Draughn 1

The Legalization of Marijuana

Thesis: The legalization of marijuana will be beneficial because it will reduce harm, create jobs,

and save money.

I. Legalizing marijuana would reduce harm.

A. Marijuana criminalization puts young people at harm and sponsors violence and crime.

i. The criminalization of marijuana helps idolize crime and violence.

ii. Young teens are more likely to have lower morals or values when brought into drug

violence and crime.

B. Glamorization of violence

i. Glamorization of violence puts children at a higher risk of danger.

ii. Young teens who become numb to the danger of the drug world.

iii. Certain groups and categories are at greater risk of delinquent behavior than others.

II. Economic Benefits

A. The legalization of marijuana would make the government more money.

i. If marijuana were legalized, it could be taxed in accordance to other regulated products

such as tobacco and alcohol.

ii. There would be more room in jails for criminals who should be locked away.

B. It would not only bring more revenue, but also more jobs.

i. Marijuana legalization would create thousands of jobs which would help the the

unemployment rate.

ii. More jobs brings more tax which brings the government more money.

III. Marijuana is a Medicine

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A. Marijuana helps with cancer.

i. Marijuana use slows down tumors.

ii. Helps with nausea from chemo

B. Marijuana helps with many other diseases

i. Headaches, eating disorders, muscle spasms.

ii. Seizures, Crohn's diseases, etc.

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Kendall Draughn

English IV Honors

Mr. Cullen

11/20/18

The Legalization of Marijuana

According to the ACLU’s original analysis, marijuana arrests now account for over half

of all drug arrests in the United States. Out of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and

2010, 88% of them were for simply having marijuana. Most of the people police arrest for

marijuana aren’t the big drug dealers but regular people with small amounts of marijuana. States

waste about $3,613,969,972 enforcing marijuana laws every year. This money could be better

spent on state needs rather than drug busts. The arrest on marijuana is carried out on staggering

racial bias’. In a recent survey, studies have shown that blacks and whites use marijuana at

around the same rate, but blacks are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than

whites. The war on marijuana has largely been a war on people of color. These racial disparities

in marijuana arrests are not a northern or southern issue, nor a rural or urban issue, but rather a

national one. A 2017 analysis of low-level marijuana arrest data for the city of Buffalo for the

years 2012 to 2016 reported that 86 percent of those arrested were people of color, but that

African Americans and Hispanics constituted less than 50 percent of the city’s population. Over

60% of Americans support the legalization of marijuana. The legalization of marijuana will be

beneficial because it will reduce harm, create jobs, and save money. Marijuana legalization will

give more job opportunities and it will save police money and more jail space for people who

really should be in there for serious crimes.

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Marijuana is the slang term for portions of the Cannabis plant. It is one of the oldest

psychoactive substances used today. Marijuana, also called pot, weed, ganja, mary jane, and a

variety of other nicknames, is made from the Cannabis plant, which has three species: Cannabis

sativa; Cannabis indica and Cannabis ruderalis. There are hundreds of compounds in marijuana,

but scientists believe the one responsible for the drugs' psychoactive effects is

tetrahydrocannabinol, or ​THC​. THC binds to cannabinoid receptors throughout the body, and

marijuana's "high" comes from THC's binding to brain regions responsible for pleasure, time

perception and pain, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The ​Cannabis

plant is quite hearty. It can grow up to 18 feet tall and is known to pop up along roadsides and

driveways from stray seeds. Marijuana stems are thin and have thin, jagged leaves that branch

into five to seven fingers. ​Cannabis​ flowers are small, greenish and grow in clusters.

Millions of people have died from cigarettes, but they're still sold at stores. ​Alcohol ​has

been the root of countless deaths due to liver disease and almost 10,000 killed from drunk

driving alone in 2011, but it can still be purchased. Every 19 minutes, someone in the US dies

from a prescription overdose. There has yet to be a death due to marijuana. Twenty states and

DC have legalized medicinal marijuana, while ​Colorado and Washington​ state have legalized it

for recreational use as well. More states are soon expected to follow suit. There are many

misconceptions about marijuana that gives it its bad name. Many believe that marijuana is

addictive, but for vast majority of smokers that is not the case. Others believe that marijuana

causes lung cancer, wrong. According to the American Medical Association, marijuana can

actually increase lung strength and occasional smokers have stronger lungs than non-smokers.
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Cigarette damage to the lungs is easy to see on X-ray, while marijuana smoked once a day shows

no significant changes.

