Should Marijuana Be Legalized For Recreational Purposes?

This paper will look at the benefits and drawbacks to legalizing marijuana by looking in at Colorado.The state made forty million dollars by taxed marijuana in 2014 alone, also Colorado saved countless millions because of the extremely lower amounts of marijuana arrest and court cases. It is not clear how having new recreational marijuana stores opening will affect the cannabis market, or businesses expanding around them. Gov. John Hickenlooper says that the economy is thriving with record setting numbers of tourists (73.1 million). 49 percent of those tourist said that legal marijuana influenced their decisions to vacation in Colorado. The ER’s in Colorado have also seen a rise in numbers of marijuana related cases and those cases in non-residents have almost doubled. An unexpected situation that arose from legal cannabis was the amount of electricity that is being use to grow the drug. Some cannabusinesses have to go green with solar or wind power. There are many varying views on the effects of legal marijuana have developed in Colorado since marijuana became legal in 2014.

Marijuana is amongst one of the most disputable subjects in political issues. It is the most exploited drug in the United States and can even be around the globe. Marijuana is the main source of substance reliance other than alcohol in the United States. Numerous groups in recent years have come forward and claim that marijuana use has been beneficial with numerous medical conditions. In fact, it has helped numerous people with diseases, for example, Glaucoma, Cancer, and any other physical or mental pain. Medicinal cannabis should be legalized in Florida, but should be regulated accordingly. The clear majority trust that marijuana use would be more beneficial if it was not criminalized but most still believe that the government should keep it as a controlled substance. In 2008, 4 million out of the 7 million individuals, ages 12 and older, characterized as having a reliance or abusing marijuana. This implies that two out of every three Americans experiencing any substance abuse have developed marijuana reliance. The legalization of marijuana in the United States such an issue for so many individuals today. Some believe that marijuana should not be legalized in Florida because of physical health, mental health, effects of driving under the influence of marijuana, and increase in use. Others believe that is it marijuana should be legal because of its harmless if used in moderation, limits of personal freedoms, and potential FDA regulations.

Since the first efforts to legalize marijuana in the 1960s, Americans have become progressively more accepting of requests to liberalize laws restricting possession and use of marijuana, but the shift has not been a straight line. After 11 states decriminalized marijuana possession in the 1970s, recoil led by suburban parents led too much harsher implementation of drug laws. But since California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, outlooks toward the drug have relaxed significantly.("A Brief History of Public Opinion on Marijuana Legalization.")

To legalize or to not legalize drugs, that is the popular question lately. The current repeat visitor to each states legislative sessions is making marijuana legal. Currently in the United States there are twenty states with legal medical marijuana and the District of Columbia. Out of those twenty only Colorado and Washington have also legalized marijuana for recreational use. When it comes to legalizing drugs marijuana appears to be the most popular one being advocated for. However, does that leave the door open for other drugs to be advocated for as well? Should they all be legalized or just a select few?

For many years American society, especially our youth, has been bombarderd with a large amount of strong and broad "anti-drug" messages. Much of the time when this message was being broadcasted to people, again especially in the case of young children, it is simplified to just saying "drugs are bad", such as in the famous Public Service Announcment named "This is Your Brain on Drugs". In reality not all illegal drugs are the same, speicfically mairajuana is really not as dangerous as people would assume based on these messages that lump it together with drugs like heroin or cocaine. Beyond just being safer and less addictive than other substances, marijuana should not remain illegal for recreational use because it alleviates some of the pressure on America 's War on Drugs, and the sale of marijuana has become a profitable industry in the places it is legal.

The legalization of marijuana has been a debate that has been going on for the past decade. Many Americans (about 80 percent surveyed) do believe in the legalization while others disagree. With the correct facts in place, it is easy to prove that the legalization of marijuana is a huge benefit to the American people and those who disagree are disagreeing for the wrong reasons. One reason it should be legalized is marijuana can be used for medical purposes, others say it can help lower the debt in America by taxing marijuana. Many of these arguments favoring marijuana are outlined in this paper.

Marijuana has earned itself a terrible name over the years. This plant has a long history with humans, from early medical uses to spiritual and even recreational use. In recent years, many states have seen the legalization of marijuana for medical uses. Most large scale experiments have been hindered because of the difficulty of getting experiments involving marijuana approved. Despite this roadblock for the research of marijuana, surveys and observations of the medical use of marijuana show that the plant may have legitimate medical uses. The lack of evidence showing that weed is a dangerous drug also pushes for its legalization for recreational use. Based on all of the evidence about marijuana for recreational and medical use, marijuana

Marijuana or cannabis is a preparation of the cannabis plant intended for use as a hallucinatory drug and a medicine as well. The principal hallucinatory constituent of marijuana is Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC. Twenty three states and the District of Columbia has legalized marijuana for medical or recreational purposes in the United States. Legalizing marijuana has many benefits to it. Not only has marijuana been proven to counter act some symptoms of cancer and other diseases, it can also boost the economy and increase tax revenues. Along with all these things legalizing marijuana can also lesson crime rate and allow police and federal agents to focus

Should marijuana be legalized for recreational purposes? That question, and many variances of it, have been kicked around and hotly debated for decades by the middling individual and politicians alike. Just recently, devout and faithful cannabis users have had a series of victories leading in the direction of one day national legalization of marijuana. Recreational users want marijuana legalized and politicians want the money from legalizing marijuana. It seems as if legalizing marijuana for recreational use would be a no brainer and a win-win for both sides. Then how come it is 2014 and we still don’t have national legalization of marijuana?

