Should marijuana be legalized? Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have laws broadly legalizing marijuana in some form. Seven states and the District of Columbia have adopted the most expansive laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Most recently, California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada all passed measures in legalizing recreational marijuana. A number of states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Some medical marijuana laws are broader than others, with types of medical conditions that allow for treatment varying from state to state. Several states have passed narrow laws allowing residents to possess cannabis only if they suffer from certain rare medical illnesses. …show more content…
The first reason is that marijuana is medicine. Even though 23 states have legalized cannabis medically, physicians still don’t have national guidelines on how to prescribe it. Most physicians have never been trained to prescribe marijuana and it is still not covered in medical schools. Only some states are beginning to require doctors to take additional medical courses on medical marijuana. The second reason marijuana can be a solution is that cannabis is a cash crop. Cannabis/Hemp could be the biggest cash crop since cotton. Cannabis is such large and profitable industry that legalization could boost the economy and create American jobs. The state of Colorado has brought in nearly $73.5 million in selling marijuana and marijuana related products in just a few years. Colorado was the first to allow recreational marijuana sales in January 2014. Since then Headset Inc. found that the average recreational consumer spends $647 annually on marijuana. The third reason that marijuana should be legalized is to weed out the international drug trade. American cannabis growers, have become known for inventing new hybrid strains. This makes American marijuana unique which could help destroy the illegal foreign drug trade. According to Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, “The U.S government could save billions of dollars by ending the drug war and legalizing cannabis and bring in an additional $46.7 billion in yearly tax