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Should Marijuana Be Legalized Essay

599 Words3 Pages

Should marijuana be legalized?

People have been arguing about the legalization of marijuana for many years now. Currently about 54% of Americans want to see the drug legalized, while 44% want it to remain illegal (Jacques), furthermore nearly 49% of Americans have admitted to actually using the drug (Saad). Marijuana should be legalized because the illegalization is not only hypocritical, but it’s wasting tax dollars while oppressing a whole segment of our society. Cannabis users deserve the same level of civil rights protection just like any other demographic in America receives (Motel). Alcohol is one of the most toxic drugs out there and using just 10 times the amount one would use to get the desired effect could lead to death. Marijuana is one of the least toxic drugs, with a fatal overdose nearly impossible (“Safer than Alcohol”). According to the U.S. …show more content…

The U.S. is now the world’s largest jailer, while drugs remain widely available and treatment resources are scarce. Not only have billions of tax dollars been wasted, but drug war spending has also resulted in the defunding of other important services (“Wasted Tax Dollars”). The number of arrests in 2014 in the U.S. for marijuana law violation was around 700,000, while around 88% of those arrests were for possession only. 57% of the people incarcerated for drugs are black or Latino, even though these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates with whites. People of color are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are whites (“Wasted Tax Dollars”). So not only are we wasting money on incarcerating individuals who are not a threat to society, we are creating a racial divide between the citizens of the United States by targeting specific groups of people in this “drug

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