Persuasive Essay On Legalizing Marijuana

Cannabis is the recreational drug of choice for over 70 million Americans, meaning that nearly a quarter of Americans smoke weed. This also means that in 19 states, all of these Americans are criminals. This criminalization and condemnation of marijuana smokers absolutely needs to stop at a federal level. Marijuana needs to be legalized in the United States and the next step to this process is federally legalizing the use of recreational marijuana use. Currently, in most states marijuana is under some kind of prohibition. The federal and state governments know and choose to ignore facts, history, and crime associated with prohibition and the drug itself; they use taxpayers money and countless amounts of it to fund the legal destruction of personal

The government wastes billions of dollars in law enforcement resources with increasing amounts of marijuana arrests each year (Stroup). According to the FBI reports, an American is arrested every forty five seconds for marijuana charges and forty four percent of all drug arrests are for marijuana. This just creates an endless cycle of drug use, and makes the problems so much worse. Incarceration of prisoners with drug-related crimes do not work to address the issue because current drug rehabilitation provided in both state and federal prison tend to be counterproductive in treatment and most inmates relapse soon after release (Aspenridge recovery). This is because many people who are incarcerated for drug-related crimes come from impoverished neighborhoods, so of course, locking a person up for small drug crimes and then sending them back to a crime-filled place will never work. This goes hand-in-hand with the societal stigmatization of people who have criminal records, leading them to not be able to get jobs and get out of situations where relapse is inevitable Now, legalizing marijuana doesn’t change the fact that there are more drugs than just marijuana on streets where crime is prevalent. However, it does help nearly half of drug-related incarcerated people stay out of prison, and allow marijuana smokers to be working members of

In the case of drug problems, it immensely impacts black and hispanic communities. The racist system that modern day Americans inherited and are contributing to is the main reason why simply decriminalizing marijuana is not the answer. Of the millions of people who partake in weed, black and hispanic people only make up 20%. Although these two racial groups make up less than a quarter of stoners in America, they take up 58% of all people who have been charged with marijuana crimes (Stroup). This is an obvious attack and targeting of these people of color by law enforcement. In Colorado, the decriminalization of marijuana actually increased the amount of black and hispanic minors being arrested for marijuana crimes, while the marijuana arrest rate in white minors decreased (Anguelov). This also takes into account the amount of black and hispanic people who live in impoverished, overpoliced places, making underprivileged black people four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than white people (Drug Policy Alliance). This legal discrimination of minority groups is not difficult to end, destigmatising drugs that affect these groups does not solve the