Legalize it! Up until the mid-1900s, marijuana could be purchased at a pharmacy. Behind alcohol and tobacco, marijuana is the third most popular recreational substance in the United States. The thing that differentiates marijuana from the other two is legality. Marijuana is frowned upon by society because of the myths that surround it. However, a lot of debates have shown the light to the issue because of marijuana’s reputation. More and more people are now favoring legalization because of the factors that constitute a valid argument of its legality. Marijuana is a debatable topic for legalization because people think legalizing it is the same thing as condoning its smoking. Marijuana should be legalized because it would create thousands of jobs, deal massive blows to the profits of drug cartels and make the police focus on major criminals rather than potheads. Some might argue that marijuana is just another dangerous addictive drug and is just bad for you. It is addicting to 9% of people that smoke it, goes to 17% when they use it since their teens and 25-50% among daily users. Frequent marijuana users also report …show more content…
A gateway drug can be defined as a drug that is not addictive, but can lead to the use of other drugs. As Scientific American points out(Arkowitz), the reason why people use marijuana before trying other drugs is correlation. People who tend to try harder drugs tend to smoke tobacco and consume alcohol beforehand. As we all know, these are all just hypotheses. There also could be other factors that causes a person to try out other drugs. For example, a person’s social environment is critical to a person's’ drug use. People are more likely to start with readily available drugs like alcohol or tobacco. Their interactions with other drug users increases their chance of trying out other new drugs. A lot of people think marijuana is a gateway drug, and it is a big