Legalizing marijuana is also believed to reduce the crime rate in America and free up

resources. About one-sixth of the population in prisons were incarcerated due directly to

marijuana charges. Take away the federal law that states marijuana is illegal and you have less

crime. Instead of having many crimes due to drug possession and smuggling people will be able

to simply purchase it legally. This would keep more space in prisons for real crimes and

prisoners and going back to the economy, it would save the taxpayers money. It would also

relieve stress on the police and courts that deal with marijuana cases. Going to the police, if

officers won’t have to worry about marijuana possession then it would give more time and focus

to cops to enforce other and more serious laws. Marijuana has been nailed with the “gateway

drug” label for a long time now. It is true that many people start off using marijuana but what

makes it irrelevant is that the other factors aren’t observed. Marijuana is an easily accessed drug

thus being more abundant and commonly used first. By legalizing marijuana it would not

change that fact and people that want to go to that next step and use much more serious drugs

can but it will still be illegal so nothing has really changed. There are marijuana possession

arrests every single day in abundance all across the nation and without that you relieve the police

department. All the suspects of marijuana possession all end up in court and again without it you

have freed up the courts.

The legalization of marijuana can also yield a new tax source for the government, which

will consequently increase the government revenue. If marijuana was legalized, the government

would control its trade. According to federal statistics, about 94 million Americans have tried
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cannabis at some point in their lives. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of

Justice Statistics, American taxpayers spend more than $1 billion a year incarcerating citizens for

using pot: nearly one out of every eight drug prisoners in the country is locked up for skirting

marijuana laws. “Jon Gettman’s 2007 study “​Lost Taxes and Other Costs of Marijuana Laws​”

found that the U.S. marijuana industry is a $113 billion annual business that costs taxpayers

$31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. Gettman, who has a Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason

University, suggests that $10.7 billion could be saved each year from the country’s $193 billion

in annual criminal justice expenditures if marijuana arrests – 5.54 percent of all criminal

apprehensions – were stopped.” (Krulick, Al. “The Economics of Marijuana Legalization.”

Debt.org, Debt.org, 9 Jan. 2013).

People against the legalization of marijuana could argue that this is a gateway drug,

which is not entirely true. Many users do not feel the need to try harder drugs. Those also say

that marijuana causes brain damage and makes you lazy and unmotivated. Both are false. A

meta-analysis of 15 studies found that moderate, daily use does not cause brain damage. Heavy

long term use does cause a “very small impairment in memory and learning”. But any drug can

be abused with resulting negative effects. Also, if someone is lazy and unmotivated before using

weed, they will remain lazy and unmotivated after. The so called “amotivational syndrome”

ascribed to pot ​smoking​ has never been proven.

For many centuries marijuana has been grown and used for medicinal uses. The term

medical marijuana refers to “using the whole, unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to

treat symptoms of illness and other conditions.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

has not yet recognized or approved the marijuana plant as medicine. Some preliminary studies
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have suggested that medical marijuana legalization might be associated with decreased

prescription opioid use and overdose deaths, but researchers don't have enough evidence yet to

confirm this finding. Using marijuana medically can help with Arthritis, Asthma, Cancer,

Chronic pain, Crohn's disease, Epilepsy, Glaucoma, and Multiple sclerosis. Marijuana usage has

actually been shown to have some positive mental effects, particularly in terms of increasing

creativity. Even though people's short-term memories tend to function worse when high, people

get better at tests requiring them to come up with new ideas. Medical marijuana is available in

several different forms. It can be smoked, vaporized, ingested in a pill form or an edible version

can be added to foods such as brownies, cookies and chocolate bars. Marijuana does have side

effects. THC binds to cannabinoid receptors, which are concentrated in areas of the brain

associated with thinking, memory, pleasure, coordination and time perception. The effects of

marijuana can interfere with attention, judgment and balance.

People could believe that marijuana should not be legalized because they believe

marijuana is an addictive, gateway drug. It significantly impairs bodily and mental functions, and

its use is related to increased violence. Legalizing marijuana would slash drug-related crime. Yet

if and when states legalize marijuana, local demand will increase. Meanwhile, some reputable

growers, manufacturers, and retailers will refuse to produce or distribute the drug because of

standing federal laws and the tort liability that attend to such a dangerous product. Today there

are 15.2 million current marijuana users. Though the number of marijuana users might not

quickly climb to the current numbers for alcohol and tobacco, if marijuana was legalized, the

increase in users would be both large and rapid with subsequent increases in addiction.
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"We're spending all of this money enforcing marijuana laws and prosecuting people for

smoking marijuana. That can be used in other law enforcement efforts like prosecuting rapists

and murderers – and that's important." said State Rep. Bill McCamley, a Democrat from southern

New Mexico. “Why on God’s green Earth would we want to spend money throwing college kids

in jail for having a few joints when we could be spending that money on early childhood

education?”, asked Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe.

