Legalize it
My topic I chose was the legalization of marijuana. The reason I chose this topic is because society today has very mixed feelings about marijuana. Some say they shouldn’t legalize it and some say that they should. In my article I am going to tell you why it should be legalized. Marijuana originates from the Cannabis plant which dates back to 2700 B.C. United States President at the time, Thomas Jefferson, once declared “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country”. It was then said to have many beneficial values by the Chinese herbal. By the 1960’s, many of the world’s countries had put very strict limitations of the plant. Not allowing them to practice using it as they were. Restrictions’ came with harsh gateways involving
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By legalizing marijuana, crime rates would drastically drop and resources could be used in far better ways. Right winger and evangelical leader Pat Robertson said, “Prisons are being overcrowded with juvenile offenders having to do with drugs. And the penalties, the maximums, some of them could get 10 years for possession of a joint of marijuana. It makes no sense at all”. Robertson makes a very valid point. He also goes on to say, “If people can go into a liquor store and buy a bottle of alcohol and drink it at home legally, then why do we say that the use of this other substance is somehow criminal”? Furthermore, roughly half of marijuana arrests involve people under the age of twenty-one. For a majority of those people it is the first time they have ever encountered conflicts with the law. Now the precious resources, which should be used to fight severe and violent crimes, are being wasted. The United State’s tax payers are paying for a pricy tab: “$150 billion dollars gets spent on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana related” (qtd. in Top 10 Ballot