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Summary: The Legalization Of Marijuana

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There have been many studies and real life events that point to many positive and negative side effects of the legalizing marijuana in the United States. And many political debates to the same issue. In many states, voters have voted in favor to the legalization of marijuana because of all the positive side effects this drug can bring and they see the negative effects it has brought up in the past. In many ways, marijuana can replace many very dangerous and addictive drugs that are on the market right now. At this point in time, there is a lot more benefits to the legalization of marijuana than there are draw backs. There are many real world examples of the benefits that marijuana has on communities. There recently have been many studies that …show more content…

And even if they are not convicted for multiple years, they still have the charges on their record, making it very hard to find jobs to turn their life around and support their families. In the documentary film Crips and Bloods: Made in America, there is a scene where members of different gangs talk about their experience growing up in a gang and their family life outside of the gang, if there was one. One thing that was very interesting was the perpetual cycle that these gang members are put into because of how the justice system is set up. For them the only thing they can really do to make money for their family is sell drugs, and most of the time they get caught for that and go to jail. When they get out of jail they have this drug arrest on their record and no one wants to hire them, and so the only thing they are able to do is sell drugs. Forever locking them into a cycle of oppression and poverty for themselves and their families. Making it so that individuals who go to jail for nonviolent crimes and then get out of jail make it impossible for those people to function well in society. This kind of policing is also costing the United States about $3.6 billion each year on possession related arrests as they go through processing, staying in local jails and various court appearances (Wegman). And none of these percussions, that have been around for 30 years, don’t seem to be bringing the number of marijuana users down. And it doesn’t help that the number of individuals being arrested for possession of marijuana is predominantly African Americans. More than three times more likely than white Americans, even though each demographic is reported to smoke the same amount. This severely affects the African American youth because it, further, disables them from achieving great thing while white teens are not looked in the same way by police

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