The legalization of Marijuana is such a controversial topic. It has been debated for years whether it should be legally allowed again. Many have debated against it due to their beliefs on the topic. They see it as a dangerous drug that is horrible to one’s health, that causes lung cancer and can lead to an addiction of harder drugs. There are two type of supporters, the ones who support legalizing the drug for medical purposes only and the ones who believe it should be legalized in a recreational form. Regardless of the debates going on or one's belief and opinion, marijuana should be legalized due to its tremendous impacts on physical and mental health. It too would avoid useless money being spent and crimes would decrease. Much can …show more content…
Marijuana became criminalized by the federal government and illegal to the people.
Every year ,the United States government spends billions on keeping the drug illegal. Money which comes from taxpayers. The government funds law enforcement, prosecution and incarceration of marijuana smokers. The prohibition of marijuana costs the state and federal government around $20 billion a year, says Jeffrey Miron an economist at Harvard University(Sledge). If the government legalized the drug it could avoid these costs and still generate valuable tax revenue from it. Melody Wang says, “Assuming the same cost of retailing and distributing marijuana as legal tobacco—ten cents per gram—then selling legal marijuana at a street value of ten dollars per gram would generate $40 to $100 billion in new government revenue, in the most optimistic case”. This is just an estimate of what the government could get if marijuana became legalized. The numbers are quite high,thus being a positive thing for economy. The money the government could gain, would be distributed to government expenditures. Education, health and infrastructures would benefit with the legalization. There would be less funds for police departments, thus leaving them to focus more on serious