The legalization of marijuana has been occurring for the past couple of years in many states. Many states have legalized recreational marijuana because of the business it will bring in. In 2012, Washington state legalized the medical and recreational use of marijuana. It has brought in new businesses into many cities and it the farms give jobs to many people. However, I don’t think that marijuana should be legalized because teenagers abuse it, it is a gateway drug, and it is bad for your health.
The first reason that I think marijuana shouldn't be legal is that many teenagers abuse it. Even though it is illegal for people under the age of 18 to use marijuana for recreational purposes, many teenagers can still get it easily. They use it as a way to escape reality and to try to cope with anxiety, depression, anger. Another thing that causes teens to smoke is peer pressure. When there are people around you that do
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Research has shown that marijuana use is most likely to proceed to other illicit and non illicit drugs. Marijuana is also linked to other addictions, including nicotine. Animal experiments have shown THC’s ability to prime the brain to enhance the responses to other drugs. Also, people who use marijuana are three times as likely to use heroin.
The third and final reason that marijuana shouldn’t be legalized is that it’s bad for your health. When you smoke pot, the THC and other chemicals travel from your bloodstream to your body. Marijuana can harm a person’s memory and causes people to not have the ability to organize information. Cannabis can also affect brain development. When people begin to use marijuana as teenagers, the drug may reduce thinking, memory, and learning functions.
This is because your brain doesn’t fully develop until age 25, so if you are taking in these bad toxins at such a young age, it is highly likely to affect your brain