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Many people dream of a day when they can pull their car into a gas station, jump out, run inside, and buy a pack of joints. Despite its prohibition, marijuana is one of the most popular drugs in the country. Originally, marijuana, along with alcohol, was made illegal in the moral furor surrounding prohibition. However, when people came to their senses and repealed the eighteenth amendment, marijuana was forgotten. Possession and sale of cannabis has remained illegal ever since. The government’s War on Drugs, courtesy of Ronald Regan, spread propaganda that, despite a shift in public opinion about marijuana use, made it political suicide for any candidate for office to mention the legalization of marijuana. Thanks to prohibition and government propaganda, marijuana, a drug with many medicinal and recreational uses, has remained illegal, despite a large population of citizens who would like to see that change. Marijuana should be legalized and regulated in the United States.

Marijuana has never been proven to be more harmful to the body than legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol.  Alcohol, the most popular drug in the country, has been directly responsible for more deaths in the United States than marijuana. Despite what the government’s War on Drugs propaganda would have you believe, there has never been a recorded human death from cannabis poisoning in the history of the world. According to 2003 statistics released by CBS News, from 1996 to 1998 alone, there was an average of 1,393 deaths per year attributed to alcohol poisoning, just in the United Sates (Yoon, Stinson, Yi, and Dufour). The effect of marijuana on the lungs is often compared to that of tobacco, but while marijuana has only been shown to create lung tissue changes that precede cancer, tobacco has been proven in multiple studies to directly account for the development of lung cancer. Although a single, faulty but widely publicized study conducted over twenty years ago suggested that marijuana adversely affects brain structure, more recent studies have definitively proven this false. However, it has been proven that alcoholics have lighter and more shrunken brains than non-alcoholics. Alcohol abuse has also been shown to contribute to brain decay that can eventually to dementia, something marijuana has never been shown to do.

The legalization of marijuana would decrease drug crimes and arrests, allowing law enforcement resources to concentrate on more serious problems and directing taxpayer money towards more significant troubles in our communities.  In studies released by the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws, it was shown that a single marijuana arrest for something as minor as possession of a gram costs taxpayers about $10,400 in police, legal, and correctional fees. Imagine what a difference $10,400 could make in an elementary school classroom or after-school program. The cost of marijuana arrests to taxpayers averages out to about $7.6 billion annually nationwide. $7.6 billion is hardly chump change when the national debt increases at an average of $3.87 billion dollars per day (Hall). From 1997 to 2007, marijuana arrests rose over 25% (St. Pierre). Despite the increasing arrests, marijuana trafficking continues on the black market, proving that arresting people for marijuana is not a deterrent. People are always going to smoke weed, and it would be wise for the government to jump on board and use the marijuana trade to benefit everyone through regulation.

The regulation and taxation of marijuana is a viable option to increase government revenue and help fund government programs such as health care and education. Numbers released by the Tax Policy Center showed that in 2006 alone, the alcohol tax revenue was $138,810,000 and the tobacco tax revenue was a whopping $1,178,244,000. With marijuana use increasing every day, the taxation of cannabis sales has the potential to be a huge earner for state programs, something that’s very important when our country is sinking farther into debt every day.

A common argument against the legalization of marijuana is that if the drug were legal it would be more accessible for children and adolescents. However, as it stands now, surveys of grade school students show that they consider marijuana easier to get than tobacco or alcohol. It stands to reason then that if we legalize marijuana and the only people selling it are licensed, much like the sellers of alcohol and tobacco are, the threat of losing their license and business would prevent them from selling to minors, the same as it does for alcohol and tobacco retailers. Traditionally, the group with the most objections to the legalization of marijuana is right-wing Republicans, people who received most of their drug education through D.A.R.E. programs in middle school. Since D.A.R.E. is a program created as a part of the War on Drugs, their information can’t exactly be taken at face value. It’s been proven time and time again that D.A.R.E. uses propaganda, scare tactics, and misleading information to frighten children into believing that using drugs, even once, will kill them, while ignoring the dangers presented by legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.

The legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana are all viable and sensible steps for our country. Compared to alcohol and tobacco, marijuana is the lesser evil. Why then, are we wasting valuable time and precious resources arresting people for using a drug that never should have been criminalized in the first place? We should be concentrating on important matters, like our failing economy, failing health care system, and failing ability to compete in a global market. Stop wasting time arresting people who just like to smoke a doobie after a long day’s work, and worry about something that matters.

Works Cited

Gordis, Enoch. “Imaging and Alcoholism: A Window on the Brain.” About.com: Alcoholism. 2008. The New York Times Company. 5 Nov. 2008 <http:////alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa47.htm>.

Grinspoon, Lester, and James B. Bakalar. Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1997.

Hall, Ed. “U.S. National Debt Clock.” U.S. National Debt Clock. 4 Nov. 2008. 5 Nov. 2008 <http:////www.brillig.com/debt_clock/>.

St. Pierre, Allen. “Marijuana Arrests For Year 2007.” NORML. 15 Sept. 2008. The NORML Foundation. 5 Nov. 2008 <http:////norml.org/index.cfm?group_id=7698>.

“Tax Policy Center.” Tax Policy Center. 2008. Urban Institute and Brookings Institute. 5 Nov. 2008 <http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/index.cfm>.

World Health Organization. “WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use.” Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. 2002. DRCNet. 5 Nov. 2008 <http:////www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/general/who-probable.htm>.

Yoon, Young-Hee, Frederick Stinson, Hsiao-Ye Yi, and Mary C. Dufour. “Accidental alcohol poisoning mortality in United States, 1996-1998.” BNET. 2003. CBS Interactive Inc. 5 Nov. 2008 <http:////findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0cxh/is_1_27/ai_112937520>.