Persuasive Essay On Legalizing Marijuana

The controversy surrounding marijuana laws have been discussed at great length in both federal and state government. The new proposed laws legalizing marijuana in Washington and Colorado have reignited the debate. Marijuana should be legalized because it is less harmful than cigarettes, and alcohol. It has many positive attributes, for instance medical use. Also citizens arrested on Marijuana charges take up space in our incarceration facilities. I feel strongly that it would do our country more good than harm to decriminalize marijuana. In the 2008 presidential election Massachusetts voted to decriminalize marijuana. This law meant anyone caught with less than an ounce of marijuana was subject to pay a one hundred dollar ($100) fine. Aside from what the government would like you to think, there are actually positive effects that come from the use of marijuana. For instance, many writers, authors and or singer-songwriters say that marijuana helps their writers block. According to Willie Nelson well known country folk singer-songwriter and marijuana smoker, claims smoking weed is a way of life and it helps him be more creative.
A significant number of people use marijuana for medicinal purposes.
According to David Ford, “ not only is marijuana comparatively harmless, but it offers benefits, including dramatically effective and proven medical uses for patients suffering from, cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, and other ailments.” (Ford, David. Marijuana, Not Guilty as Charged .Page 20) Marijuana has also been used to calm the nausea associated with chemotherapy in cancer patients. It was also studied that smoking marijuana reduces pressure of the eye in patients with glaucoma, and weight gain in AIDS patients. (Hart, Carl. Drugs, Society and Human Behavior. Page
359.)
Those who are against legalization of marijuana believe that the drug is physically unhealthy for your body and that’s a good enough reason to why it is illegal. But then you would have to explain why alcohol and tobacco are legal because those substances are if not worse, just as bad as marijuana. Seventy nine thousand people a year die from alcohol poisoning, (Hart, David).
“More than 45 percent of all drug possession arrests in the U.S. last year were for marijuana. According to the FBI's annual crime report” claims Abby Rogers from Business Insider. In my opinion, once police stop attacking marijuana users they can devote their time to solving more serious crimes and start per suing dangerous criminals. Therefore more space would be available in our incarceration facilities.
If the government legalized marijuana, they could also tax it and that would help our country pay off our national debt, and create more jobs for individuals. Canada legalized marijuana and has since created thousands of new jobs for those who were out of work for some time.
According to Board of Health states that concerns extend beyond just legalizing marijuana to help individuals with symptoms related to disease, but for towns who now have to deal with distribution centers with no by laws in place. Distribution centers that allow people to purchase the drug usually with a card need to have a process that each town creates, by laws. Towns are scurrying around to create these by laws. "This is a huge mess" she said. Not too many towns want distribution centers, especially when your town already has drug issues.
In conclusion, I believe that legalization of marijuana is a "good thing" because it can help so many people with serious (cancer) and non-serious diseases. However, because by laws for each town and state that legalized the drug have not been put into place prior to legalization of the drug, creates a frenzy among state officials. My concern, each town may not want a distribution center and therefore, people who truly may benefit from the drug, will not have access to it in their own town. I also believe that the legalization of marijuana it would help our country immensely.