Legalization Of Marijuana

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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The legalization of marijuana is an interesting issue that is discussed often today. Many people agree that doing this would have many benefits, but others stand firm in the beliefs that it will do more harm than good. Since the government is not doing a very good job of stopping the import, export, and use of marijuana in the United States, they should stop trying to completely block it, and instead, regulate it. The legalization of marijuana would have many positive effects such as greater amounts of money for more important government responsibilities, more room in jails for the more serious offenders, and would end the use of marijuana by teens just to ?do something bad? and try and get away with it.

Why the government tries to stop something it can not, and spend millions and millions of dollars a year trying to do so, is unacceptable. Instead of trying to stop something that is impossible to stop, they should stop wasting valuable tax payer?s money on it, and regulate it.

Could you imagine how much money the government could make from selling highly regulated amounts of marijuana to people? In the past five years, the government has spent approximately $300 of EACH Americans tax dollars to wage its war against marijuana. That breaks down to about $8 billion a year by all levels of government to investigate, arrest, and incarcerate these marijuana law breakers. (Document B) If we were to take that $8 billion a year and put it towards better education or to improve the lives of the less fortunate, there might not be a demand for marijuana at all. This does not even include the cost to keep these people in jail, just to have them walk into the prison?s front doors. The cost to...