Justin Mitchell Dr. Gingo English 1301 P12 07 May 2014 Marijuana in American Pop-Culture Recreational marijuana use in America is nothing new, but recent legalization movements for marijuana display a growing trend that has become a highly dominant part of American pop culture. From the beginning of the 1978 movie series Cheech & Chong, to newer hits like Pineapple Express and Harold and Kumar, marijuana is glamorized. Recreational marijuana use has been in popular culture for decades, but now it has gained such traction that some states have even begun to legalize it. Pop culture in American society presents a positive image of marijuana because pop culture itself is a reflection of the popular American view. Americans are becoming more accustomed to marijuana usage due to the increasing frequency of displays in pop culture, a growing availability, and it being a serious political issue.
To the extent that this business activity pulled in spending from persons in other states, the measure would result in a net increase in taxable economic activity in the state” (Brown 15). Our state can not only receive income from selling marijuana, but also can make revenues from other related business activities. Making money from legalizing marijuana might be a way to assist our state to overcome the finical crisis in recent years. Legalization of marijuana can also save the cost on supervising marijuana criminals. Every year our state has to spend a large sum of money on supervising marijuana because it is illegal.
Legalizing marijuana here will save and make an immense amount of money. Keeping marijuana illegal, however, costs a lot more money. Our tax money is being spent on the cost of prosecution and defense of accused offenders, cost of incarceration of convicted offenders, foster care and social services for children of incarcerated offenders, and cost of active law enforcement (SDAA). Housing a single marijuana offender in a prison costs taxpayers over $100,000 (Donziger). In total, taxpayers spend up $7.5 billion, or $23,500 per person, annually on feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for marijuana offenders (Donziger).
Federal Legalization of Marijuana Marijuana, weed, cannabis, hemp, or grass, it is called by many names and has gotten a bad rap in the past few decades, but it should be federally legalized. We have been encouraged to believe it is a “gateway” drug and that it may lead to addiction and various health issues. Yet there are many therapeutic benefits as well as practical applications. The consumption of marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and smoking cigarettes. There is an excessive amount of money spent every year on its regulation, criminalization and prohibition.
(“Industrial Hemp Facts,” 2014) A. Hemp is an amazingly versatile plant that makes many products. B. Hemp could revitalize our economy and our environment virtually overnight because of its many attributes. C. Marijuana could contribute significantly to chronic pain management and economic stability, as well. D. Over the next few minutes, I plan to convince you that legalization of hemp and marijuana is something we need to do for ourselves, our economy, and our environment. II.
Marijuana ,could actually bring in a lot of revenue in the country ,as sales of this drug is relatively inexpensive to other drugs, therefore it sales. Instead of spending those millions of rands a year fighting against marijuana, which is as harmful as alcohol and tobacco , which is legal, these funds could be used b the government for education and other crimes. The country , can also use the legalization of marijuana as an economic boost. Legalization of marijuana could reduce the flow of money from the south African economy , to the international crime gangs, who deal with drug smuggling. Marijuana is also too expensive to prevent on a justice system, when the funds can be used elsewhere.
Marijuana could be governmentally taxed, and even the money they would lose to underground growers and buyers, would be more than they are spending to chase, apprehend, hold, feed, and house these ‘criminals’ today. Once marijuana became legal more jobs could be created. There would be large need for labor workers to work the fields, and also a need for consultants, buyers, sellers of mass quantities of marijuana to ship to different places in the state, and if the legalization went national, California would again be a gold mine in its history. Also, because there would be no laws prohibiting the production, possession, or transportation or marijuana, it would be likely that a delivery system for transporting marijuana would be developed, and that coul and would create many jobs as well. With all these implementations working together, as described in the essay, it is likely that by
(Rand 2010) Rand Corporation estimates the cartels make about 15 to 26 percent of their income from marijuana grown and shipped into the United States. Annually the net worth to the cartel is somewhere in the range of 1.5 to 2 billion dollars. This is not counting the marijuana that is grown and sold within the U.S borders. To lower the risk of being caught smuggling marijuana across the borders many cartels have started growing marijuana with in U.S including national parks, public lands but this still will not help their market value due to the fact that the marijuana grown in the U.S legally under a controlled environment will be a stronger strain and more potent than the marijuana grown in the wild or shipped from Mexico. This will leave a very small market for the illegal Mexican marijuana and the cartel will fight among them shelves for a very small market share.
Once the Judges, Governors, senators and every other political officials have come to an agreement on the controversy, I feel America will become a much healthier, smellier, safer place. Cannabis is known to calm the crazy nerves of the mentally unstable and the autistic, known to make convicts admit to their heinous crimes, help students focus on studying or taking standardized tests, all these are untreatable by any other medicine or doctor. The crime rate of drug possession is said go down significantly according to a student survey taken by mostly 10th and 11th graders in high school, and 20 students attending Glendale Community College in Arizona. If marijuana is legal, why would drug addicts go out of their way to pick up hard drugs when they could swing by their local Cannabis club? They wouldn’t.
They will look at results the drug testing to see if there are savings in drug testing welfare recipients. According to the article right now, they will only being people that are on probation or have been convicted of a felony drug charge in the last five years. If a person fails the drug for first time it is a six month ban, second is a 12 month ban and third is a life time ban. "The intention here is to save taxpayer dollars and get rid of fraud, waste and abuse in a system that has a lot of fraud, waste and abuse in it," Tobash said. (News-Item) In a poll, that has been taken by Public Agenda on the subject of drug testing for welfare recipients show that 68% said yes, 27% said no and 5% not sure.