Legalization of Marijuana :: legalized marijuana

Legalization of Marijuana Marijuana is the cause of much commotion and debating, as the question of legalization becomes more of an issue. Drugs are a major influential force in countries all over the world today. Legalization is an option that has not had a chance, but really should be given one. Although many people feel that legalizing marijuana would increase the amount of drug use, marijuana should be legalized because it will reduce the great amount of money spent on enforcement, and will therefore increase our countries revenue and lessen crime, and will also be useful in treating certain medical conditions. Marijuana, also known as pot, weed, bud, herb, ghanja, grass, wacky tabacci, funky bhudda, green, indo, mary jane, hemp, kif, bones, funny stuff, etc. is a substance obtained from the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant. It is technically known as cannabis sativa and is a tall, widely cultivated Asian herb of the mulberry family. There are many di fferent ways of getting this drug into one's system. The most common method consists of rolling the finely chopped substance in thin papers to make marijuana cigarettes or joints. It is also smoked through a pipe or through a water filtration system known as a bong. Legalization is considered unnecessary by many people. They feel that it will increase the amount of drug use throughout the world. They state that in many cases, drug users who have quit, quit because of trouble with the law. Legalization would eliminate the legal forces that discourage the users from using or selling drugs. They also say that by making drugs legal, the people who have never tried drugs for fear of getting caught by the law, will have no reason to be afraid anymore and will become users (Snyder, 1988). Legalization will be profitable to global economies in two ways. It will allow for money spent on drug law enforcement to be spent more wisely and it will increase revenue. There have been escalating cost s spent on the war against drugs and countless dollars spent on rehabilitation. Every year in the United States, ten billion dollars are spent on enforcing drug laws alone. Drug violators accounted for about forty percent of all criminals in federal prisons (Marijuana retains.., 1990, p.A-6). In 1989, a Republican county executive of Mercer County, N.J., estimated that it would costs approximately one billion dollars to build the jail space required to house all the drug users in Trenton alone(Talah, 1993, p.