax dollars toward drug related crime will go down due to the drop in crime, and the tax dollars collected by the state will increase due to the tax placed on marijuana
In 1920 the U.S. prohibited the manufacture, storage, or sale of alcohol. Some time into the 1930s, the U.S. found that it is safer to let the people have their addictive, mind distorting substance. In 1933, the prohibition of alcohol ceased, but in exchange, the U.S. put a tax and many local and federal regulations on the use of alcohol to keep the use of alcohol as safe as possible.
The use of marijuana may not be safe, but neither is the use of other legal drugs or even alcohol. Marijuana should be legal, but at a price. Marijuana by itself and on it’s own price won’t be a deterrent to using this seemingly safe but ultimately dangerous substance. The U.S. Supreme Court should rule the use of marijuana to be legal. In exchange, the federal government will request a tax, a percentage extra to pay for the inevitable misuse of this narcotic. The federal government may be able to tax a 15-20% tax on the sale of recreational