The United States Should Legalize Marijuana for Recreational Use

Racism & Poverty: Nothing for me to rebut here, any concerns Con raises here would be solved through legalization as well. Why Legalization Won’t Work:Crime: Con begins by focussing on stats coming out of California. However, there is a large problem doing this. Marijuana for recreational use is not legal in California. In fact, California’s marijuana laws are closer to Con’s plan than mine. In California, marijuana (for recreational use) is often considered a “misdemeanor” and punishment is done via fines, not jail time. (1) This is much like (if not exactly like), “The United States...should eliminate its mandatory minimum sentencing reduce the crime of possession of Marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor.” So for this reason, any arguments Con made based on statistics from California should be ignored. However, it still is worth rebutting the point with stats from areas where marijuana for recreational use is legal. Con starts off saying that legal marijuana would only drop 4.4% in price from the black market. First of all, that alone should end illegal drug use, since it’s cheaper and safer, so no rational person would still try to buy illegal marijuana. Second, Con’s source (http://www.rand.org...) never even states that there would be a 4.4% drop in the price of legal marijuana. Another problem with this assertion, is that marijuana on the black market doesn’t have a typically agreed upon rate. It highly depends on the dealer, the situation, quality, etc. What we can be certain of though, is that with legalization in Colorado, price of marijuana has only been getting lower and lower, despite still growing as an industry, which would further kill any remaining black market. (2) Overall though, Con’s main point is that crime will increase if marijuana is legal. However, the facts from Colorado and Washington dispute this. Both states have seen a drop in violent crime, since legalization (on top of the obvious decrease in marijuana related arrests). (3, 4) That is the complete opposite of Con’s claim that legal marijuana will increase violent crime, which as mentioned above was dependent on stats from a state where marijuana isn’t even legal for recreational use. Seeing as I have shown data from states where marijuana is legal to disprove Con’s claims, which relied on data from a state where marijuana isn’t legal for recreational use, I have successfully disproved Con’s claims regarding crime. Schooling: Con essentially argues here that marijuana use will increase if marijuana is legal, specifically among younger people. First off, Washington hasn’t seen an increase in marijuana usage among youth, since it has become legal. (5) One of the main reasons is that marijuana would still be illegal for those under 18 years of age. There are also some problems with the medical marijuana related study Con cited from the NBER. They (http://www.nber.org...) claim they got their information from the 2004-2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. However, if you actually look at that, it tells a different story (see the below graphs). (6) This data suggests very little difference in usage, over the time period. On top of that, another study regarding medical marijuana legalization and teen usage from experts from various universities, also shows little change in teen marijuana usage. (7) However, marijuana use has been for the most part increasing in the country since the War on Drugs among teens (as shown in my argument last round, Education is Superior to Bans), even though the opposite has been shown in alcohol and tobacco. Same argument here, it would be better to raise awareness about the dangers of marijuana and help those who abused it, than expect that simply banning it will be the best way to solve high usage. The money for that can even be found from taxes from marijuana sales (from my argument Taxation). Sources: 1- http://www.canorml.org... 2- http://time.com... 3- http://www.drugpolicy.org... 4- https://www.drugpolicy.org... 5- http://www.drugpolicy.org... 6- https://www.whitehouse.gov... 7- http://blogs.chicagotribune.com...