marijuana legalization essay brief summary
The majority of Americans usually do not want to pay scarce
open public funds incarcerating non-violent cannabis
offenders, at a cost of $23, 1000 per year. Politicians
must reevaluate our countrys priorities and attach
more importance to combating violent crime than
targeting weed smokers.
Marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers for least
$7. 5 billion annually. This is an enormous spend of
hard to find federal dollars that should be accustomed to target
violent crime.
Weed prohibition makes no exception intended for the
medical use of marijuana. The hundreds and hundreds of
seriously sick Americans whom presently work with marijuana
as being a therapeutic agent to alleviate symptoms of
cancer, ASSISTS, glaucoma, or perhaps multiple sclerosis risk
detain and imprisonment to obtain and use their very own medication.
Among 1978 and 1996, 34 states approved laws
spotting marijuanas restorative value. Many
recently, arrêters in two states Arizona ( az ) and
California passed laws and regulations allowing for the medical
make use of marijuana within physicians direction.
Yet, says are seriously limited within their ability to
apply their medical use regulations because of the
government prohibition of marijuana.
America tried alcoholic beverages prohibition between 1919
and 1931, nevertheless discovered that the crime and
violence connected with prohibition was more
destroying than the nasty sought to become prohibited. With
tobacco, America has discovered over the last 10 years
that education is the most powerful way to
discourage use. Yet, America fails to apply these
lessons to weed policy.
By simply stubbornly defining all cannabis smoking as
criminal, including that which entails adults
cigarette smoking in the personal privacy of their own homes, we are
throwing away police and prosecutorial solutions, clogging
tennis courts, filling costly and scarce jail and prison space
and needlessly wrecking the lives and careers of
genuinely very good citizens.
Cannabis legalization provides an important
benefits over decriminalization in that it allows for
legal distribution and taxation of cannabis. Inside the
absence of taxation, the cost-free market price of legal
cannabis would be incredibly low, on the order of
five to ten cents per joint. In terms of intoxicating
potential, a joint is equivalent to at least $1 or perhaps $2
worth of liquor, the price where cannabis is definitely
currently bought from the Netherlands. The best way to
hold the value at this level under legalization would
be by a great excise tax on commercial sales. A great
examination of the external costs imposed simply by
cannabis users on the associated with society shows that aharmfulness taxes of $. 50 $1 per joint is
suitable. It can be estimated that bar taxes in
this selection would raise between $2. 2 and $6. four billion
each year. Altogether, legalization would preserve the
people around $8 $16 billion, not counting the
economic great things about hemp agriculture and other
spinoff industries.
