Weed_Control

The Effect of Legalizing Marijuana For thousands of years the plant cannabis, commonly referred to as marijuana, has been used for many things. The earliest documentation of its use is from china in 2700 b.c., where it was used as an herbal remedy. The plant cannabis is not only useful for its medicinal purposes, but it is also useful in many products such as rope and clothing. Currently in the United States marijuana is a banned substance, however, this may not always be the case. Recently, eleven states have de-criminalized the use of marijuana. Because our country may be on the road to legalizing this banned substance, knowing what the effects of this would be, could be useful. Obviously this has not actually happened so all the “facts” in this paper are simply intelligent theories as to what could happen. Legalizing it could have many effects on the state of our current economy, it would definitely have a large effect on our criminal justice program, and it may have many social effects, both positive and negative. One huge proponent of legalizing marijuana are economists around the country. In a recent letter sent to the president, congress, governors and state legislatures, five hundred economists joined Nobel Laureate George Akerlof in signing a proposal to legalize it. Here’s why economists support it. If the United States were to repeal prohibition, and therefore make marijuana legal, the amount of money the government would save is massive. For example the U.S. spends approximately fourteen billion dollars of our tax money each year futilely attempting to keep marijuana out of the country. Not only would the government save massive amounts of money, but also if they treated it like alcohol or tobacco, the Federal Reserve could gain upwards of 200 billion dollars annually. Because of our country’s terrible financial situation this money could help drastically with social security and even contribute to buying our country back from China. Another positive effect of legalization would be a decrease in violence. Under the current system dealers have no one to turn to. If it were legalized those who had a dispute over the substance could turn to the law. Now, however, most disputes turn violent because the dealer has no other options. Another benefit of this would be that bribing law enforcement officers would be much less of a problem. Because the people dealing with the substance would be within the law, there would not be as large of a problem with police officers taking bribes. This would reduce the amount of corrupt cops. One negative effect of legalizing marijuana is that more people would use it. Although most authorities agree that there would be less very heavy users, simply because people would be more aware of what it does and what the possible dangers are, there would definitely be an increase in those who try it. This in itself would not be all that bad, but people do have to realize that smoking it is just as bad for you as smoking a cigarette. Bibliography