Our founding fathers grew marijuana in their fields, wrote books on how to grow it, and utilized it to its full potential to help build America. When criminalization started it was aimed at the personal, financial gain of a handful of greedy men. As those greedy men started over exaggerating facts and twisting truths, racism came to be another twisted rumor that fueled the fires of advocates of criminalization of marijuana. From 1937 to 2005 Americans have stood by and let the federal government deny them their right to use and utilize marijuana to its full potential. When California voted to legalize medicinal marijuana in 2005 it started a snowball effect that has carried over into thirteen states.
Hearst was a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit. Hemp became a threat to Hearsts billion dollar enterprise so they had to get rid of hemp. The media was used to manipulate the public and shape a negative perception of hemp. Hearst newspapers used yellow journalism to dramatize that marijuana was a dangerous narcotic. The readers were told that marijuana was responsible for car accidents, loose morality, and shocking acts of violence.
maraiujjna is illegal by most goverments of the world because of social reasons not health reasons.- people around the world have been smoking marijuana for thousands of years while also using the hemp plant for everything from fabric and rope to ethanol fuel. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, a man with a bit of power and enough determination decided pot was wicked, evil and narcotic. He moved mountains to make it illegal worldwide. In the U.S., the struggle continues to this day to overcome the lies and misconceptions about marijuana that the government spent billions to spread. Between 1937 and 1947, the government spent $220 million on the war against drugs.
Ending prohibition on marijuana could save tax dollars and win ‘the war on drug”. (norml, 2013) 1. Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of more than 829,000 individuals per year. (norml, 2013) 2. Nearly 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws against its use.
History of the war on drugs. Retrieved from http://civilliberty.about.com/od/drugpolicy/tp/War-on-Drugs-History-Timeline.htm * http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/paradox/htele.html * Jake, V. (n.d.). Escalating violence in the international drug trade. Retrieved from http://glica.org/topics/show/76 * Jon, F. (2008, September). Taking back the streets: Ice and local law enforcement target immigrant gangs.
It is without saying that Prop 215 was a stepping stone into the future of fully legalizing marijuana. According to Jeffrey Miron author of The Budgetary Implications of Drug Prohibition it costs Californian tax payers $2 billion dollars a year on the enforcement of marijuana. California’s persons are overcrowded and very little money is being spent on addressing the states recidivism rates. In 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that medical care in California's prisons was unconstitutionally poor. The justices ordered the state to reduce overcrowding by some
Federalism and Marijuana Federalism and the Legalization of Marijuana Laramie Bahr POL 201 American National Government Jeremiah Chauncey 09 August 2014 Federalism and Marijuana The 'War on Drugs' has been raging across the nation since the passing of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. On the surface of it this 'war' seems noble and without ambiguity. Many states, however, see it differently when it comes to the possession, use, and growth of marijuana. In this essay I will show that federalism has been, and will continue to be, tested as the federal government and the states find themselves increasingly at odds over the issue of legalized marijuana. The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 defined what drugs were illegal,
In his first essay “Reefer Madness”, Schlosser looks at the marijuana industry in the United States. Marijuana is very popular in American society, yet it is something that the government punishes harshly. In “Strawberry Fields”, Schlosser writes about migrant workers in California, who are mostly illegal immigrants from Mexico. In “Empire of Obscene”, Schlosser writes of the rise of the pornographic industry. Pornography, once a taboo market in the United States, now a popular form of
The FBI website continues, “ The profits derived from marijuana trafficking—an industry with minimal overhead costs, controlled entirely by the traffickers—are used not only to finance other drug enterprises by Mexico’s poly-drug cartels, but also to pay recurring “business” expenses, purchase weapons, and bribe corrupt officials.” The profits from the sale of marijuana are being used to fund more crime, purchase more weapons, and strengthen cartels. How much impact would ending the prohibition of marijuana have? According the New York Times, “A study by analysts at the RAND Corporation, a California research organization, suggested that if marijuana were legalized in California and the drug spilled from there to other states, Mexican drug cartels would lose about a fifth of their annual income of some $6.5 billion from illegal exports to the United States.” Once again, this is the impact in just one state, so the potential for mass reducing
The marijuana industry has been slowly gaining acceptance, first through the medicinal benefits that has remained relatively small. However, now that Colorado has put recreational marijuana on the map; the growth potential of the industry may be limitless and is proving lucrative, for both the government and private industry. Colorado is taxing recreational marijuana at a rate of approximately 28%. Making it one of the heaviest taxed consumer products in Colorado. This has led to tax revenue of over 2 million dollars in the month of January 2014 alone.