Legalizing Marijuana Research Paper

Rong Rong
Professor Kate Carpenter
Philosophy 25
4 February 2016 Recreational Marijuana Should Be Legalized
In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first two states that legalized recreational marijuana. The sale of marijuana was no longer illegal. Even in Colorado’s law, growing marijuana for personal use was allowed. Whether recreational marijuana should be legalized has been a controversy since the last century. Those who oppose the legalization suggest that marijuana is addictive and harmful to health, and government should ban it in to protect citizens’ health. Those who support the legalization hold the view that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Also, they insist that they have personal right to

It is estimated that “billions of dollars [will be] spent making/growing, transporting, dealing/selling and consuming drugs which the U.S. Government could be taxing” (Cheng). Moreover, CNN has made a conservative estimation in 2005 that if marijuana became legal, the US government would have earned a tax revenue close up to billion dollars. Second, since marijuana is illegal and consumers can only purchase it in the black market, the dealers set high price for marijuana and they gain extremely high profits without being taxed. The US government gives these dealers a huge tax break by allowing them to stay in the black market, while the government misses an opportunity to gain potential tax

These people hold the view that with the legal access to marijuana, an increasing number of people will commit crimes such as burglary and driving under the influence. Nevertheless, it is predicted that the legalization of marijuana contributes to the reduce of criminal activity. Colorado is the first state that legalizes recreational marijuana and it is successful in bringing in millions of dollars of tax revenue per month as well as reducing crime rate. As the capital of Colorado State, Denver shows a trend of reducing crime after the legalization of marijuana. According to the data from the Denver Police Department, “violent crime fell by 6.9% in the first quarter of 2014, compared with the same period in 2013. Property crime dropped by 11.1%”. In the data, we can learn that crime rate dropped greatly as marijuana was no longer prohibited in