The Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana
The support of legalizing marijuana has risen
to 57% of U.S. adults, according to Abigail Geiger of the Pew Research Center
October 2016. And, 29 states have already legalized the medical use of
marijuana, while nine states have legalized recreational use of marijuana, according
to Karmen Garcia of the National Conference of State Legislature in April 2017.
With this in mind, the legalization of marijuana across the US could be in the
near future. The legalization of recreational marijuana could bring a huge
change across the US. For example, America’s federal deficit could be
alleviated by legalizing recreational marijuana because of the increased
revenue to the states, in addition
to increasing jobs thus decreasing unemployment, and decrease incarceration.
Also, near half of all people in federal
prison are in for a drug related charge as reported by the Federal Bureau of
Prisons in March 2017, thus legalizing marijuana would also reduce
incarceration rates. Additionally, it would reduce the unemployment rate
because people wouldn’t have a criminal record when applying for a job. And
lastly, legalizing marijuana would keep people from fearing a mandatory drug
test when applying for a job.
Furthermore, every citizen of America should
care about this issue because it can affect a family member or friend. Criminalizing
marijuana keeps people from getting jobs, it makes people lose jobs, and it can
put them and their family members in jail or prison. Prison costs money to tax
payers and families. The criminalization of marijuana is not justified, and
punishment for marijuana use is too severe. Recreational marijuana should be
legalized on the federal level to increase revenue, decrease federal deficit, decrease
incarceration, and decrease unemployment.
Moreover, considering Colorado made over a
billion dollars within a year from recreational marijuana sales, this suggests
that if recreational marijuana was legalized across all states, it could reduce
the federal deficit when all states would have increased revenue going to
education and other helpful programs instead of incarceration. Without the
expense of incarceration, the federal government would also save billions of
dollars annually if it were to legalize marijuana from not having to enforce
the current prohibitions against the drug. For instance, the average cost of incarcerating one
Federal inmate was $31,977.65 which equates to $87.61 per day, according
to Charles Samuels of The Federal Register in March 2015. Because tax payers
are paying for the incarceration of other citizens, this will save tax dollars
when recreational marijuana is legalized. By legalizing recreational marijuana,
the incarceration rate would decrease when considering half of incarcerated
citizens are in federal prison for a drug related charge.
Likewise, incarceration affects the unemployment rate,
which would also drop even further. The legalization of marijuana could then
decrease unemployment when marijuana possession could be expunged from people’s
records, allowing them to pass a background check. Consequently, companies can
fire employees for legally using marijuana, even if the person wasn’t at work
when using it. If marijuana was legal on a federal level, drug tests wouldn’t
cause people to lose jobs, or prevent them from getting jobs when applying.
Although drug testing does not measure
performance, companies are still allowed to drug test applicants. But because marijuana
stays in your body two to three times longer than all common drugs, drug
testing is discriminatory towards marijuana users exclusively. If marijuana is
legalized there will be less of an incentive to drug test, therefore this would
save companies money when they stop using them. Then, this would decrease
unemployment when people won’t have to fear a mandatory drug test when applying
for a job.
Furthermore,
regulating recreational marijuana, like tobacco and alcohol, should be enforced. For example, the age restriction in Colorado
to purchase marijuana is 21 and older. Like any other drug tested by the FDA, funding
for studying marijuana would be allowed. And, because a medical doctor could prescribe
marijuana, then the doctor can supervise a patient and prescribe the safe
amounts to be sold at a time for that patient. Legal marijuana could also lead
to scientists to further medical advancements. With regulations of the sell of
marijuana, taxes would be similar to tobacco and alcohol, and those dollars
would go back to the state.
Ultimately, legalizing marijuana with regulations will help aid
further research and medicine. As mentioned, with regulations, marijuana can be
properly assessed and tailored for specific patients with different ailments
with the supervision of a medical doctor. Medical
marijuana is defined as marijuana that is recommended by a doctor for treatment
of a medical condition. Marijuana could come from dispensaries that specialize
in growing, producing, and distributing medical marijuana. Marijuana, if
produced in environments directly specified to be used as medicine, can then be
tailored to specific medical patients. Depending on what the health condition would
then depend on the different ways that marijuana can be consumed.
For instance, marijuana can be consumed in
different ways. For example, Hemp oil is oil that is pressed out of the
marijuana plant, containing CBD. CBD, or Cannabidiol, is one of the two active
ingredients in marijuana. Unlike THC, CBD is not psychoactive. Instead, CBD only
effects the body to calm patients with seizures, or other neurological
conditions. This makes it perfect for children and elderly people who have similar
diseases but can’t smoke the plant. By using CBD cannabis seizures, epileptic
episodes, and tremors are eradicated in minutes. Compare this to the amount of
time it takes for normal pharmaceuticals to do the same and you will see that
Hemp oil can take as little as 20 minutes to an hour as for normal
pharmaceuticals take at least 30 minutes to work and sometimes could not work
at all.
One of the side effects of marijuana is the
infamous “munchies”, which could help cancer patients that have lost their
appetite. Additionally, marijuana could encourage anorexia patients to eat when
their anxiety of eating has been alleviated. For patients with asthma or COPD,
edibles baked with marijuana are a great alternative instead of smoking.
Edibles are food that has marijuana baked into it. Edibles can contain either
CBD or THC depending on the strain of marijuana they use in baking. Like the
other methods, edibles are also made in dispensaries or sometimes special
bakeries then shipped to dispensaries for distribution. Edibles do the same
thing for you as any other way but they taste better.
Unlike other
drugs, marijuana has been harvested from a plant without any processing or
using any methods to refine the drug (unless to make oils.) Users could grow a
couple of marijuana plants in their house and harvest marijuana that was grown
organically, safely, and without spending much money. Legalizing recreational
marijuana would encourage people to grow their own plants like growing their
own vegetables. But this would not take away from marijuana profits and sells, because
not everyone would want to grow their own plants. Marijuana can be grown
without any sophisticated operation, but people will still want and need
marijuana from those dispensaries. Many people that smoke cigarettes don’t grow
their own tobacco when they could. For most people, it’s just easier to buy the
product rather than grow it.
When considering that most people
believe marijuana should be legal, and more than half of the states have
legalized medical or recreational marijuana, the only people holding these
advancements back is the politicians. With that in mind, citizens can help
legalize recreational marijuana by writing to their state congress people and
requesting action to be taken. Provide these examples listed within this essay
to the letters and entice congress people by saying that recreational marijuana
will increase revenue, in addition to creating jobs in regions where jobs are
going overseas for cheap labor. Thus, legalizing recreational marijuana has the
potential to decrease the federal deficit, decrease unemployment, and decrease
incarceration. The significance of this is to keep people out of prison, which
is costly to tax payers also, and keeping innocent people out prison helps them
from being discriminated against when applying for a job.
References
“Federal Bureau of Prisons.” BOP Statistics:
Inmate Offenses, 25 Mar. 2017,
www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp. Accessed 2 May
2017.
Garcia, Karmen Hanson Alise. “State
Medical Marijuana Laws.” National Conference of State Legislatures, 21 Apr.
2017, www.ncsl.org/research/health/state-medical-marijuana-laws.aspx. Accessed
2 May 2017.
Geiger, Abigail. “Support for
Marijuana Legalization Continues to Rise.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research
Center, 12 Oct. 2016, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/12/support-for-marijuana-legalization-continues-to-rise/.
Accessed 2 May 2017.
Samuels, Charles. “Annual
Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration.” Federal Register, 9 Mar. 2015,
www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/03/09/2015-05437/annual-determination-of-average-cost-of-incarceration.
Accessed 3 May 2017.
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