Recreational marijuana should be legalized, and regulated, in the United States.
Marijuana is a nonharmful drug that is illegal in most of the country. Many nonviolent criminals are put in our jails due to this law and it needs to stop. Marijuana should be legal for recreational use and our justice system should be focusing on real crime.
Recreational marijuana is smoked and used by many people in the US. Even though it’s illegal, other legal drugs, like alcohol and cigarettes, cause much more health problems for people. To me this is absurd. Marijuana is used by so many people and it doesn’t have any detrimental effects towards anyone. It’s not a violent crime either.
People may argue marijuana can impair drivers and cause deaths on our roads. According to the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html , 29 people die everyday due to the effects of drunk driving. If alcohol has this much of an effect on our roads, then why isn’t it illegal? This argument is pointless due to the hypocrisy of drinking being legal.
The toll on our prison system due to marijuana arrests is significant. These are all non violent citizens that’re taking part in the use of marijuana. If marijuana was legal, we’d have more room for violent criminals, like murderers and thieves.
According to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanoleck/2020/06/26/with-40000-americans-incarcerated-for-marijuana-offenses-the-cannabis-industry-needs-to-step-up-activists-said-this-week/?sh=aaa1b1dc16f3 , 40,000 Americans are behind bars for marijuana related charges. That’s 40,000 people are taxes are paying to feed and to house. That’s 40,000 people in our prison system because they used a drug significantly less harmful than the drugs that’re legal. That’s 40,000 non violent citizens that could be in the workforce helping our country.
Legalizing and regulating marijuana would bring nothing but good to the country. It’d mean our law enforcement and justice system would spend more time with real crime. This would save taxpayer money.
Regulating and selling marijuana would produced a huge boost in our economy, add more jobs, and bring in more taxes for our government. In California, their 2020 profit from the taxation of recreational marijuana was one billion dollars, according to marijuanamoment.net.https://www.marijuanamoment.net/legal-marijuana-states-have-generated-nearly-8-billion-in-tax-revenue-since-recreational-sales-launched-report-finds/#:~:text=Last%20year%20alone%2C%20the%20adult,expected%20to%20continue%20to%20grow.&text=For%20example%2C%20California%20took%20in,62%20percent%20increase%20from%202019.
The image below shows the tax totals from 2018 for states that have legalized recreational marijuana. These numbers are only growing and the number of states legalizing recreational marijuana is growing too.
As shown in the picture, and several other statistics, the growing amount of taxation on legal recreational marijuana is only growing. This is extremely beneficial for our country, and one of the most important reasons we need to legalize it.
The most important reason we need to make this change, in my opinion, is to save time and money for our government. But with all these people in jail for marijuana charges, families are being torn apart. Lives are being ruined by these unfair jail sentences. So many people that could be in our workforce, contributing to our country, are behind bars.
This story on al.com, https://www.al.com/crime/2021/06/alabama-removes-toddler-from-michigan-family-found-with-marijuana.html, talks about a family that had medical marijuana in their car. They left their home state of Michigan, where they possessed it legally, and went to their family’s house in Alabama, where it’s illegal. They got stopped by a police officer, the marijuana was found, and now the parents don’t have custody of their child. This is devastating and shows that statistics don’t show all the pain this issue causes. Many families go through this devastation because marijuana isn’t legalized nationwide.
This issues needs to be fixed. Recreational marijuana needs to be legalized and regulated all across our country.