Legalizing Marijuana in the U.S.
For many years I have felt strongly that the United States should legalize the distribution of marijuana. Many Americans believe that marijuana is a “gateway” drug which according to the American Heritage Dictionary means “a drug or other ingested substance whose habitual use is thought to lead to the use of very addictive and dangerous drugs”. Some Americans who consume cannabis do not want the government to legalize selling it because they think that the system will overly tax it. Although these things have the possibility of being true, I think that legalizing cannabis will be better for the people and the economy for a couple of reason; medical purposes, lower crime rates, there are worst drugs that are legal, and majority of the people want it to be.
Robert Deitch of ProCon.org mentions medical marijuana being around and in use as early as 2900 B.C. The Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi is referenced to saying that cannabis was a very popular medicine possessing both yin and yang (Deitch). Today’s medical cannabis as asserted by Scott are used to treat autoimmune diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, inflammation, pain, seizures, substance use disorders, and mental disorders. Even though marijuana has medicinal purposes the FDA has yet to recognize or approve cannabis as medicine. Although cannabis has been used therapeutically in history, its use for medicinal purposes has just relatively been introduced in this modern time period.
I think that marijuana is not that serious of a drug and I feel that the time you may receive for a simply having possession of the drug is not a suitable punishment. Matt Ferner explains that in the year 2011 there were 12,408,899 arrests made nation wide and out of those 12.4 million arrests 750,000 of them were for marijuana. One article from the American Civil Liberties Union states, “of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010, 88% were for simply having marijuana”. Our government...