Legalize It: Hypocrisy and Inefficiency Term Paper

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The drug cartels will lose money if marijuana is legalized, there's no question. Other entities also stand to make a lot of money if the plant and rug is legalized, and some of these entities could really put it to good use. As one of the biggest cash crops in the country (the biggest by far, according to some measures), the tax revenues that could potentially be earned from the sale of marijuana easily stretch into the billions, while several more billions of taxpayer dollars could be saved every year simply by ceasing to arrest or prosecute marijuana possession cases. Budget shortfalls could be significantly impacted by a move that many see as the only practical solution anyway.

In the four decades since President Richard Nixon fired the first shot in the War on Drugs, drug abuse has drastically increased instead of being reduced. The one-hundred million dollars that the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was originally conceived to cost has grown to well over one trillion dollars at this point, with more than fifteen billion dollars of taxpayer money spent in 2010 alone on the War on Drugs as a whole, with at least half of these dollars going to fight marijuana. An extensive examination of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports shows that from 1980 to 2010, over ten million arrests have been made for marijuana possession. Again, that is just for possession -- for having any small amount of pot and/or paraphernalia on your person or in your property. The number of arrests made during the same time period for the sale and/or distribution of marijuana? Less than one-and-a-half million. Almost ten times as many people were arrested in the past thirty years for possessing as opposed to selling marijuana, and in some states even possession of less than an ounce can get you six months in jail for a first offense.

The disproportionate and ineffective response to marijuana use as a part of the War on Drugs is readily apparent to most people who objectively look at the facts, and there is one very important group that is helping to make this clear.

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More and more law enforcement officials and policy advisers are coming out in support of marijuana's legalization, believing marijuana arrests result in an unnecessary drain on already strained resources. In addition, a simple marijuana arrest can create criminals through exposure in jails and even closes off student loan opportunities.

A 2008 poll conducted by Zogby found that 75% of the population of the United States believes that the War on Drugs is failing. A look at empirical facts confirms this less-scientific finding: again, drug use has drastically increased in the forty years since the War on Drugs began, and the ubiquitous nature of marijuana as a part of American life and culture much like alcohol is apparent from references in music, sitcoms, movies, literature and the like. Even though the people of the United States clearly recognize that the War on Drugs generally and the War on Marijuana specifically are misguided efforts at social control that waste valuable tax dollars and other resources while actually funding more violent and significant crimes, the federal government has yet to make any significant adjustment to its practice of drug prosecution and persecution. Even with the economy and the political situations more dire than they've been for generations, money and energy is still being wasted by the bucketful on the fires burning in joints, pipes, and bongs throughout this country regardless. This money could be much better spent elsewhere, and the taxes that would come in could be used to fund any number of stumbling state and federal programs.

It is not wrong to want a populous that is free of unhealthy drug dependencies and that does not suffer social or economic blight from drug abuse. The War on Drugs and its focus on marijuana, however, does nothing to combat these issues, and may even exacerbate them. It is time to legalize marijuana so that it can be regulated and….....

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