Should Marijuana be Legalized?

Each year, nearly 800,000 people are arrested in the United States for marijuana possession. Is smoking pot criminal?

Is it akin to assault, to theft, to murder? Should people be put in jail for being high? Do they go to jail for being drunk, for buying beer, for smoking cigarettes?

Whether a user is causing harm to the public is of no concern to the law, and the result is the persecution of an enormous number of people whom I believe have committed no true crime at all. In Washington, the victimless crime of smoking marijuana, even in the safety and security of one’s own home, can land the smoker up to five years in prison, as well as a possible $10,000 fine, and after this unnecessary and unreasonable punishment is implemented, society will not have benefited in the slightest.

Sensible adults deserve the legal permission to responsibly possess and smoke marijuana, and its production and sale should be permitted and regulated by the American government.

No one is spared when it comes to the menacing gavel of marijuana prohibition. Not the peaceful, not the passive, and not the private. Even those few with prescriptions for medicinal marijuana are not truly protected from prosecution due to the differences in state and federal laws.

Washington state will allow a citizen with a prescription to own a 60-day supply of marijuana, but America will imprison that very same patient for years, regardless of doctor approval if a federal employee were to discover this possession.

So, not only are harmless recreational offenders being unjustly punished, but people with legitimate medical backing for their usage also suffer from this marijuana prohibition. delic with short-lasting, beneficial physical and mental properties. Whether smoked or ingested, marijuana causes euphoria, sleepiness, hunger, and general feelings of comfort and well-being.

Ill effects? Certainly. But, they are akin to smoking cigarettes, which our government has deemed lawful and acceptable, and consuming alcohol, yet another legal drug. It seems that the gravest of ramifications for smoking marijuana are the legal consquences that our government has hypocritically imposed.

Think about the other drugs and pharmaceuticalsthat our government allows. For example, Oxycontin is an extremely addictive prescription medication that offers harrowing dependence and withdrawal for the user. Even right-wing superpower Rush Limbaugh couldn’t “just say no” when it came to legal opiates, and he was forced into a rehabilitation clinic as a result. Pot does not have this addictive property, and when it comes to quitting, one can expect no physical withdrawal whatsoever.