Should Marijuana Be Legalized Persuasive Essay

1817 Words8 Pages

Evan Rice
Melissa McCoy
Composition II
30 October 2014
Marijuana: Savior or Destroyer

For decades, marijuana has been prohibited throughout the entirety of the United States and it has only been in recent times that it has been legalized for recreational or medicinal use in any state. There have been several places and states in the United States that have legalized the use of recreational marijuana, Colorado and Washington being two of the first to legalize it. There are several reasons that this drug has been legalized and maybe should be legalized. One of the reasons these states legalized marijuana is to boost their economy. This increase has given these states a much-needed jumpstart to their economy keeping the states on the incline of growth since the 2008 crash of the stock market. Another reason that has been stated, is that the legalization of marijuana would take power from the drug cartels, and their smuggling and selling marijuana operations. This is a possibility that would bring fewer deaths per year from cartel killings. A final reason is that the prison incarceration rate would go down significantly from the large numbers of people being arrested for possession alone. The legalization of marijuana could lead to some positive outcomes, such as increased tax revenues and lower …show more content…

Many people cite that getting arrested with possession or failing a drug test can lead to the person getting fired from their job. This is most likely because companies do not want the stigma of having an employee that has an arrest record having to do with drugs. There are severe repercussions if one is arrested multiple times for the same crime and just possession alone can give people ten years in a federal prison, even if at the time the person was not a user they will spend a decade of their life, that they will never get beck, in