Pros and Cons of Legalizing Marijuana in America

Did you know that marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, with 19.8 million past-month users according to the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That year, marijuana was used by 81.0 percent of current illicit drug users. Now think if every state in America was to legalize marijuana. There would be so many pros and cons that will change the economy. In this paper I will tell u all the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana. Some pros are that it will help cure many illnesses and different forms of pain, it will decrease the crime rate, and will help the economy. But, as a result of legalizing marijuana there will be cons. For example it will affect teens, harm the person smoking marijuana, and harm those around the person

then the crime rate will decrease. There will be less drug dealers roaming the street. In the article “New schools, Less crimes: Colorado sees the benefits of legalizing marijuana” by Kit O’Connell, she does some research and finds out that there are less drug dealers roaming streets. The reason is because there are people who open marijuana stores and sells it for less. So as a result, there are less drug dealers because they start to lose their customers. For example, if Jim sell marijuana for $10 but the marijuana store sells it for $5, then more people will go to the store instead of Jim. As a result that is less people ending up in

Most people think that smoking marijuana will not hurt you, but they are wrong. In the article “This is your brain on drugs” by Abigail Sullivan Moore, she tells us what marijuana actually does to your body. One of the ways marijuana affects the body is by messing with your brain. It cause you to lose I.Q. points and lose memory. Those who start smoking around the age of 18-25, by time they reach the age of 35 will lose on average 8 I.Q. points and have a hard time remembering things. Marijuana also affects the heart. It slows down the person’s heart rate, which could cause them to die from a heart attack. As you keep reading the article it tells us that the amount of people going to the hospital for drug related symptoms. For example, I was watching the news and a month or two after marijuana was legalized, 59 people had died from either overdose or a heart attack. Even though it can help heal a lot of people, if using it too much it can kill