Legalizing_Marijuana_Persuasive_Essay

BACKGROUND INFORMATION REASONING Furthermore, marijuana allows patients to have an increase in their appetite and enables patients to gain weight. Chemotherapy causes a decrease in appetite to cancer patients and prevents patients from being able to maintain or gain weight (James). A University of California research team concluded that people smoking marijuana for medical uses can, on average, gain an additional four pounds over a two day period (James). Overall, the studies show that medical marijuana can provide patients with benefits that other drugs cannot provide like better health and a better life. Second, marijuana should be legalized nationally, because a synthetic and less effective form of the drug is already available by prescription. The drug Marinol possesses the main active ingredient that is in marijuana, THC, and is available by prescription in pill form (Alexander). Evidently, Marinol provides a synthetic version of marijuana, but takes longer to work than smoking marijuana (Alexander). Also, patients get higher by orally taking Marinol compared to smoking marijuana which can cause an enormous amount of discomfort (Alexander). Specifically, patients are not getting to use medical marijuana rather a less effective knock off version of the drug. Additionally, Marinol only contains a small amount of the active ingredients in marijuana. According to the director of the DukeLEARN neurological-research program, Dr. Wilson, a combination of all the active ingredients in marijuana “not just one, may provide the most medical benefit” (Alexander). Since Marinol has the same active ingredient, THC, as marijuana, but different other active ingredients, the drug is not exactly the same with the exact same effects. Essentially, since Marinol is legal and is very similar to marijuana then marijuana itself should be legal for medical purposes. Lastly, by nationally legalizing medical marijuana, the federal government can tax and collect revenue that is currently not collectable. The medical marijuana tax would help cut the huge deficit that the United States has. Currently, the United States government cannot put a tax on something that is illegal. The United States government could begin to tax on medical marijuana which would be similar to the tax that is in place on cigarettes (Moffatt). Legalizing medical marijuana would enable the government to start imposing the tax. Also, by legalizing medical marijuana nationally, the potential numbers of taxable medicinal marijuana users would increase significantly. Furthermore, the government can capitalize on the excessive profits that marijuana smugglers currently make. Stephen T. Easton, an economist, argues that if medical marijuana “were legalized then we could transfer these excessive profits caused by the risk-premium from these (drug dealers) to the government” (Moffatt). Essentially, the federal government could take the huge profits from drug dealers, and enable the police on to work on other more important issues such as crimes and homicides. The risk premium on half a gram on marijuana would allow the government to make a profit around seven dollars according to Stephen T. Easton (Moffatt). For example, if marijuana were to be legalized in Canada, it is estimated that two billion dollars would be made by the government with even more money expected for exporting the drug (Moffatt). In summation, by taxing medical marijuana the government can collect revenue and cut the national deficit, but the government would first have to legalize medical marijuana. RECOMMENDATION Works Cited