Summary: Should Marijuana Be Legal In The United States

The truths about marijuana are slowly starting to resurface, the government keeps ignoring that cannabis could one day be as powerful for the U.S. Unfortunately, these truths about marijuana are under a lot of criticism because of the stereotype of what people see as a "marijuana or cannabis smoker." There is a great difficulty in this law because marijuana is still recognized as a harmful and dangerous substance in some states. This can cause problems because each state has their different views and opinions on the matter, and have their own rules and how the rules apply towards it. The twenty-six states and the District of Columbia currently have laws legalizing marijuana in some form, but California, Massachusetts, and Nevada just passed the law for recreational use. The states that have medical marijuana and recreational legalization are Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Nevada, and Alaska. The states that only have medical marijuana legal are Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii (Ingraham). However, legalizing marijuana could have some benefits instead of being a drug with some bad reputations. Marijuana should be legalized because of medical reasons, safety reasons, and have some benefits to society.

Marijuana is not a drug that you can get addicted too. There are more dangerous drugs then marijuana all around the world that can be addicting but with no help to your body. For example alcohol and cigarettes are more deadly and addictive than marijuana. Why shouldn’t they be illegal just like marijuana is? , Cigarettes prevent cancer and one can get addicted and invest a lot of money in it, when marijuana prevents from cancer growth and doctors can give you the medication for your pains. In the article, Roll your own, “IT MAY no look dangerous, but the tobacco plant has probably killed more people than his sword, he bow and arrow, and the spear put together” (unknown). Marijuana don’t have any death of human beans but tobacco has a lot from hoe bad tobacco is for you. Most people that die from drug use are normally, from tobacco use, heroine, and cocaine use. You don’t

Although I admit that there are a lot of loop holes in this argument, I feel that I need to tell everyone how far less dangerous marijuana is than already legal substances such as alcohol or tobacco. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. Someone would have to smoke over 1400 pounds of marijuana

Many people from all around the world believe that marijuana is an addictive drug that has ruined the lives of millions. The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that more than 37,000 annual U.S deaths are the effects of alcohol alone. Alternatively, there is not even a category for the deaths caused by marijuana. Many of us think that marijuana kills brain cells but studies show teens that use marijuana as well as alcohol suffered significantly less damage to the white blood cells in their brains. Alcohol use contributes to aggressive and violent behavior while marijuana will only make a person feel more comfortable. “Alcohol is clearly the drug with the most evidence to support a direct intoxication, violent relationships, whereas cannabis reduces the likelihood of violence during intoxications” (Shuette, 2013). The government does not even track violent acts specifically related to marijuana use. Marijuana and alcohol should be switched where marijuana is legal and alcohol is not because it will benefit people more than alcohol will.

From 2001 to 2005 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports on average more than 79,000 deaths per year was caused by excessive alcohol use. (CDC, “Vital Signs”) Excessive drinking includes binge drinking, heavy drinking and any drinking by pregnant women or minors. On the other hand, the CDC does not have a category for deaths caused by the use of marijuana. Statistically, death directly from marijuana overdose is extremely rare. However, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data, there were a total of 1.5 million drug arrests nationwide in 2011 and out of those arrests around 750,000 were for marijuana alone. (FBI, “Person’s Arrested”) While both alcohol and marijuana should not be taken with any other drug and getting behind the wheel while drunk or high poses significant risk to everyone. Alcohol is still vastly greater in number when it comes to death than marijuana but then again one is legal while the other one is not.

In order to gain an understanding of marijuana's so called "harmful" negative effects; it should be compared to other drugs that are presently legalized in this country. In the pharmaceutical world, over-the-counter drugs are being prescribed for everything these days. Ritalin and Adderall are readily available for college students in the university health centers across the country. Kids are staying up all night studying, complaining that they can not pay attention, and are immediately referred to the prescription drugs which in many cases they do not even need. Along with the prescription drug problem in our nation, we have a serious issue concerning alcohol and tobacco. Alcoholism is killing people daily with liver malfunctions

Studies have proven that marijuana is no more harmful to a person’s health than alcohol or tobacco. Every year, tobacco kills roughly 390,000 people, alcohol contributes to 80,000 deaths in America and marijuana contributed to 0; no deaths from marijuana have ever been recorded in US history (Abovetheinfluence.org). When smoking tobacco, the user inhales tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, and 200 other known poisons into the lungs (Abovetheinfluence.org). All forms of tobacco, including cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, and chewing tobacco, contain the addictive drug nicotine, and can also cause cancer. Alcohol alters a person's perceptions, emotions, movement, vision, and hearing. Alcohol plays a role in at least 50 percent of traffic deaths, about half of murders, and about 25 percent of suicides (Abovetheinfluence.org). Marijuana side effects include delusions, impaired memory, hallucinations and disorientation, which are no different from the side effects of alcohol alone.

