Legalization Of Marijuana
If tobacco is legal, why not legalize and tax marijuana? The packaging of marijuana, and taxing it, would increase revenue for the government. According to the Department of Treasury, as of January 2013, revenue was at 26,515,225,854. (ttb.gov) That includes cigarettes, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, and roll your own, manufactured domestically or received from Puerto Rico. (ttb.gov) The condition of this country would be improved if marijuana was legalized.
Marijuana being legalized would decrease the amount of people in jail. There would be more room for more severe crimes. I say this because, according to a study, between 2010 and 2011, California experienced a drastic 20 percent decrease in juvenile crime--bringing the underage crime rate to the lowest level since the state started keeping records in 1954. (Sankin huffingtonpost.com par. 1) In that one-year period, the number of arrests for violent crimes dropped by 16 percent, homicide went down by 26 percent and drug arrests decreased by nearly 50 percent. (Sankin huffingtonpost.com par. 1)
Differences between recreational and medicinal marijuana is that medicinally, like in California, you have to have a prescription card from a doctor, while recreationally like they do in Colorado, as long as your 21 and over, marijuana is legal. But the concept of the state government growing and selling marijuana itself, in an effort to stem any illicit sale or use of the drug, has been floated by
some legalization advocates. (Sankin huffingtonpost.com par 2)But the task force dismissed state production at the onset of its report, concluding that Amendment 64 clearly envisioned a private industry regulated by the government. (Sankin huffingtonpost.com par 3)
I believe the legalization of marijuana would have its pros and cons, but the pros as of today, in recent studies are very inviting indeed!...