Marijuana Persuasive Speech

Attention fellow Missouri citizens, today I’m here to not only arguing but to persuade our government to legalize the drug marijuana. For those who aren’t familiar with marijuana it is a plant made substance that gets you high an also the plant contains the mind-altering chemicaldelta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other related compounds and is also called weed. Some users smoke marijuana in hand-rolled cigarettes (joints) or in pipes or water pipes (bongs) allowing those substances to get you high. Getting high off of marijuana isn’t necessary a bad thing; the only thing to worry about is that it’s illegal. Marijuana affects has both short- and long-term effects on the brain. some good affects are that the substances makes you more mellow

Beliefs, the reason marijuana was made illegal had nothing to do with health issues. But, why? According to the website http://www.theweed.com -why-cannabis-should-be-legalized/ the major factor to the criminalization of marijuana (and the term “marijuana” itself), was racism. In the 1930’s the Great Depression hit hard, and at the same time an influx of Mexican immigrants were coming into America. Unfortunately, just like modern times, in the 1930’s these immigrants were not greeted with open arms. Just like they are today, Mexican-Americans were accused of stealing work from “honest, hard-working Americans.” Many of these immigrants smoked a Mexican weed called “marihuana.” Marihuana was not cannabis. It wasn’t until William Randolph Hearst used the name for the smokable form of cannabis in his ludicrous newspaper articles that people started to associate Mexicans with the drug, too. People supported making the drug illegal because if the Latin-American people were caught consuming it, they would be deported back to their country of

This negative propaganda that surrounded us only allowed people to make this drug to not be able to become legal in this state today. Marijuana is also not as addictive as most media outlets would lead you to believe. There are way more addictive drugs such as, heroin, and nicotine. After nicotine and heroine comes crack, and then alcohol. Below that is caffeine, and at the very bottom of the chart is marijuana; less addictive than but yet still illegal. It is estimated by a Harvard study, that if Marijuana were legalized, and then regulated and taxed like other commercial goods, it would bring in huge dollar amounts to the federal government. It’s estimated that the tax revenue generated from marijuana would be upwards of $2.4 billion annually if it were taxed like everyday goods, and as high as $6.2 billion annually if it were taxed like alcohol and