Throughout recent history, there has been a huge debate on whether marijuana should or should not be legalized. Marijuana currently uses police force and taxpayer money to control. Although it is argued that marijuana is not directly harmful, it can lead to dangerous situations such as car crashes. Marijuana, a drug currently illegal in most U.S states, should not be legalized because it can have unsafe consequences. Over the past few decades, there has been evidence linked to benefits of legalizing marijuana. Some argue that marijuana is a waste of taxpayer money. They believe that it isn’t necessary to control the use of marijuana and controlling it only waste taxes that could be going to causes that they do believe in, such as prosecuting much larger criminals. People also believe that if marijuana was legalized the police force would also no longer be wasted on …show more content…
Currently, less that ½ % of people in prison are there for marijuana use. This proves that there actually is not a large amount of people who taxpayers are paying for the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of do to marijuana use. The tax benefits are clearly less than the consequences of marijuana use. As a point of reference, the alcohol industry currently makes 14.5 billion off taxes, but cost the US $185 billion a year. This shows that the Alcohol industry cost $170.5 billion that isn’t covered by taxpayer money. Legalizing Marijuana will also increase drug impaired driving, making the roads unsafe for everyone. A study showed that 26.9% of drivers in the level-1 shock trauma center tested positive for marijuana. It also must be remembered that when a driver is intoxicated on the road, not only the user is in danger, but everyone on the road is at risk. Ultimately, it is evident that there are consequences of legalising marijuana, specifically in the sense of finance and
However, so little was spent in tobacco prevention. Smoking addictions are the leading cause of multiple cancers and causes 443,000 deaths per year ("CDC: States make billions from tobacco taxes and lawsuits, but spend little on smoking prevention"). In my opinion, cigarettes are proven to kill and are still being sold on shelves in stores and now the Center for Disease Control and Prevention does not have the needed money to push out tobacco rehabilitation or prevention programs. If the same efforts were used to push out the good side of marijuana by the C.D.C and marijuana was taxed at the same level of cigarettes, the people, the government and the C.D.C can benefit. The people will have the option to purchase marijuana for recreational use and unfortunately, have the option to purchase cigarettes.
The government has to be in a really difficult situation when it comes to marijuana because I am choosing to believe that there is no way possible that they aren’t aware of the very long list of pros (medical use, recreational use, increase in tax revenue, and decrease in enforcement costs, less harmful than both alcohol and cigarettes) and the comparatively short list of cons (slight decrease in productivity, increase in driving while high, consequences for the 700,000 arrested and 44,000 incarcerated for marijuana related charges). When looking at the big picture however, it has to be considered that a huge decision like that could really split America as a whole. Although there are a lot of Americans that believe there is no moral issue with marijuana, and there are many that have no opinion, there are also many that believe marijuana use is completely immoral. So when making a decision like this, the government has to consider their own personal blowback. So, taking all these things into account and placing them in front of the lens of the ethical perspective of the Utilitarians, is there really a reason for marijuana to be
Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer at Harvard University studied the likely impacts of drug legalization, “finding that about $8.7 billion would be saved on law enforcement and another $8.7 billion would be generated from taxes on marijuana. Accounting for inflation, that would add up to about $20 billion now.” (Huffington Post) The exorbitant price to keep marijuana off of the streets where it isn’t wanted is far too high for a substance that does little to harm users, and non-users alike. If marijuana opponents can’t agree on anything, they should at least acknowledge that keeping marijuana illegal in this
The amount of money states spend on enforcing marijuana laws is staggering. At more than three million dollars a year, states could make better use of this money. Finally, if marijuana was legalized crime rates could potentially decrease. Cannabis arrests account for more than half of all drug related incarcerations.
