Dear Mr./Madam President

My name is Shayden Coates and I believe marijuana should be legal for both medical use and recreational use, over the age of 21 of course. I have done a lot of school and personal research into marijuana and have found very little to none of trustworthy evidence that says we shouldn’t legalize, if anything most says we should. It’s much safer than alcohol and cigarettes and has more health benefits than both of them combined. Tobacco, alcohol and some prescription drugs can cause major long term damage, disease, and even death when consumed by anyone where has there has been no recorded deaths connected to the use of marijuana. It's less damaging than some prescription drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. I have found that people who smoke cannabis are more likely to reach old age than those who use tobacco.

There has been research that has found that in rats the use of cannabis can slow down or even eradicate cancerous brain tumors. There are over 100 chemicals called cannabinoids in cannabis, some are famous like notorious THC and CBD. Some say it kills brain cells but in reality it only does minor brain damage to adolescents that use marijuana regularly. That brain damage comes in the form of slowing down the frontal cerebral cortex of the brain, which leads to slower mental development and development of cognition skills. On the other hand, the frontal cerebral cortex is fully developed around the age of 18. Therefore cannabis smokers, the age 21 and up, are considered safe from any brain damage. There have been arguments made that marijuana is addictive but the only addictive part of marijuana is the dopamine that it releases during use. Using that logic anything that feels good at all should be considered addictive. Would you consider yourself addicted to something just because it makes you feel good? When I graduate I’m going to college in Denver, Colorado to get my degree in botany. I’ve wanted to take this path in life for a while because I’ve seen how marijuana can help people and how it's underestimated by society into being some kind of harmful substance that does nothing but harm. There is a quote that I have grown to remember that says “To make marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake.”

Sincerely, Shayden Coates