Addiction in America, it is a sad reality that we must pay more attention to. Not only does it destroy and kill lives, it also is hard to treat. When you are addicted for long periods of time, your dependency on it is like having to breath. Without "it" you will die. In America even marijuana which is debatably just as harmful as tobacco and alcohol, can put you in jail from from 1-5 years for possession and 10 to life for selling or growing. Now in some states it is legal for recreational use, so this topic has gained some attention where people in other states have already been in jail for a long time for doing what someone in another state is doing it without consequents. Cocaine, Heroin, Meth, etc. are much more addictive and have harsher punishments. These drugs have been proven that without proper treatment, people can become dependent on them again even after 5-10 years of being sober. In jail the treatment options are minimal, only in some rare cases have private prisons have had a decent rehabilitation success rate. Some states have federally funded rehabilitation sites where instead of jail time from a possession charge, they can go to these rehabs. These rehabs where established to treat individuals from addiction rather than jail time. Doing this was more ideal to lower the people from doing this again and is also very much more cost effective. In a review from the Justice Policy Institute in Maryland, the success rate of completed treatment of ADAA programs is

Marijuana also known as Cannabis Sativa goes by many street names which include: pot, weed, and refer, Mary J, to just list a few. For many years marijuana has been an ongoing debate. The debate is whether or not marijuana should be legalized for recreational use. Many people want it legalized for recreational use, while others don’t. The people that want it legalized want it legalized because they want to be able to smoke it with no penalty and because they feel like there is no harm that can be done to the body. The opposing side feels like it is not only harmful to individuals consuming marijuana, but also society as a whole. I will be displaying research from both sides.

Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, according to Jordan Bechtold. It is a cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or medicine. Medical marijuana is legal in only 23 states. Many citizens argue that it should be legal for recreational use in all states, though many citizens also disagree. It is mostly compared to alcohol and cigarettes/tobacco. Just like all other drugs, smoking marijuana affects your body in a unique way. Your respiratory system, circulatory system, nervous system, digestive system, and other systems of the body are affected when using drugs. Marijuana should be legalized only because it helps with sicknesses while other drugs cause them.

Imagine that you suffered tremendous pain from a medical condition and the only medicine that could relieve this pain is illegal so because of this barrier, you have to resort to other drugs synthetically formulated in a lab. These drugs, which are not a natural product of nature, do nothing to help you. This is the case with many people, who oftentimes forego the law and purchase the drug in question-marijuana-on the black market. Marijuana, otherwise known as pot, weed, broccoli, or grass, is a beneficial substance that the government should legalize. For decades the legality of marijuana has been a hot topic, and this debate has only increased in recent times. People have many

Marijuana is the preparation of Cannabis for use as a medicine or drug. Marijuana is a psychoactive drug that “affects brain function, resulting in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior,” (Wikipedia, “Psychoactive Drug.”) these affects I believed were what we call a high. With so many compounds in the drug I wondered which ones were the main causes for getting some one high. After reading more about marijuana, tertrahydrocannabinol or THC was revealed as the compound responsible for getting users high. THC has many effects such as “relaxation, alteration of visual, auditory, and olfactory senses, fatigue, and appetite stimulation” (Wikipedia, "Tetrahydrocannabinol.”) while also treating pain. While studying THC, my main wonder was how much of it was present in marijuana. I learned that THC is actually reduced in marijuana when prepared for medical use. I also learned that marijuana itself has many forms for consumption such as resin and oil, some forms having higher amounts of THC than others.

Cannabis, formally known as marijuana is a drug obtained from the tops, stems and leaves of the hemp plant cannabis. The drug is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world. Only substances like caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are used more (“Marijuana” 1). In the U. S. where some use it to feel “high” or get an escape from reality. The drug is referred to in many ways; weed, grass, pot, and or reefer are some common names used to describe the drug (“Marijuana” 1). Like most drugs, marijuana has a very long history. People have been using the plant around the world for thousands of years. The oldest record of the marijuana plant dates back to 2727 B. C. in China where the plant was used as a medical herb for treating conditions like rheumatism, gout, malaria and even absent-mindedness (“Cannabis, Coca, & Poopy: Nature’s Addictive Plants” 1). Slowly, the plant started spreading around the world. By 1545, cannabis was starting to appear throughout the western worlds. Being introduced to South America by the Spanish to be used as fiber. The crop also had many other common uses around the world. In North America, cannabis was often used to make paper, ropes, clothing and other materials (“The Origins of Cannabis” 1).