Marijuana arrests account for almost half of all drug arrests in the United States, which spends $4 billion a year to catch, prosecute and incarcerate offenders. Thats a lot of tax payer's money.
Do you know why weed is illegal?? The reason why it is illegal today is a completely different reason why it was first made illegal, back in the 1930's, during the "reefer madness era" many million dollar companies felt threatened by marijuana, it was such a usefull plant, that it could put them out of business, so they began to lie continuosly to the people, just so that marijuana would be made illegal and to save their companies.Anyways, today, some people say, "its illegal because its bad for your body and it can kill you." If this was true then why are cigarettes still legal?? Weed is illegal only because the government cannot make any money from it being sold. Thats why cigarettes are still legal, its legal because the government put a tax on it, so they make money everytime somebody buys a pack. Tobacco kills over 470,000 people every year in the U.S., plus its addictive, weed isnt addictive, and it kills 0 people every year.
I also found that of the 734,000 marijuana arrests in 2000, only 6 percent resulted in a felony conviction. So they caught all those people, and they could only convict 6 percent of them.
For years now people have been misrepresenting the effects of marijuana. For example, the legislation claims, "There is evidence that (marijuana) has addictive properties similar to heroin and other similar illegal controlled substances." Studies on both human and animal data show that marijuana is less adictive than alcohol and tobacco, much less cocaine and heroin. About 1/4 of people who try heroin become addicted . For alcohol, the figure is about 15 percent. But of those who try marijuana, less than 10 percent become addicted.
Alright, its time for me to stop talking about all these statistics, Im going to let everybody know my personal opinion on weed. I personally think that weed actually saves lives every day. Because there are a lot of people in the world that just have so many problems and sometimes they feel that they just cant handle it anymore, and sometimes when things get really rough, people start looking to suicide. Some people actually go through with it. Other people sit down, pull out there weed, there pipe, and a lighter, and get lost in the clouds. Weed allows you to escape from reality for awhile, it lets you take a break from your problems, and it can clear your mind.
I realize that there are some bad things about marijuana, such as when people start selling, and they get too caught up into everything and they start hurting other people, but all that would go away if the government would only legalize marijuana. Lets say, if weed was legal, and they started selling it at every corner sotre, drug dealers would go out of business, because why would you call the drug dealer that lives across town to deliver you some bud when you can just walk up to the corner store and pick it up yourself.
There are more dangerous drugs than marijuana (cocaine, heroin, extasy). And i feel that it is time that the government quit being selfish and greedy and they legalize marijuana. I feel that the legalization of marijuana wont just save the U.S. $4 billion dollars a year, but it could also save lives. Its time that the Weed Smokers of America come together.
-Nelson Escobar
