Trenton Titus
Mr. Okamoto
English 150
October 3 2009
Legalizing Marijuana
The issue I would like to bring up is the legalization of medical and/or recreational marijuana. I feel this would be beneficial to everyone, both users and non-users. Marijuana has been proven to help a great deal for glaucoma sufferers. It has far less, to almost no anger outbursts in people as the commonly abused drug alcohol. A few ways that the government would benefit from legalizing the drug would be by the less crime that would come about, and also by taxing. There would be less crime because there wouldn't be as much risk involved. If a shipment of it didn't make it to its destination the person responsible wouldn't be killed as the case now, but instead insurance would cover the lost merchandise. The government would also benefit from the legalization from taxes. They are already making millions off of tobacco taxes, so why couldn't they do the same with marijuana? Marijuana becoming legal is a topic every American should agree on. The reason being is it would benefit Americans in three ways; there would be less crowding in jails, it would create more tax income, and it would cut down the amount of crime in the country.
Pro-legalization organizations argue the fact that legalization would result in the decrease of crime rates in our cities and towns, but in actuality almost eighty-two percent of all violent crime that involves drugs don't involve marijuana. The fact remains that crime would still inhabit the streets if marijuana was to be legalized. The organizations base there theory on the success that the Netherlands has had with reduction of crime due to the wide-spread legalization of marijuana. The differences between New Amsterdam and the United States is great due to a different structured economy and different cultures. This differences would prove to be the reason for their success and the United States failure.
Marijuana is a mixture of leaves, stems, and...