Legalizing Marijuana: Help or Hindrance?

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There is no denying that there are problems with the marijuana laws currently in place in the United States. Left and right, there are people using marijuana with blatant disregard to the fact that it is, in fact, prohibited. The black market for marijuana is surging out of control. As a result of this, drug-related street crimes have become more prevalent, which, in turn, has increased the number of offenders in prison for those crimes. This is very costly to the United States government. Also, there are personal dangers involved with buying drugs on the black market. By legalizing marijuana, the government could help solve the problems caused by the laws that are currently in place. Several effects of marijuana prohibition have to do with the economy; improving our economic state would be a major benefit of marijuana legalization. First of all, illegal sales of marijuana are booming. According to an article on Cedro-uva.org, people often pay over eight dollars a gram for the drug, spending approximately nine billion dollars each year (Harrison)! Most of these costs are solely due to dealer inflation. Drugs are often purchased and resold multiple times, their prices increasing with each sale. Dealers sell their product for hundreds of times the production costs, making huge personal profits with each sale. This money then leaves the economic system and ends up instead in the dealers’ pockets. Having less money circulating in the economy places strain on the system. In this way, illegal sales of marijuana are directly contributing to the economic deficit in which our country is currently finding itself. If marijuana were made legal, the government could tax it highly, which would raise billions of dollars in revenue that could... ... middle of paper ... ...edro-uva.org/lib/harrison.cannabis.04.html>. Henningfield, Jack E. "Addictive Properties of Popular Drugs." Drug War Facts. 2 Aug. 1994. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. . "NIDA InfoFacts: Marijuana.” National Institute of Drug Abuse, Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. . "Marijuana Use and Its Effects." WebMD - Better Information. Better Health. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. . Messerli, Joe. "Should Marijuana Be Legalized under Any Circumstances?" BalancedPolitics.org. 6 Aug. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. . Thomas, Chuck. “Marijuana Arrest and Incarceration in the United States.” Ron Mullins For United States Senate (D). Web. 11 Dec. 2011. .

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