Legalizing Marijuana Marijuana has been used since the seventeenth century as a household drug for many things. Now, years later, nearly 69 million Americans over the age of 12 have tried marijuana at least once. Over 700,000 people are arrested annually for drug charges. There are growing alternatives to smoking marijuana. The obstacle used to be that inhaling the smoke was deplorable. However, as more research is being done and marijuana is being legalized and decriminalized, individuals are becoming more creative and ingenious. “The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy put together a report for the Institute of Medicine in 1999. The goal was to assess possible health benefits and risks that marijuana held. The report recommends …show more content…
In 1985, the FDA gave approval for the use of marijuana as help with weight loss in AIDS patients, chronic pain, control spasms in multiple sclerosis patients and as stated before, patients undergoing chemotherapy (Blackwell and Manor). Patients in different situations are helped greatly by marijuana. Marijuana has been used since the seventeenth century as a household drug for pain relief and recently, cancer. Cancer takes the lives of many each year and has damaging and detrimental effects on many loved ones, whether you’re directly affected or not. Going back 100’s of years, marijuana has always been beneficial to many people for a multitude of reasons. When used medically, marijuana boasts a number of significant benefits, such as giving cancer patients a renewed appetite, curing insomnia, reducing anxiety, and relieving chronic pain...Already earning California about $14 billion a year, it has been estimated that legalizing marijuana could generate anywhere between $1.5 and $4 billion (from taxing the drug) in revenue for California, a boost that we most undeniably need. (Wolff) We can not only use this money for our economic debt, but to fund new cancer researches and