Got Green? An argumentitive essay about the legalization of marijuna - WriteWork
Essay by playafolife, College, Undergraduate, A+, November 2003
Keywords United States, Cannabis, billion dollars, misconception, estimates
Last year the United States spent over a billion dollars on marijuana enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Agency has proposed a four hundred percent increase in anti-pot spending over the next ten years. Despite this outrageous cost, the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that as many as forty percent of Americans have used, or are currently using marijuana. Even more alarming is the fact that ninety percent of young people say that it is easy or fairly easy to buy illegal drugs. These statistics indicate that the prohibition of marijuana is an ineffective waste of taxpayers' money and should be revoked.
A common misconception is that if marijuana were legalized, the use of the drug would increase. It is true that after the prohibition of alcohol ended with the 21st amendment, alcohol consumption doubled. Therefore, critics argue that legalizing marijuana would increase its consumption. What critics say about alcohol, however, has not proved true with marijuana.
For example, the Netherlands decriminalized possession and allowed small scale sales of marijuana in 1976. Nevertheless, marijuana use in Holland dropped thirty-seven percent after it was legalized, and currently has half the number of users as the United States. Furthermore, from 1972 to 1978, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession; the population in these states is approximately one-third of the U.S. population. In addition,
thirty-three other states reduced the punishment for possession of marijuana to probation. The courts in those states guaranteed those who met their probation requirements a clean record in one year. After 1978 marijuana use steadily declined for over a decade.
Critics also contend that legalizing marijuana would make it more accessible to children. Today, however, marijuana is already sold on the black market where anyone of any age can purchase it. If it were legalized,
Got Green? An argumentitive essay about the legalization of marijuna. (2003, November 15). In WriteWork.com. Retrieved 13:42, December 09, 2021, from https://www.writework.com/essay/got-green-argumentitive-essay-legalization-marijuna
WriteWork contributors. "Got Green? An argumentitive essay about the legalization of marijuna" WriteWork.com. WriteWork.com, 15 November, 2003. Web. 09 Dec. 2021.
WriteWork contributors, "Got Green? An argumentitive essay about the legalization of marijuna," WriteWork.com, https://www.writework.com/essay/got-green-argumentitive-essay-legalization-marijuna (accessed December 09, 2021)
Reviews of: "Got Green? An argumentitive essay about the legalization of marijuna" :
by Jillza on 27/Apr/2004
For classifying this as study notes, you must be a good student. I wish you had put in a works cited page based upon the fact that the paper is very well written and I am curious to know your sources. But thanks! I cited your/this paper in my own.
... United States. Although executions take place behind prison walls pro capital punishment groups gather outside of the prison with signs and cheers. In most states the law allows the family of the victims of ...
... Americans execute their own people the exact same way. Lethal injection is the newest form of execution in the United States. The person being executed is injected with a deadly dose of ...
... United States need capital punishment? The main purpose of the death penalty is to protect the rights of victims ! John McAdams, a professor of ... At least six percent of murderers kill again within six years of their release( ... involved, add up to millions of dollars our government wastes every year, ...
... of gun violence. Works Cited Bruce-Briggs, B. "The Great American Gun War". The Public Interest, No. 45: 37-62. National ...
... of its allocation of scarce medical resources. (LI from 12,13,14) 16.Present legal prohibitions against voluntary euthanasia ought to be lifted. (UC and LI from 3,6,15) Argument Evaluation of Original Argument "Euthanasia is sure to become an issue of ...