Argumentative Essay On Legalizing Marijuana

Kaitlyn Johnson

Gregory Cecere

ENC1101

04/10/2018

Legalizing Marijuana

Marijuana has a very long history of human use dating back centuries. Ancient civilizations did not grow the plant so they could get high but as a way of healing and it was used for medicinal purposes. The legalization of marijuana has been a debatable issue for years due to the negative stigma around it. "This was at least partly motivated by Mexican immigration to the U.S. around the time of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, according to Eric Schlosser, author of Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market" (Little, Becky 2017). 29 states condemned marijuana between 1916 and 1931, and the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act basically made the drug

"Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." (Drug Scheduling, DEA.org) It has been proven, time and time again, that marijuana does have numerous medical and health benefits. There are two accepted and productive chemicals in marijuana that researchers believe could be used for medicinal purposes, CBD and THC. There are 23 known medical benefits from decreasing anxiety to soothing the tremors associated with Parkinson's Disease. The most established and best-supported use of marijuana is for the relief of chronic pain. Many people with chronic pain suffer from neuropathy, which is associated with diabetes, kidney disorders, cancer, multiple sclerosis, etc. There have been numerous clinical and research trials that report that inhaling marijuana helps to relieve chronic pain. According to a report published by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine there is "conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective in the treatment of chronic pain in adults, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting of cancer patients and improving patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms" (“Health and Medicine Division.”) Marijuana also treats other types of muscle spasms as well, including stomach spasms and hypertonic muscle spasms. There is also some evidence that marijuana may not actually damage

The legalization of marijuana could benefit the police and courts in two ways: more money and more time. Better funding means more persons on the job to handle the load and more time means that more attention is being paid to the more violent crimes. For a long time, possessing marijuana was treated the same way as having cocaine, methamphetamines or heroin because the law defines it as a Schedule I drug. Because of this, our prisons are over crowded and the court system is flooded with marijuana possession charges. "According to the FBI Unified Crime Statistics, 587,700 people were arrested in 2016 for marijuana-related crimes, more than for all violent crimes like murder and rape combined. As a result, marijuana arrests place an undue burden on our judicial system." (White, 2018) People who advocate for the legalization of marijuana believe that legalizing the drug could cut off profit for those involved in the illegal drug trade, making the violence associated with the drug decrease, therefore giving officers ample time to follow up on other, more violent crimes. Police are very keen on public safety, as this is their number one priority, which is why legalizing marijuana would help them focus more on the crimes that could disrupt that feeling of safety. I have seen stories on the news about cops planting drugs on civilians.