Legalizing Marijuana

5 Pages 1277 Words

Legalize Pot, marijuana, hash, joints, blunts, green trees, etc., the list goes on and on. Whatever you want to call it, marijuana is currently illegal in the United States. Whenever marijuana is brought up, it becomes the cause of much commotion and debating. Many people feel it is the gateway drug, and have heard of the negative side effects that are greatly overblown. Although many people feel that legalizing marijuana would increase the amount of drug use, I feel that it should be legalized. It will greatly reduce the amount of money spend on enforcement, and will increase our options for spending our tax dollars and lessen crime, and it will also be useful in treating certain medical conditions. Many people feel that legalization is unnecessary, and they fail to see the possible benefits of legalization. However, one possible benefit of legalization is that it will be profitable to the global economy. It will allow money that is spent on drug law enforcement to be spent on other programs. There have been escalating costs spent on the war against drugs and countless dollars spent on rehabilitation. Every year in the United States, ten billion dollars are spent on enforcing drugs alone. Drug violators accounted for forty percent of all criminals in federal prisons (Schwenk 73). In 1989, a Republican county executive of Mercer County, NJ estimated that it would cost approximately one billion dollars to build the jail space required to house all the drug users in Trenton alone (Schwenk 98). All of this money could be spent on things of greater importance. Drug violators are a major cause of extreme overcrowding in US prisons. We currently have close to one million inmates nationwide, and a high percentage of these prisoners are in because of drug related incidents. Since 1982, there has been about a 160% increase in inmate population. Most of this increase is attributed to drug violators, and sadly this number will only continue to ris...