Marijuana and The Arguments for Its Legalization

In the United States of America 100,000 people die each year from alcohol-related causes. Most of the causes are, drinking and driving, crashes, other accidents, falls, fires, and alcohol-related homicides and suicides. While prescription painkillers cause thousands of overdoses which leads to deaths each year. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose in the United States or in fact from simply smoking too much marijuana. In fact, studies suggest it is impossible to die from smoking or consuming too much marijuana, But indirect deaths are possible. Marijuana should be legalized because it could be used for recreational use, medicinal purposes, taxation purposes, and would be safer than other drugs.

Marijuana should be legalized for recreational purposes because with marijuana legalize for recreational purposes it would lower the crime rate in the United States. Tardiff states “if marijuana was to be legalized, people would see it as boring and the crime rate would go down”. What Tardiff means by this is with marijuana legalize it would make people less interested into the drug because it would be boring to do because most people like to do acts that are illegal or “rebellious” in a way but, with the drug legalize most people won't want to do it because it won’t be seen as rebellious therefore it would lower the crime rate. Some would say “won’t it rise the crime rates?”, but in theory it would lower the rates because with marijuana legalize less people would go to jail over drug Possession in the United States. Currently number of arrests in 2017 in the U.S. for drug law violations is 1,632,921 while number of drug arrests that were for possession were only 1,394,514 which is 85.4 percent while number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2017 were only 659,700 , but number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only 599,282 or 90.8 percent but, if marijuana were to become legalized the number of the arrest would go away or in total the numbers would significantly drop.

Marijuana should be legalized because it could bring in a lot of many for the economy. The government could tax marijuana which would equal lower taxes over time and the economy would gain a high revenue. Some examples of states that got a lot of money from marijuana would be California. In 2002 the state of California was in debt of $17.5 billion dollars which lead them to legalize the cash crop aka marijuana for medical purposes, which slowly allowed them to be legalized for recreational use. By the state of California allowing marijuana it allowed them to generate a revenue of anywhere between $317 million to $2.1 billion dollars per month. Noel states “by legalizing marijuana it would gain the economy money because they would be able to tax the crop”. What noel means is that marijuana is such a high demand which makes it a cash crop the states can put a high tax on it and gain the economy money and would lower the amount of taxes the people pay over time.

Marijuana should be legalized for medical use for many reasons. In ‘Marijuana’ by Tardiff he states “medical marijuana helps ease pain, helps patients fall asleep, an increased appetite’’. This helps a lot because cancer patients usually have a lot of pain when it comes to getting they’re treatments and getting chemo. They also have loss of appetite due to their chemo. Another reason Medical marijuana should be legalize. compared to most pain killers marijuana is less addictive and works faster than pills. Which means that less people would become addicted to their medication and make them more sick then they already are. Marijuana also helps relieve nausea and dizziness caused my medications given to HIV and AIDS patients. Which means marijuana could be given to the patients as a medication to counterattack the side effects if they’re treatments. Studies also support the fact that marijuana helps ease the pain of neuropathic pain caused by nerve pain or damage, that most pain killers can't relieve unless given a high dosage which is highly addictive especially in younger patients. This helps support the fact that medical marijuana should be legalized because it has such a powerful effect on the medical community because of it’s such powerful effects. With it legal it would help them find other cures and less addictive medication also it would help the patients be in less pain when on chemo treatments and or trying to feel better. Many state the fact that smoking can cause lung cancer and why would you give a cancer patient something that might cause them more pain in the long run. Which is true but, there is more ways to ingest marijuana into the body other than smoking like through edibles. Marijuana could be baked in candy, cookies, cake, and other baked goods and food. Have them eat edibles would eliminate them inhaling smoke and prevent them from getting lung cancer. Another thing is by having the patients eat the edibles it would prevent them from inhaling nicotine which is highly addictive. Another way is marijuana could be made into an oil which then can be smoked into a vape or other products that produce smoke to like stated before help prevent people from getting addicted to nicotine which is found in cigarettes or “wraps” that some would use to smoke the drug (marijuana).

Marijuana should be legalized because it is safer and less addictive than most drugs. In the past year there has been over a thousand deaths due to overdose on common club drugs such as cocaine, meth, MDMA, alcohol, and etc., then on weed alone this year. Another thing is marijuana should be legalized because if it's legal the state could set up certain stores to the sell the drug so only certain stores would sell the drug which would lead to mostly everyone buying marijuana out of the store, other than buying it off the streets, where someone can add more to the drug like lacing it with cocaine, ecstasy, and other hard core drugs of that nature, than just the drug (marijuana) by itself which is very dangerous. By marijuana being sold in stores the state can regulate what goes in and out the drug to give to the open public which means it could help everyone be safe in the long run. Another thing is you can't “physically” overdose on marijuana which means you won’t have a seizure and pass out, but you can get a high feeling, but like previous stated you can’t overdose like many other drugs. Also you can't get a type of poisoning from it like alcohol and other hard core drugs. Many have stated “what about lung cancer?” There’s actually a way to get around that. Noel states “like most drugs marijuana has many ways to enter the body. Like edibles which can be eaten by mouth and enter the body.” Edibles cause the same feelings and effect as smoking marijuana would cause. Also like many other drugs marijuana has two types, CBD and THC. The main difference between CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is that CBD does not induce a high whereas THC does. Also THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana, induces sleep or drowsiness (a common effect of most strains of marijuana), whereas CBD keeps you up and increases energy. And THC is responsible for the feeling of being high or body-high. Although the CBD molecule is almost identical to the THC molecule, it doesn't get you high. On its own, CBD has been proven to have many health benefits and uses, such as treating anxiety, stress, epilepsy and depression. The compound is non-psychoactive, which has helped it gain support in many medical fields for its therapeutic properties. But when reacting together, CBD actually works against the effects of THC by reducing anxiety, stress or other negative feelings. For this reason, CBD is often extracted to use separately for non-psychoactive (and non-recreational) purposes.

To conclude this essay, marijuana should be legalized because it could be used for recreational purposes, medicinal purposes, and it is safer than most drugs which would cause the addiction rate to go down. Many say weed is one of the most abused drug, While in reality it’s one of the safest drugs and would help the economy in the long run when it comes to gaining money. Hopefully with all the evidence provided people will see that there are many miss consumption about the use of marijuana. And that it should be legalized in all fifty states with the evidence provided above.