For decades now, the battle between marijuana being legal and illegal has been fierce. With eight U.S. states, including Washington D.C., having recreational marijuana use legal, the fight continues. The first of these eight to legalize it was Colorado. Since the legalization five years ago, people are looking into what has become of this "Great Experiment". The income from marijuana or "pot/weed" alone shows the benefit that its legalization could produce for our extremely-in-debt country. Beating the sales of ice cream at $5.1 billion and baby diapers at $6.4 billion, marijuana's income is projected to reach $10.8 billion this year. Along with having an amazing financial income, marijuana also could develop up to 177,000 jobs. While being beneficial to our economy, pot can also have medical benefits such as easing pain and, the lesser known, helping cure opioid addictions. Although weed legalization has all of these opportunities to better America, political leaders still disagree.
Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that, if they want to, U.S. Attorney's can prosecute anyone selling pot in the legal states. This statement directly contradicts what President Obama's policy of marijuana displayed. Some of Sessions reasoning to this is from a federal study that presented a 20 percent increase in the use of pot in teenagers although it was not mentioned that the study came to the conclusion that it eventually went down 13.5 percent. I believe that states should individually vote on the legalization of marijuana due to political differences within the country and the belief that even if pot remains illegal, people will still buy and use it. Along with states individually voting, I also believe that it is completely unfair and simply idiotic to prosecute people who legally are doing absolutely nothing wrong.
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Questions:
Question 1: Why should marijuana be legal/illegal based on the predictions of how marijuana could effect our country?
Question 2: Should the legalization of marijuana be a voted on nationally or individually between state legislatures? Why do you think this?
Question 3: Do you agree with Sessions in thinking it is fair to prosecute people selling weed in the legalized states? Why or why not?
Replies
I feel it should be legal because not only does it have tremendous health benefits but like you stated it could bring more money to this country. So far now days that's all people seem to care about. I think the politicians are just afraid of being wrong and of change. I think it should be national so everyone can indulge in its miraculous healing affects. If they are selling it to help people then what's so wrong about it? I think people should be free to do as they please because there would be so much less controversy on things that don't matter.
I really don't have an opinion on if it should be legal or not. If it were to become legal, I would hope that it would be used in the correct manner. I think it is up to state whether or not it should be legal because there aren't any studies on the long term effects of medical or recreational marijuana which could mean there are side effects we don't know about. Some states wouldn't want to put their people in danger without a definite answer to said effects. I think it is fair to prosecute dealers in legalized states. It is still illegal for them to sell it even though marijuana is legal. There are specific guidelines for distributing marijuana and I'm going to assume most dealers wouldn't meet those rules.
I think marijuana should be illegal simply because there needs to be more research on the effects it has on the human body. Also marijuana can be laced with other drugs for drug dealers to make more money. The legalization of marijuana should be decided nationally so that if it becomes legal, the whole country can reap the benefits as well as deal with the inevitable onslaught of problems. I think if attorneys think they have enough grounds to prosecute someone legally selling weed, then I guess they can go ahead, but I don't think they will have enough evidence to do so.
The problem with marijuana being laced with other, much more dangerous drugs is very serious and can eventually lead to hard drug addictions; however, I think that if marijuana was to be legalized, the shops that sell it would tell people exactly what they would be getting. Since there pot would already be legal, there would be no reason for people to laced the drug considering the shops would have a normal income.
The only down side seems to be increased pot use with minors. Since this isn't a relatively new issue, authorities should already know how to deal with it. Otherwise, marijuana could possibly help people in many different ways. I believe marijuana should be nationally voted on to mostly prevent confusion. I do not think it it fair to prosecute people selling weed since they really didn't do any harm.
I agree with you on the increased use of marijuana with minors in that if pot did become legal, there would definitely have to be an age restriction such as being 18 in order to buy it. Even in countries where pot is already legal, such as the Netherlands, there is an age restriction in order to buy it.
I think it should be legal, it's not as addictive as other drugs. It doesn't harm the body as much as other drugs. There also hasn't been no recorded death that has been linked to Marijuana. Also it brings in a lot of money so I think it would be a big boost on the economy. I think it should be a vote nationally.
The fact that there has never been a recorded death seems like it should be talked about more since people tend to think marijuana is extremely bad for the body when, like you said, consuming alcohol is much more dangerous. Alcohol kills thousands of people a year and still is legal at 21 in this country which doesn't really make sense.
I think marijuana should be legal because it has a lot benefits to the economy and to the people. It is also a lot safer to use the is a much higher chance of death when drinking that there is using pot. I think legalization should be left up to the states because it would benefit the state a lot. It makes no sense to prosecute people who are selling it in a legal state. you wouldn't give someone a ticket for going the speed limit. its the same thing
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