Recreational Marijuana Legalization

Recreational marijuana has many benefits in society today. It has gone through history as a drug grouped together with heroin, meth and cocaine. Grouping them together is highly unrealistic. There are many reasons that marijuana prohibition has done more harm than good and , if legalized, won't cause a massive American meltdown. I will start with 5 reasons and you may rebuttal any of them. 1) Marijuana's health benefits greatly outweigh the risks accociated with them. The main medical risk i hear about is the fact that when you smoke it it damages your lungs. There is truth to that. Inhaling a hot smoke can damage the lungs and can leave tar everywhere. However the reason that happens is because it's not filtered like it is in a cigarette. The inhaling hot smoke predicament can be solved by using a bong which filters out the tar using water leafing a fresh clean smoke and it cools down the smoke considerably. Besides you can get oils, patches, and edibles. Thus most of the dangerous part of marijuana on your health is stopped. (Source: http://www.truthonpot.com... ). That only leaves the mental health side of things. Sure it has an effect on you brain but in the studies done in 2011 on a large swath of people who had a control group and a group of heavy marijuana users what happened suprised the professors. The brain had a few changes that weren't substantial and didn't prove to be a dangerous change. It was just a small difference with no substancial threat. For their reaction times change. That can only be expected from a mind altering drug ( Source: http://m.jneurosci.org... ) it's a 2015 study. Plus the benefits are much greater. It all starts with the reduced risk of many cancers and dangerous diseases including Heart disease, osteoporosis, and can even helps the brain after a traumatic brain injury. http://www.tokeofthetown.com... 2) Marijuana doesn't cause an increase in violent crime. The claim that it does is wrong and has negitively been used to tarnish marijuana and say it's a danger to society. Use this article as an example http://www.iowamedicalmarijuana.org... 3) Marijuana can add money into the economy and add another trade with canada. The tax revenue in the first year of colorado alone was 63 million and is projected to grow up to 1 billion by 2016 (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com... ) now multiply that by 50 to get a gross estimate of the amount of total revenue per year. Now isn't that a lot of money. Extra link: http://norml.org... 4) If the legalization were nationwide then the cartels would feel quite the smack. If texas and new mexico, their biggest target consumers, were to legalize it they would feel a huge decrease in revenue. About 17% and only in those 2 states and California. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com... ). 5) Keeping marijuana illegal is a waste of time and tax dollars it cost 14 billion a year to keep it illegal (Source: http://www.prohibitioncosts.org... ). Not only that, your life can be completely ruined. Even being arrested and not convicted is enough to put a damaging mark on a persons record. Even for having a gram or an empty bong on theirselves. Plus it adds so many people in prison for a non-violent crime. 88% of drug arrests were for normal people possessing small amounts of marijuana. (Source: https://www.aclu.org... ) Read this to see how damaging it really is for an arrest for possessing marijuana https://www.aclu.org... 6) I know i said 5 but i had to bring up another topic. The alcohol and tobacco vs. marijuana topic. I won't get so deep into this but i will add a link for you to read http://bgr.com... That source has a like to the actual study. Those are a few reasons that marijuana should be legal. You may provide your assertions