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Thirty-three states currently have medical marijuana legalized and ten of those states have also legalized the drug for recreational purposes. Imagine your state legalized marijuana both medically and recreationally. The gas stations start stocking the drug. Your best friend’s anxiety improves. Your wife starts to sleep all night. Your brother becomes financially stable with no more smoking tickets. Your cousin finally isn’t scared to get the much-needed drug abuse help. Should marijuana be legalized? Of course, it should be legal.
Marijuana can help improve the health care pathway, benefit the US economy and help solve other issues. These benefits from legalizing marijuana give justification for the legalization of the drug for those who are at least eighteen or need it medically. On July 4, 1776, America and its people earned their freedom. Part of being a free citizen in America is being part of democracy. So if people are the voice of the country, why isn’t medical and recreational marijuana legal with the majority agreeing that it should be? According to a video by the New York Times in 2018, about 85% of adults believe medical marijuana should be legalized.
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Not only do most adults agree with legalization, but about 67% of adults also believe the risks of the drug don’t outweigh the benefits of the medicine.
The majority of people also think recreational marijuana should be legalized. According to the Gallup Organization, about 61% of people think the drug should be legal. This number isn't biased to a specific gender or ethnicity though.
About 64% of men and 57% of women agree with pleasurable pot. The percentages for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics are also all over half. So with a clear majority advocating for putting the pot into play in a place known for giving the people say in politics, why is it still illegal in the majority of states? Medical marijuana, which is only currently legal in 66% of the states, has been proven to have many positive health advantages. Cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabinoid in weed, which doesn’t get the user high has been proven to have many concrete benefits. First off, CBD has been proven to be good for its anti-inflammatory and pain relieving properties. CBD is also able to reduce anxiety, insomnia, and symptoms due to multiple sclerosis. The drug has also been known to help with childhood epilepsy. Nate Diaz, a professional mixed martial artist, used CBD to treat some of his symptoms of concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Another chemical in marijuana that is known to have healing powers is Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration and used to help people with nausea and decreased appetite. Mike Graham, a patient with a bad case of degenerative spine disease began to take medical marijuana when doctors offered him 14 different medications that came with the risk of paralyzation or weed. After he began to take three to four puffs of the drug twice a day, he was able to get off all but one of his medications. The six-foot-tall man went from 135 pounds to 250 pounds and is still continuing to gain appetite. There are so many other success stories out there, just like the ones of Diaz and Graham. With all the positive benefits being seen by users and scientists, why wouldn’t states at least offer the drug as an option for medication? More and more states are legalizing marijuana, both medically and recreationally, but for those who haven’t, they’re only causing themselves more expenses that could be eliminated by legalization. The list of costs for keeping up with prohibiting the drug goes on and on. First off you have the court time and police time used up by keeping up with the drug laws. In addition to that, the prisons are fuller and the crime rates are higher. When the state doesn’t have to spend as much tax money on arresting and imprisoning users, you have more available money to be used on a more important issue. One last lowered cost is the cost of health services and state provided welfare programs. Not only by legalizing the drug do you reduce or eliminate a lot of costs but you also get the income made by stores who sell the drug. So why do states keep wasting all their money on a lost cause? This image shows that the price to keep marijuana legal is much higher than the cost of legalizing it medically or recreationally. If marijuana is legalized, it is proven that addiction and drug use decreases, especially in teens. An example of this is in Portugal, where they legalized all drugs for adults. Since the legalization, there has been a decrease in drug use and addiction in the youth.
They also found that people, in general, tend to be less likely to be addicted to drugs when the government isn’t forcing them to avoid drugs. Clare Wilson talks similarly about how legalizing the drug decreases the number of youth users. With legalization often comes a minimum age limit making it harder for teens to get their hands on the drug. For all of those who are worried about legalization because they don’t think more people should be taking and abusing the drug, they have no reason to worry because legalization has proved to do just the opposite. For those who are going through addiction and need help, legalizing the drug increases the chances that they’ll get the help they need or have the help available. From 1998 to 2008, the number of drug users getting treatment jumped 62% even though the number of people using drugs didn’t change at all. So why were more people finally getting help? It’s because the people getting the help were in places where the drug was legalized. When you eliminate the fear of getting arrested for using the drug, people are more likely to seek help. Also in places where the drug is legalized, states make more places to get help available. Legalizing marijuana can lead to those who desperately need help with addiction to have less fear when they get the help that might save them from worse consequences later. One last advantage to legalizing marijuana is when it is sold publicly, the drug contents can be more controlled. Recently, it has been more common for drug dealers to sell laced marijuana, meaning they combine other drugs with the weed without informing their customers. One of the most common chemicals mixed in is rat poison, which is deadly and very dangerous.
