Support of Legalizing Marijuana

1217 Words3 Pages

"The forecasts of truly robust economic growth that were commonplace at the start of the year aren’t off the table yet... In the months ahead, data will need to improve to match those sunny forecasts, or 2015 will start to look like a big disappointment."(Irwin)

The American economy is weak and getting weaker. Legalizing marijuana would not only generate higher tax revenues, it would also eliminate the tremendous costs of enforcing innumerable federal and state laws which prohibit the purchase, sale and use of marijuana. Some people who are opposed to legalizing marijuana believe using it is morally wrong, while others may believe marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to the use of harder drugs. Marijuana should be legal because it is not chemically addictive, it is not a gateway drug, and it can be used for medicinal purposes. In addition, growing marijuana in the United States would boost many local economies and would deprive the Mexican drug cartels of billions of dollars in annual revenue.

Critics often cite marijuana as a gateway drug however this simply is not the case. “The Dutch partially legalized marijuana in the 1970’s. Since then, hard drug use-heroin and cocaine-have declined substantially.” (Hager) People who use marijuana do so to relax, similar to having a glass of wine or beer after work. After using marijuana you feel relaxed whereas a hard drug, such as cocaine, is a stimulant that makes one feel energized and can make you stay up for days on end. People do not go out looking for harder drugs after being introduced to marijuana. This is because the high from marijuana is opposite of the high one gets from using harder drugs. Marijuana has not been found to be a chemically addicting drug. If a chronic...

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...2013," FBI Uniform Crime Report (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, September 2010). Web 13 Apr. 2015.

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/Crime#sthash.6B4IXS9n.dpbs

Hager, Pale. “Marijuana Myths.” November 2012 Web 13 Apr. 2015.

http://www.paulhager.org/libertarian/myths.htm

Cicetti, Fred. “Medical Uses of Marijuana” Dec 2007. Web 13 Apr. 2015.

http://www.safeaccessnow.org/asanews3458

Klare, Joe. “End Marijuana Prohibition” THE429TIMES.COM Sept. 2012. Web 26 Apr. 2015.

http://the420times.com/2010/09/end-marijuana-prohibition-vote-yes-on-prop-19/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+The420Times+(The+420+Times)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp Web 11 Apr. 2015.

Irwin, Neil . "How to Make Sense of Weak Economic Growth in 2015"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/upshot/how-to-make-sense-of-weak-economic-growth-in-2015.html?_r=0

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