Legalization


Do you like wasting money? I do not believe that there is anyone in the world that would answer yes to that question, yet the government is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars paying police officers, courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and jailors to arrest innocent people that process a little bit of marijuana. According to Mark Cook of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, an estimated $2,881 is spent per every arrest made.
In 2010 there were over 9,000 arrests for possession and about 700 felonies for distributing, due to marijuana.

Also, if marijuana were legalized there is a golden opportunity for tremendous tax revenue increase for the state and federal government. The office of financial management (OFM) estimated that the revenue would bring in about 566 million dollars a year. This money would be used for what ever the government wanted to spend it on, but if it were me I would use it for education. In Washington, however, they are using there revenue to supply people with better heath benefits. Another benefit to making it legal is that because it is a plant the only thing you have to purchase would be water and fertilizer causing most of the money to be profit.

Recently there have been many states that have voted to make it legal for recreational uses including Washington, Colorado, Oregon, but only Washington and Colorado passed the law. Although it’s legal people still can not buy it in stores until 2014 because they have to create a reliable plan to regulate it. Also many states have legalized it for medicinal uses including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington DC, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico. Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. I do not think it is fair that the capitol of our country has medical marijuana, yet most of the country still does not.