Legalizing Marijuana Pamela Horton SOC 120 Introductions to Ethics & Social Responsibility George Greaves October 29, 2012 Some people believe that marijuana is not a drug it is a plant. Many my agree that it is a natural herb planted to help cope with stress of everyday hectic lives. Anything that alters your state of being, or have you doing things out of the norms is a drug. The pro-legalization argument was that if we legalize marijuana it could not be controlled and the efforts to try to control marijuana uses causes more problems than they solve. I feel that if we legalize marijuana we would have a bunch of fried brain lunatics running around committing all kinds of crimes.
However, the pro-legalization Americans respond in saying increased marijuana use has no lasting health effects, legalization will allow for better regulation of distribution, and marijuana legalization will reduce alcohol consumption in America. There is no empirical data to support that marijuana use will increase when legalized or that we will see an increase in automobile crashes. Those who are not necessarily marijuana users but support legalization argue that the financial benefits of legalization outweigh the negative implications that come with
There are also no regulations for young people with only decriminalization. Users no matter what age can purchase the drug, it is illegal regardless. The question still remains, is decriminalizing enough to help our economy or would the legalization of Marijuana prove a larger impact? Many different factors play a role in the benefits of legalization. "The highest level of support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana today is seen with self-described liberals, among whom 78%
They say that marijuana is not as harmful as alcohol or tobacco products so why shouldn’t it be legal? One of the biggest things on people’s minds is the money that can be made from the growing and selling of marijuana and how much the government wastes each year trying to fight a losing battle on the war against marijuana.
Many people debate over whether or not marijuana should be legalized. They argue about the moral issues or moral conflicts that would arise with the legalization of it. Although there is a lot of we could say for each side, if we put aside our personal feelings and see it from the economics point of view, we would realize that legalizing marijuana would be the right thing to do (especially with the recession we are in). In this paper I will be discussing why the government should legalize marijuana by analyzing the financial costs of keeping it illegal and the financial gain we would receive from being able to tax every sale. First reason why the government should consider legalizing marijuana is because expenditures on drug enforcement would
Dylan Kelley Rough Draft 11-15-10 Yes We Cannabis Should marijuana be legalized in the United States? Should people be punished for smoking a harmless natural plant? The legalization of marijuana is a topic that most Americans have a powerful say in. Some believe it should remain illegal because they believe it’s a “gateway” drug or because it causes violence. Others, like me, think that the government shouldn’t have the power to outlaw if it’s not harming or endangering others.
For years, marijuana was considered just as bad a narcotic as heroin or cocaine. However through the years the ideas surrounding it have changed. In his article, “An End to the War on Weed?”, Nathan Comp details how not only has the idea of smoking pot become less of a shock but legalizing marijuana has been largely considered among the state governments. Within his article he uses specific examples of laws that have been presented that would have began an ongoing desired process of making marijuana legal. The article uses strong emotional and ethical appeals to help persuade the audience towards the ideas that Comp sets forth.
Mohamed Alamoudi Why We Should Legalize Marijuana Many people believe that legalizing marijuana is only an issue of importance to “stoners” and other stigmatized groups in society; they couldn’t be more wrong. Marijuana is much less unhealthy than prohibition propaganda would lead you to believe. Furthermore, the government wastes vast resources on prosecuting and incarcerating nonviolent marijuana users. For these reasons, the United States should legalize and tax marijuana. The examples of the Netherlands and Portugal show that decriminalizing marijuana does not lead to “pot epidemics”.
A War That Can’t Be Won Should the United States fight a war that can’t be won? The war against marijuana is a costly and inconvenient war that the United States seems to be losing. It started in 1915 when Utah passed the first law against marijuana and it is still going to this day. Recreational use of marijuana has been increasing and is easily accessible. The money that our government is spending on this fight against marijuana could be saved and instead of losing money the government could make money by taxing legal marijuana.
Final Paper 5/13/2011 Marijuana in California. The debate regarding the legalization of soft drugs such as marijuana is capable of being characterized as one which pits the concept of freedom of the individual against the concept of a paternalistic State. Advocates of legalization argue that amongst other things, marijuana is not only less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, which are legal substances, but also as a matter of fact has been proven to possess certain medicinal property. The people who support the legalization are member of law enforcement and medical professionals, who really know how ineffective and unnecessary in stance prohibitionist. In contrast, those opposed to legalization argue that the legalization of marijuana will