Essay arguing for the legalization of marijuana

There has never been a culture in the history of mankind that did not use some kind of drug. Today in America, the most commonly used (or abused) drugs are marijuana and alcohol. However, there is a critical difference between the two; Alcohol is legal and socially accepted, while marijuana remains the polar opposite. After close inspection of the facts, any reasonably bright person should find this to be an anomaly.

        Alcohol kills six times the number of people killed by cocaine, heroin, and every other illegal drug combined and is responsible for nearly half of all lethal traffic incidents. However, there has never been a single recorded death in history that was a result of an individual's use of marijuana. Moreover, when alcohol is consumed, there exists a real risk of overdose and death resulting from it. Marijuana does not have an achievable overdose effect; In order to overdose on marijuana one needs to smoke nearly 1500 pounds of cannabis within about 15 minutes.

        Cigarettes are another substance (or more appropriately, a combination of substances ranging from ammonia to rat poison) that is abused by the masses in the United States. 50,000 Americans die each year due to second-hand smoke alone. And when it comes to addiction, we've hit the jackpot folks. Seventy percent of all smokers want to quit, but only 5% do so successfully. Plus, the tobacco industry is beyond misleading. People are not entitled to know what the contents are of what they are smoking, and "light" cigarettes are not actually light in the normal sense of the term (healthier for you) but in fact could be more detrimental to your health than "normal" cigarettes. Marijuana is all-natural, and once again, does not kill you.

        Both Cigarettes and Alcohol are physically addictive, marijuana is not. Marijuana...