Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana: An Analytical Review

Marijuana legalization has been in the air for a while now and is a heavily debated subject on both the national and local government agenda. While many are concerned marijuana in our society is unnecessary and will be the start of a downward spiral, DuPont and Barthwell, authors of the op-ed article “Op-ed: Don’t legalize marijuana. It’s addictive” in The Seattle Times, seem quite certain that marijuana, as a legal drug, will cause a rise in addiction. While the authors make a valid argument that marijuana, like any other recreational substance, can be addictive, it would be best to legalize the drug because of future revenue through taxation, a decrease in crime rate due to less drug trafficking, and the fact that marijuana is, medically,

Marijuana has been used for many years and consumed in various places, knowing that it is illegal still hasn’t stopped people from using it daily. The division of addiction can apply to a wide variety of things because in our day and time any substance, especially medicinal, can become addictive. We would be fooling ourselves if we think being addicted to prescription drugs is more socially acceptable than being addicted to marijuana. Prescription drugs are administered every day to thousands of people for variety of reasons and the outcome can be detrimental if overdosed. I agree that marijuana dependency will increase because it is most likely going to be used daily by users who start the drug or medication. Trying to avoid addiction with anything is inevitable, especially marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco. That is when the question of: what bad effects does marijuana addiction contribute to besides

I find their statement very accurate, but putting a higher tax will not determine anything and regulation will be as loose as alcohol and tobacco, which is the only commonality I see between the two. Regardless of raising the tax, marijuana sales are still gonna be a hit. For example, Colorado has recently legalized recreational marijuana and made a hit after “reported first week retail sales to The Huffington Post that, when added together, were roughly $5 million” (Ferner 2). That was only over a weeks span, imagine how much they would make annually? “The state, which expects to collect nearly $70 million in tax revenue from pot sales this year” (Ferner 4) is a clear reason why the tax revenue will not change. Marijuana will sell itself, making millions in only one year in one