In the year 2011, United States of America finds itself in an economically desperate situation. While the Obama administration keeps on investing money in order to stimulate the economy, which is deep in debt, it appears to ignore easier solutions. Easier solutions like legalizing marijuana, which might seem outrageous to the average propaganda brainwashed American, but when you look at the real facts, the consequences are not that desperate compared to the benefits, and the current economical situation. Seems to me that legalizing that “devils weed” might just be the best way to climb out of this crisis.

To give you some background info on this drug, were going to start from the beginning. During the 1900’s, the popularity of marijuana grew outrageously in the U.S., causing a lot people to try this new drug, and people loved it. Seeing how popular the drug was becoming, the government took action to try to minimize use of this drug, thinking it will cause harm to the citizens, or as another theory goes, they saw the vast uses of marijuana as medicine, and in order to keep the pharmaceutical companies running, they illegalized it so they could instead sell us man made drugs and make profit. The government put out propaganda films such as “Reefer Madness”, which presented marijuana incorrectly, showing fake disturbing pictures of people that are using marijuana. The films hugely over exaggerated the side effects of the drug, brainwashing the people’s minds to think that marijuana is as terrible as a drug can get.

Now having said that, you know why legalization of marijuana appears to be such an outrageous act to the public. But in a lot of unbiased people’s opinions, it really isn’t, and that’s a hard thing to say since we have no experience with such an action in the modern day world. But the facts show that it would not come with such tremendous consequences. Instead, it would help our economy greatly, in many, many ways.

First of all, the U.S. spends about 10 billion dollars annually just dealing with people imprisoned for marijuana, but the overall amount of money spent on fighting marijuana in the U.S. is almost in the hundred billion dollar range. But if we looked at the 40 billion tax dollars it just costs to keep the anti-marijuana laws, we could do great things with this money; perhaps give our teachers a 15% raise, which would only use up 15 million dollars, leaving 25 billion left over. Or maybe we could hire 880 thousand new teachers at the average salary of 47,000 dollars a year, think of how that would help teachers concentrate on teaching rather than managing 40 kids in a classroom. As you can see, just dropping the charges that it costs to keep it illegal will greatly benefit our economy already.

The tax money that the government could gather from taxing marijuana would be large also, helping the economy greatly once again. The industry would create many jobs, especially great for disabled people who could just grow marijuana in their home, later selling it to dispensaries in bulk amounts to be distributed. It would be a far more controlled and regulated process unlike drug dealers who often use violence to solve any problems that get in the way of their profitable business.

Many people might argue that if Marijuana was legalized, there would be no significance other than the fact that dealers won’t have to worry about getting caught again. People also claim that since Marijuana will be so taxed, dealers will still make profit, since buying at the store would be more expensive. However this is far from the reality of the situation, because Marijuana is literally a plant that anyone could grow in they’re backyard. A great example of this is when alcohol prices skyrocketed during prohibition, but stayed lower when alcohol was legal. Even if the demand increases greatly with legalization, which usually causes higher prices on any item, the supply will never run out since anyone can grow it, and prices will never skyrocket, meaning that dealers won’t ever able to profit from it again.

The only skeptical thing about legalizing Marijuana in my eyes is that it might make it more accessible to children. And while I’m not sure what would happen here, after questioning kids who often go to teenager parties, they told me that it is very rare to see people going around trying to sell you alcohol. But on the other hand when it comes to Marijuana, they said it is very common for kids to go around trying to sell you some Marijuana. So why isn’t it the same with alcohol? Well because alcohol is at almost every store you go to. And while some kids are able to access 21 year olds who buy them alcohol, most are not.

So as history has shown before, illegalizing a substance does not work well in America, like it didn’t with alcohol. So why is this substance, which can help us out of our economical crisis, and is safer than alcohol or tobacco still illegal?