Marijuana

For the topic of my persuasive essay I am going to talk about the legalization of marijuana in the USA. We live in world were there are an estimated 310 million marijuana users. With 50 million users in the USA the math turn into about 1 in every 6 americans. The U.S. spends an annual 1.3 billion dollars a year on the prohibition of marijuana this number dose not include incarceration costs. In the United States there are an average of 800,000 people arrested for marijuana per year. Out of this 800,000 only 11% are guilty of trafficking, that leaves the other (89%) 712,000 harmless americans locked in jail for simple possession a year. That number is far greater than the amount of prisoners locked up for forcible rape, murder and robbery combined. It cost our government an average of 19,000 dollars per inmate per year for incarceration. If marijuana was legalized that would be 13 billion dollars a year not being spent incarcerating innocent americans with lives to live and families to care for. With our U.S. prisons already being overfilled the legalization of marijuana would empty space for real criminals and save important money from being wasted. With legalization the United States would not only be saving poorly spent money, it would be generating new profit. By legalizing and taxing marijuana like the U.S. has done with alcohol and cigarets the annual revenue would be in-between 11 to 14 billion dollars a year. An extra 11-14 billion dollars a year in America's pocket could do wonders for the country helping us pay off debts and boost health care. In this current recession legalization will provide more money it will also provide more jobs. With the unemployment rate hitting around 9.7 in the United States this year any job counts, legalization would proved many americans with pay. That fact that cigarets and alcohol are legal and account for more than 20% percent of deaths per year is ridiculous. marijuana accounts for 0% of deaths per year. There is no medical account that proves that just marijuana was a cause of death. Smoking marijuana is by no means healthy but has been used as medicine for thousands of years and helps many cancer patients on a day to day basis. Marijuana should be legalized and the government should be taking a look at the bigger picture.

ANDY G