When I first heard about this blog project, I decided to pick my topic because I thought that it was something new that people would find interesting. I had no clue that as many people have thought about this idea before as in depth as I had found they did. I had no clue that a bill was just about to be voted on November 2 to decide if it should be legalized. The main reason I thought that my topic was good was because of all of the economic advantages that legalizing marijuana could do. The U.S. National debt is somewhere close to 13 trillion dollars. From all the research that I learned, I concluded that legalizing marijuana could bring in about 10 million a year from saving on prison and arrest costs and anywhere from 50-100 million dollars on taxes, imports and industries that would produce it. The exact number is unknown because no one knows exactly how much marijuana is smoked in the U.S. With all that said, I quickly learned that marijuana probably wasn't going to be able to bring America out of debt like I thought it might. The main reason I had for thinking marijuana should be legalized, I was able to prove wrong in only a few short minutes. Even the president thinks that marijuana shouldn't be legalized. How was I going to be able to convince people other wise. I began to do more research and I quickly learned that there were more benefits than economic. I had no clue that marijuana was being used in the medical field to help cure people. A drug that is illegal in society was being used to help cure people around the country. I had doubts in the beginning that I would be able to convey a strong point for my topic but I soon learned that there were even more benefits to my topic. Drug cartels all over benefit greatly from illegally importing marijuana into our country. If marijuana was legalized, companies would begin producing in the U.S. and as soon as they did, drug cartels would lose money. The drug would be able to lower crime rates around the country just by being legalized. Debates have gone back in forth over whether the drug should be legalized or not and there are many pros and cons to each side of the argument. I don't know for sure if the drug will ever be legalized, but I can tell you that just by my research over the past few weeks, I have learned great amounts of knowledge that has transformed my opinion on this topic. I truely do think that marijuana should be legalized and I have the knowledge and the information to prove it.
Dear SNP,
ReplyDeleteI too had the exact same thoughts going into this blog project. I knew nothing really about the many advantages of legalizing marijuana. It’s amazing how many positives there would be if the drug was made legal. I, like you, only knew that it would make money and jobs for the US. Learning about medical marijuana and all the other major benefits of legalization was eye opening. I’m very glad I learned all of this information but at the same time it’s disheartening. I spent a month learning about all of the positives that would come to America from the legalization of weed and it is so discouraging to see articles like this http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2010/10/eric_holder_marijuana.php that completely ignore all of the evidence that legalization is a good thing. It seems like the leaders in this country are unable to look past the stigmas surrounding weed and address this issue. We just keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing. That still leaves us with 700,000+ people in jail each year for just possession of marijuana and millions of wasted tax dollars going towards fighting a losing battle. I am just waiting for the day that the people of America decide to step up and fight for a better country.
haha snp? I meant SCP!
ReplyDeleteThank you for liking my blog, your blog is also very interesting Lacey.
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