Argumentative Essay On Decriminalization Of Marijuana

1677 Words7 Pages

Essay: Should Marijuana be legalized. Marijuana is a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Although many slanderous claims have been made about cannabis in recent history, the truths are slowly starting to resurface. Marijuana should be legalized, for the intent and purposes of medicinal use and to foster economic growth within the Caribbean region. The advantages of the decriminalisation of the said drug and the major impacts to the West Indies that decriminalisation of Marijuana would produce are vast, mainly in the sector of economic development and the health care sector. Marijuana also called weed, herb, pot, ganja and a vast number of other slang terms, is a greenish-gray mixture of the dried, shredded leaves and …show more content…

Marijuana does not only have medicinal advantages but also powerful economic advantages, in which the Caribbean would greatly be impacted as in the article “The Economic impacts of Marijuana Legalization” by: David G. Evansfor examines this in the US context in states where it is legal. In other countries example in the case of the Dutch government is raking in 400 million Euros a year in taxes from only 730 marijuana-selling coffee shops. For the Trinidadians this means $3 billion dollars to your GDP, for the Eastern Caribbean that’s a whopping $1 billion EC dollars and for the Bajans that translates to an annual income of $860 million dollars. Admittedly the amount of money the Caribbean would earn would be smaller, but it would be rather naïve of us to deny that we aren’t desperate. Barbados Government can no longer afford to pay tuition fees for students at UWI and Trinidadians faced job cuts when Schlumberger announced it would cut 9,000 jobs in Trinidad. The decriminalisation of marijuana would not only mean an increase in GDP but also increase in jobs in the region, development of much needed infrastructure and assistance in education, health and legal systems and most importantly the decrease in the need to buy foreign exchange to stabilize falling economies of Caribbean states. The solution to our economic problems is