An article by Time in 2018 writes that in Illinois, laced marijuana has killed three people already. In addition to the deaths, there have been more than 100 cases of severe bleeding in five states including Illinois. These patients often face symptoms including “coughing up blood, blood in the urine, severe bloody noses, bleeding gums and internal bleeding” (Tanner). However, if the drug was legalized and sold by public dealers, the government can have more control of the drug composition. Stores wouldn't likely add rat poison to the drug or any other dangerous substance since the consequences for lacing weed would be high. Wouldn’t it make more sense for smokers to get their drug in a safe legal form than from a dealer illegally with the risk of poison or other toxic chemicals? A lot of the people who are against the legalization of the drug worry about the health costs that come with the drug. First off, just because the drug isn’t legalized doesn’t mean there aren’t people who get sick from using drugs. You might think that even though that is true, there will be more users of the drug so there will be more health issues. However, as mentioned above, the use of the drug decreases when it is legalized, so theoretically there should be fewer issues. Also, for people who do decide to use marijuana, their health insurance will cover them less, which means, in the end, the risks they take with the drug will mostly have to be covered by themselves, holding them accountable for their actions and likely making them more responsible. One last point to prove that the health costs won’t be a big issue with legalization is the statistics comparing the health costs of drugs versus alcohol.
The difference in cost between health issues that are drug-related and those that are alcohol-related is about 50%. We legalized alcohol years ago knowing that drinking came with risks, so how come legalizing marijuana is such a big deal? The statistics show that marijuana actually causes fewer issues plus on top of that you have the health benefits that come with legalizing the drug, something alcohol doesn’t have. So yes of course with marijuana comes health costs, but the costs would not increase, it would likely decrease with legalization and the costs wouldn’t even be comparable to those of alcohol use. This chart shows the difference in health costs between drugs and alcohol. Another reason a lot of people are against legalizing marijuana is because they believe it will make their cities and neighborhoods less safe. This assumption is actually false. First off, when people don’t have to illegally buy the drug, it eliminates the issue of people having to sneak around with the drug. They can simply ring it into their house and keep it there without any issues. Also with the market for marijuana being moved to public stores, it eliminates a lot of the dealers that could be in your city and neighborhoods. Another way it actually makes your communities safer is that it is shown with legalization there is a decrease in criminal activity. In Portugal where they legalized drugs, the “proportion of offenses committed under the influence of drugs and/or to fund drug consumption dropped by half” (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). In Switzerland, a program was created to allow people to take drugs in special areas, including jails, so that they could be monitored and evaluated.
The people participating in this program showed a decrease in felony crimes by 60% and a decrease of 80% for those who were in the program for over a year. If a safer community is something you are in favor of, then you should consider voicing your support for marijuana legalization. To recap, the advantages to legalizing cannabis is endless. Legalizing the drug is what the majority of the people want. Could this be because of the medical and economic advantages? Or could it be because use and overdose of the drug decreases while the amount of help for drug users increases? Or maybe it’s because of the added safety to the drug and neighborhood. Or maybe all of the above! So what can you do to help legalize the beneficial drug? You can write letters to your local governments or even the federal office. You could speak your mind in public about your opinion of legalizing the drug. You could get involved in an anti-prohibition group near you. You could vote for candidates who are fighting for the new laws allowing marijuana. It takes you, yes you, to help America get to legal marijuana. So get out there fellow marijuana supporters and help us all get to a better time- weed appreciate it!
Cannabis Legalization: Medical and Recreational Use Across 33 States. (2022, May 23). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/beneficial-drug-essay
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