Dear Sir or Madam President,

As a concerned student I believe recreational and medical marijuana should be legalized. Not only that, I believe it could benefit society in more ways than one. Especially the loss in business for drug dealers and terrorists. Taking this away from them would also reduce smuggling and some illegal immigrants. Street Violence may also break out when someone screws you over on a couple grams vs if it was legalized, you could settle it with the law. Also, there are many benefits in tax income for cities.“...some people believe that the legalization of weed could be revenue generator in the form of new taxes applied to its sale and distribution.” This money could go towards construction, road work, and other city projects that towns currently don’t have the extra money for.

Also, having recreational/medical marijuana illegal is a negative because it could free up space in our prisons/jails. ”...it would create wiggle room in the criminal justice system, which allows judges and prosecutors to focus more on violent crimes, while crowded prisons are freed of space.” Having more focus on violent matters in our legal system is way more important than charging someone because they decided to smoke a couple joints. Other sources such as CNBC say, ‘’...that the percentage of people in prison for marijuana use is less than one half of one percent (0.1-0.2 percent).” If you do the math in this situation though, you’ll find that that equates to 16 million people.

Sources may say since the legalization in Colorado has increased the number of marijuana related car accidents. I would argue there should be laws in place for that. Also, alcohol is already legal and it is responsible for, “...31 percent of overall driving fatalities...” according to the NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism). That equates to 54.5 million people compared to the 33.8 marijuana related car accidents.

Why don’t we take a look at one of the most harmful things that already is legal, cigarettes. “According to the United States Center for Disease Control, tobacco smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States’’ Now can we just take a second and ask ourselves how many people have died from smoking cannabis? Zero. Absolutely nobody. How much sense does that make? That’s like giving someone 3Ibs of chocolate and telling them that lettuce will have more harmful effects.

Another argument involving marijuana use is the fact that most people consider marijuana a gateway drug. Personally I think everything is a gateway. Look at it this way, if you try molly, and you like it, you’re gonna want to try LSD, Ecstasy, or other things like it. SAme goes with everything else in the book, if you try something and you like it, you’re gonna want to try similar things. I feel as if marijuana is blamed for being ‘a gateway drug’ just for the fact that it’s what most people try first, but it’s practically invalid.

Legalizing it would also bring more medical studies in on it and attention to the cancer healing benefits it has. Not only that, it can help with anxiety, paranoia, and other mental health disorders that could also be further studied after legaliztion. After stating all of this, I think you should see why having medical and recreational marijuana has more benefits on society rather than negatives.