This November, millions of people are going to vote in California. Constituents will vote for a new president, new representatives, and on 17 ballot initiatives. Among these ballot initiatives is the proposition to make recreational cannabis legal. In 2010 California voted on Prop 19, another initiative to legalize cannabis. After a long campaign, Prop 19 failed by 7%. Two years later Washington and Colorado became the first states in the nation to legalize recreational cannabis on the state level. Federal laws still view cannabis as a schedule I drug, making it highly illegal to possess. Despite the federal ban, more states seem to be jumping on the “cannabis train”. Since 2012, two more states and the District of Columbia have legalized it …show more content…
Prohibition leads to increased incarceration rates, increased government spending and mistrust in law enforcement. In 1990, 350,000 arrests were made over cannabis related charges; in 2006, there were 800,000 arrests (Room). Over that 16-year span, cannabis related arrests went up 56%. Prohibition has been attempting to reduce the amount of cannabis users, but all it achieves is putting more people in prison. Despite increased spending (from 1.5 billion in 1981 to 18 billion in 2002), cannabis use has increased by 5%(Room). Additionally, over the same period, cannabis potency has increased while the price for the substance has decreased (Room). Room claims that the prohibition of cannabis has lead to this increase in potency and decrease in price. He says that prohibition makes the black market more valuable, leading to increased rates of violence. Prohibition as a policy is supposed to reduce consumption of cannabis and eliminate the black market but over the last 40 years we have seen the opposite of these goals achieved. It is clear that prohibition itself is not working in the way it was intended. One of the biggest arguments against cannabis legalization is not just the role prohibition plays, but also in the role it will play in changing people’s