The legalization of marijuana will lead to a boost to the economy. With the United States being trillions in debt, an increase in tax money would be a big help to lower the national debt. Colorado, one of the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational and medicinal uses, is showing valuable data of an increase in tax money, “In 2015, Colorado collected more than $135 million in taxes and fees on medicinal and recreational marijuana. Sales totaled over $996 million” (Krishna, Mrinalini). Now, Colorado is joined by seven other states, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada, in the full legalization of marijuana. With these states joining with Colorado, the United States is seeing sales “[grow] by 30%, to 6.1 billion, in 2016 and a projected 20.1 billion in 2021” (Krishna, Mrinalini). With that in mind, these sales are shared among only eight states, add another forty-two states and the rates could surpass the trillions. Considering the evidence, the act of not legalizing marijuana would be foolish.

Ever since marijuana’s introduction to the United States of America in 1611, controversy of the use and legalization of the claimed-to-be Schedule I drug spread around the nation. While few selective states currently allow marijuana’s production and distribution, the remaining states still skepticize the harmlessness and usefulness of this particular drug; therefore, it remains illegal in the majority of the nation. The government officials and citizens of the opposing states believe the drug creates a threat to citizens due to its “overly-harmful” effects mentally and physically and offers no alternate purposes but creating troublesome addicts hazardous to society; however, they are rather misinformed about marijuana’s abilities. While

Marijuana is much safer then alcohol too. Marijuana is one of the few drugs without the risk of overdose. In 2006, alcohol was the cause of 22,073 deaths in the united states. Alcohol, by itself or combined with another illicit drug, was involved in approximately 577,521 emergency room visits. Marijuana use, on the other hand, has no effect, increasing or decreasing, on mortality. Marijuana was only involved in approximately 290,563 emergency room visits. This means that alcohol is involved in two times the amount of emergency room visits as marijuana and kills more people each year because marijuana doesn’t have a direct affect on mortality.

While such popular and potent drugs (alcohol and nicotine) are legally available to the public, there is fallacious logic in outlawing a drug less exponentially less dangerous and far less addictive than these two easily accessible drugs. Alcohol and nicotine are infinitely more harmful to the human body than marijuana, cannabis simply not toxic enough to kill (In Pot). Marijuana is demonized by the government and much of the media as a dangerous drug, while the deaths of roughly 50,000 people in The United States per year can be contributed to alcohol and 440,000 to tobacco. All the while, marijuana has never directly caused the death of anybody in the entire history of mankind (Jillette). While some would expect marijuana to be at least as carcinogenic as tobacco, recent medical journals have found no link between smoking marijuana and lung cancer (Boyles). One example given in one study was that two-pack-a-day cigarette smokers saw a 20-fold increase in cancer risk when compared to non-smokers, while no elevation in risk was observed in even the heaviest (22,000+ joints smoked in lifetime) smokers of marijuana (Boyles). Any consistent person that believes marijuana should stay illegal should also believe alcohol and cigarettes should be made illegal, by the same reasoning.

Every year, 400,000 Americans die of complications caused by tobacco products. Smoking kills more Americans each year than alcohol, crack, heroin, murder, suicide, car accidents, fires, and AIDS all put together. Every week, eight children under the age of eighteen die from alcohol related crashes. Alcohol abuse contributes to almost 50% of all traffic accidents, suicides, and homicides. However, despite the proven dangers of these "socially acceptable" drugs, they are still legal. Marijuana, a much less acceptable drug, is not legal however, despite the fact that research has yet to pin any specific dangers to this drug.

Since Washington and Colorado have legalized Cannabis it is estimated that it will bring in billions of dollars annually. A study done at Cato institute predicted that Colorado would generate $8.7 billion in federal and state tax

The question that is plaguing the nation is whether Marijuana or “Weed” should be legalized for recreational and medicinal use. There’s many benefits to legalizing Marijuana especially economically, because it creates a new market for states. Marijuana has already been legalized for recreational use in two states, Colorado and Washington and most recently at the election has been made legal in the states Maine, California, Massachusetts, and Nevada. According to DISCUS.org, alcohol alone generated $400 billion dollars in revenue and created nearly $90 billion in wages and over 3.9 million jobs for U.S. workers. Tobacco also generated a large portion of state's economy alone too, in 2010 cigarettes and other tobacco products produced $15.5 billion in revenue.

Many people claim that there is no known case of people dying due to marijuana. This is a half truth since it’s not the marijuana itself that kills; it’s its side effects. Marijuana causes lung and throat cancer much like cigarettes. As a matter of fact, marijuana is worse for the lungs, since it contains three times as much tar as cigarettes and it’s usually smoked without a filter. They also claim there is not nearly as much crime due to marijuana use compared alcohol. This is also true but for one simple reason. Alcohol is legal and more easily accessible than marijuana. It’s the fact that marijuana is illegal that is keeping these numbers so low. Legalizing marijuana would be like adding fuel to a fire. If marijuana were to be legalized these number are sure to increase.