Legalizing Marijuana



It’s hard to have people take me seriously when I talk about this topic, I don’t smoke Marijuana myself but after some research and weighing the benefits and disadvantages of legalizing Marijuana I can see why I would actually want them to put this into action. I really don’t want this to end up like a comedy routine despite a few comic relief moments but that’s beside the point. What I want to do is express to everyone how beneficial Marijuana could be to our society if it were to be legalized. It has many economic benefits, which makes your life better.

I’m just going to begin with some reasoning for you starting in the job industry, lets take the alcohol industry in example, you have people growing the barley, wheat and the yeast, then people working at the brewery, people working the bottling or canning of the beer, and people distributing it to the stores, that’s a lot of jobs. Around 946,000 jobs a year actually, and the government gets just about 36 billion dollars in taxes from the alcohol business every year as well. And this number increases by approximately 2% every year. Now imagine for a second the Marijuana industry if it gets legalized, you have growers, packagers, and distributors all over the place, we are talking about new jobs in the thousands and the government getting money from taxes in the billions.

Now I’m going to state a counter argument, it’s not good for your health to smoke and smoking is a leading cause of lung cancer, which is a valid point, also smoking Marijuana increases your heart by up to 50 beats per minute which can lead to a heart attack. Using Marijuana also does these short-term affects to the user while under the influence:

-Distorted perception (sights, sounds, time, and touch)

-Problems with memory and learning

-Loss of coordination

-Trouble with thinking and problem solving
But regardless, Marijuana is legal medically so there has to be some health benefits like relieving nausea, it reduces muscle spasms and relieves eye pressure in glaucoma patients. Marijuana also treats a lot of diseases such as Epilepsy, AIDS, HIV, sexual dysfunction, anxiety and panic attacks, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, fibromyalgia, alcohol abuse, spinal chord injuries, cancer, bipolar disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, inflammatory bowl disease, migraines, posttraumatic stress disorder, sleep apnea, Parkinson’s disease, sickle-cell disease, and psoriasis. That’s a lot of ways marijuana can help us.

I don’t have a personal story with marijuana, and I don’t know anyone who uses marijuana medically, so I’m going to share a story today about Jeremy Echols and his son Alex. Alex has severe Autism and beats himself in the face by slamming his head against walls and furniture until he is bleeding and has bruises all over his face. But Jeremy signed him up for a medical marijuana program where patients are given doses assisted by a doctor. Alex is completely harmless to himself when calmed by marijuana, which is administered in a liquid form.

With cases like Alex we can understand that, sometimes we need marijuana to function in today’s society, and now more than ever since we are rebuilding the economy, here is a quote that I really liked.

“Is marijuana addictive? Yes, in the sense that most of the really pleasant things in life are worth endlessly repeating.”
? Richard Neville