Argumentative Essay: The Legalization Of Marijuana

When most people hear the word marijuana they automatically think bad for you, drugs, high school dropouts, or the munchies. But what people don’t know is that marijuana has many more purposes than just getting high. Marijuana has been used for many many years for all kinds of reasons. In 1907, 20 million Americans had smoked cannabis at least once in there life(Barbour 25). Marijuana in my opinion is a drug that should be made legal because it has all kinds of medical uses, it is a drug that people cannot overdose on, and it is less harmful than tobacco. There are all kinds of slang terms for marijuana like weed, pot, grass. Skunk the list goes on and on. But the scientific word for marijuana is called cannabis. Many U.S. citizens are

Marijuana has been proven to be way better for the human body than tobacco and alcohol. A combined 50,000 people die each year from the use of alcohol and a combined 400,000 people die from smoking tobacco each year; not a single person is reported to have died from using marijuana products(“About”). It has been proven that teens in middle and high school know the difference between soft drugs and hard drugs. Marijuana is classified as a soft drug because it's a nontoxic drug. If the states wanted to make something illegal why not make alcohol illegal. Marijuana is a plat made by God that grows in the sun. The sun grows marijuana, man makes liquor. People that are using marijuana are usually some of the nicest people out there, their laidback, there calm, and they don’t worry about the little stuff. It has been reported that it is way safer to drive high then it is to drive drunk(“About”). Marijuana is the third most used drug behind alcohol and tobacco and is the most safe out of those three, so why not make the one that is the most safe the one that is legal.

In Colorado, overall crime has fallen by 15% and murder by 50% after legalization (Waugh). Colorado has also revenued 10 million in taxes in only the first four months of legalization. John Hickenlooper governor

30 million Americans use cannabis every year. Being legal will barely affect use, as shown by states that have passed legalization laws (Ingraham). The war on weed is failing and is costing billions of dollars to continue. No one likes raising taxes but this war on marijuana is expensive and to continue tax dollars will be spent. Although in the first year of legalization we would revenue the money used on keeping weed illegal. Law enforcement are forced to focus on low danger citizens instead of focusing on society threatening criminals. Selling weed in regulated stores would also slow and possibly stop the importing of marijuana from violent and greedy drug lords. This would cut back on not only marijuana but drugs in the street in general with less shipments coming in and increasing border control on drugs. With law enforcement not constantly looking for weed users they will be more effective in enforcing other laws and regulations (“Pros”). Drug smuggling is a serious and constant problem across the nation. Smuggling would diminish and possibly stop if marijuana was sold in regulated stores (Rough). Creating a legal and controlled weed market is best for public safety. Having a legal market would also give safety to cannabis users, buying marijuana illegally can obviously come with some risks like not knowing what is in the strand and being robbed (“Pros”). Ergo, decreasing crime as