Legalization of Marijuana (Essay Sample)

Legalization of marijuana
Student’s Name
University Affiliated
Legalization of Marijuana
The advocacy for marijuana has hit headlines in many countries, receiving various responses on whether to legalize the use of the herb or not. U.S. is not left out in the debate on legalization of marijuana, against all odds research done on marijuana legalization has received more approval compared to cases of not legalizing marijuana (Bennett & Walsh, 2014). On November 4th of 2014, Oregon and Alaska were granted the mandated to legalize marijuana, joining the twenty-three states in the United States to legalize the use of marijuana.
Factors that promoted the use of marijuana
There have been various reasons that lead to the legalization of marijuana, most states have supported the use of the drugs for medical purposes and encouraged the state government to allow its use. Whereas others have considered the use of marijuana as a recreational drug advocating for it legalization just like and alcohol or tobacco. The most states legalized marijuana for medical purposes though recently Alaska State legalized the use of marijuana as a recreational drug. It allowed people to own marijuana not only for medical use but also for recreation.
Negative factor of legalization of marijuana
Following the legalization of marijuana in Alaska as a recreational drug, there have been increasing reports of traffic driving under the influence of drugs. The rate of traffic accident under the influence of marijuana has increased steadily, with police arresting many victims driving under the influence of marijuana. Moreover, cases of students use of the drug has also increased, schools are facing a high number of students use of marijuana and violence related to the use. Most hit victims of marijuana violence are in colleges, whereby suspensions, expulsion and college dropout have increased due to violence related to the use of cannabis. Incident of drug exposure to children in families has increased, indicating extensive use of drugs by youths under the age of eighteen.
Positive effect of legalization
Legalization of marijuana as its positive contribution to the state’s economic development, ever since Alaska legalized the use of marijuana as a recreational drug its economy is thriving than expected. The legalization of the drug has increased the State’s tax revenue since the government now collects tax from various marijuana operational business and ownership. People who own marijuana farms or are selling the drug are taxed just like normal commodities. The government collects massive tax revenue from marijuana since its legalization.
Another benefit of legalizing the drug has been attributed to the job opportunities, owing to the developing of the marijuana industry. People have secured different jobs related to marijuana, whereby, people have opened shops that sell and distribute marijuana, marijuana farms hiring workers among other activities. Additionally, since the legalization of marijuana, arrests of marijuana possession have ended. Therefore, give police more time to concentrate on other rated cr...