One of the biggest positive impacts that the legalization of marijuana would produce is

the reintegration of hemp into our society.. Hemp is a plant that is grown for industrial use only;

in fact, hemp contains less than 1% THC and causes no high when smoked. From an industrial

standpoint, hemp provides many advantages over a great deal of current resources that America

utilizes. The most common use for hemp is in the production of textile based products. Hemp

fibers are considerably strong so that makes it ideal for the production of many products like

paper, fabric, and rope. Hemp produces a higher yield per acre than cotton and has a growing

cycle of only 100 days instead of 160. Hemp seeds provide more protein than soy, and according

to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, you can produce four times as much paper from an acre

of marijuana than an acre of trees; plus, marijuana can be harvested at a quicker rate than trees.

(“Why Cannabis Should Be Legalized.” The WeedBlog, 9 June 2010.)

In today’s economic situation, hemp would be a huge revenue creator. Currently, the

United States has to import all of its hemp from countries like Canada and China, who have no

laws banning the cash crop. Not only would domestic hemp production stop the pumping of

American dollars into foreign farmers’ pockets, but it would create a mass amount of jobs for

otherwise unemployed Americans. In these times of uncertainty, we need jobs and we need more
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domestic industry, and hemp can accomplish both of those. Recent times have also shown us the

damage that we are doing to our environment and the realization that we can’t depend on fossil

fuels anymore. With hemp being a major contributor to the alternative fuels movement, it makes

one wonder why it’s still illegal to grow it. (“Why Cannabis Should Be Legalized.” The

WeedBlog, 9 June 2010.)

The legalization will be beneficial to the U.S. to bring in more revenue, create less crime,

and save the U.S billions. There are very clear points that prove legalizing marijuana would only

help the United States of America because of the medical capabilities, economic relief, crime

reduction, free resources and the fact that it has been decriminalized in a couple states. All of

these points are related with each other and directly impact the United States in a positive way.

The pro-marijuana legalization is backed with many facts that make it the better option while the

“nay-sayers” are driven by a false assumption that marijuana is a terrible drug that only causes

problems. Too many people still look down on the drug simply due to its false reputation. Most

of the people against it have never once looked into the benefits it holds and may never will. No

one is telling you to use marijuana as well, but the choice should be free for anyone’s choice.

The push for marijuana use is simply a chain of dominos about to be hit. In the near future

America will legalize marijuana use for its people.

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Works Cited

Molloy, Parker. “Canada Is Legalizing Marijuana. Here Are 9 Reasons the U.S. Should

Too.”Upworthy, Cloud Tiger Media Inc., 14 Apr. 2017,

www.upworthy.com/canada-is-legalizing-marijuana-here-are-9-reasons-the-us-should-too.

Gwynne, Kristen. “Five Reasons Cops Want to Legalize Marijuana.” Rolling Stone, Rolling

Stone, 27 June 2013,

www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/five-reasons-cops-want-to-legalize-marijuana-20130627.

Archer, Dale. “Is It Time To Legalize Marijuana?” Psychology Today, Is It Time To Legalize

Marijuana?, 13 Sept. 2013,

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/reading-between-the-headlines/201309/is-it-time-legalize-marij

uana​.

Ghose, Tia. “Marijuana: Facts About Cannabis.” LiveScience, Purch, 18 May 2017,

www.livescience.com/24559-marijuana-facts-cannabis.html​.

“Marijuana Legalization and Regulation.” ​Drug Policy Alliance​,

www.drugpolicy.org/issues/marijuana-legalization-and-regulation​.
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“State Marijuana Laws in 2017 Map.” Governing Magazine: State and Local Government News

for America's Leaders,

www.governing.com/gov-data/state-marijuana-laws-map-medical-recreational.html

Morse, Brandon. “Support for Marijuana Legalization Is at an All-Time High.” TheBlaze,

TheBlaze, 20 Apr. 2017,

www.theblaze.com/news/2017/04/20/support-for-marijuana-legalization-is-at-an-all-time-high/

Anderson, Dave. “Top 10 Reasons to Legalize Marijuana.” Top 10 Lists | ListLand.com, 7 May

2015, ​www.listland.com/top-10-reasons-to-legalize-marijuana/.

“Why Cannabis Should Be Legalized.” The WeedBlog, 9 June 2010,

cannabismaven.io/theweedblog/advocacy/essay-on-why-cannabis-should-be-legalized-V3jpZjcD

fE63Y5MoVeiv8A/.

Krulick, Al. “The Economics of Marijuana Legalization.” Debt.org, Debt.org, 9 Jan. 2013,

www.debt.org/blog/economics-marijuana-legalization/.