Marijuana has been around for decades and was recreationally legal before the 1930s, but the Marijuana tax act criminalized the people that had or transferred marijuana. Which should have never happened in the first place. Marijuana is not as harmful as people make it out to seem. Tons of other legal drugs have much harsher side effects than marijuana has. Marijuana is a peaceful drug and enjoyable, should be legalized for people to use as they use Tylenol for headaches and Dimetapp for the flu or a cold, which on those drugs you can overdose on and marijuana you can not.
It’s a “win win” for both marijuana enthusiasts and the governments’ pocket. Just alone in California “A legalize-and-tax plan is favored by 56 percent of Californians, according to the Field Poll Tax boss Betty T. Yee, chairwoman of the State Board of Equalization, backs the plan and says it could produce annual tax revenues of $1.4 billion. “I think the tide is starting to turn in terms of marijuana being part of the mainstream,” she said.””, and also “More than a dozen other states have enacted or are considering laws to permit medical-marijuana use or remove criminal penalties for
Marijuana is used for medical reason that marijuana only can help. The taxes go down because there are way more job openings. If marijuana was legalized the number of people in jail for smoking or having possession of marijuana goes down, but the number of people for harder drugs
Putting taxes on medical marijuana can help net all levels of the U.S. government $17.4 billion (Lopez). The money earned could help the U.S. with many different things including education and healthcare. If marijuana was legalized it could help end violent street gangs because it would reduce the crime rate (E). People would be buying marijuana from dispensaries instead of on the streets. Legalizing marijuana could help lead to less opioid pain killer deaths (Lopez).
The legalization of marijuana has been a topic of mass discussion for decades upon decades. The government has made weed an illegal substance due to its harmful effects on the body. But the underlying issue is that the government has not formulated an efficient system to regulate the distribution of marijuana for their benefit. With that being said, if the government could police the supply of weed in a profitable manner, then maybe its legalization would not seem so immoral. The government is also concerned with the crime rate due to growing and selling of weed.
Cannabis can be the jump start to a state’s economy. If could extend state’s budgets with tax revenue, cut down on crime and provide jobs. We should legalize marijuana because of the many benefits that outweigh the disadvantage it brings. Legalizing marijuana will help one of the most important things in American the economy.
In recent years there has been a lot of discussion on weather Marijuana is harmful or not, and weather the pros out weigh the cons. The public opinion leans towards: no, it’s not harmful and should become legal. However, most of the people who are pro marijuana don’t have scientific evidence to support their claims; they just enjoy being high. There are some good reasons to why someone would smoke marijuana, and there are reasons why it should not be allowed.
Legalizing marijuana would have many positive effects on society. First of all, marijuana should be legalized because the government could tax it. If the government taxed it, state governments and the national government would have more money for better roads, more police officers, and higher pay for government officials. There would be more money for schools, which means
Introduction Society has been debating for years whether or not to legalize marijuana and what restrictions, if any, should be placed on legalized marijuana. I believe Marijuana should be legalized and by doing so: the crime rate will decrease, people will have fewer health problems, and lastly more jobs will be created. Marijuana also known as Cannabis has been around since the age of time. Not until 1850, marijuana was finally used as a drug in the United States.
If the government legalized the drug it could avoid these costs and still generate valuable tax revenue from it. Melody Wang says, “Assuming the same cost of retailing and distributing marijuana as legal tobacco—ten cents per gram—then selling legal marijuana at a street value of ten dollars per gram would generate $40 to $100 billion in new government revenue, in the most optimistic case”. This is just an estimate of what the government could get if marijuana became legalized. The numbers are quite high,thus being a positive thing for economy. The money the government could gain, would be distributed to government expenditures.
Legalizing Marijuana is a very argumentative topic to confabulate about whether you want to legalize Marijuana or whether you don’t want to legalize it. Legalizing Marijuana means that it is for both recreational and medical uses. When you don’t want to legalize Marijuana, this means that you only want it for medical uses. The point being, instead of not legalizing Marijuana and having a lot of criminal offenses the government could be legalizing it and decreasing the essence of criminal offenses. Marijuana should be made legal to use in any way you want.