Persuasive Essay On Legalizing Marijuana

717 Words3 Pages

Marijuana is a very controversial issue in society today. Many people want the legalization of marijuana. In this essay I will investigate why we should and why we should not legalize Marijuana. Many people associate marijuana smokers with lazy, unmotivated and unstable members of society. This wrong perception is the result of misinformation and propaganda by those that needed illegal marijuana for personal financial gains. In reality, marijuana has lots of medical benefits as well as recreational purposes. In some countries medical marijuana has been legalized but the process of getting it prescribed is cumbersome. Hemp (this term includes all cannabis plants) also has industrial uses. Industrial hemp contains only about 0.3% …show more content…

During the 1770s, citizens could be jailed for not growing cannabis; it was considered an essential crop in order to ensure economic independence from Britain. So what happened? Surprisingly, it wasn’t related to health issues as most of us would think. Instead, it was because of business. Industries based on hemp were becoming a viable alternative to cotton and timber. People involved in the now losing industries did everything they could using their influence and money to make the competition illegal. This was a feat made much easier by the fact that one of the people wanting this to happen owned a very important newspaper chain in which he routinely published fabricated articles about what people have done while they were under the influence of marijuana. Another important factor that made people support making this drug illegal was racism. During the great Depression in the 1930’s a large amount of Mexican immigrants came to the United States. Many of these immigrants smoked marijuana. People wanted a way to deport this wave of immigrants back to Mexico so they supported a law that would get someone deported for the consumption of marijuana. There are no real health risks from the consumption of marijuana. There are 0 cases of marijuana overdose in recorded history. On the other hand, about half a million deaths are caused by tobacco every year in the US. Alcohol poisoning causes about one hundred thousand deaths in the US alone every