2010 Legalize Marijuana?

Obama’s View on Legalization

In January 2004, when Obama was running for the Senate, he told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use or possession. "I think the war on drugs has been a failure, and I think we need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws," he was quoted saying at a debate at a university.

While at a recent online town hall event he was submitted with a high number of questions from online viewers asking Obama what he will do about our disastrous national marijuana policy. "I don't know what this says about the online audience," Obama joked. "This was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is no, I don't think that's a good strategy to grow our economy. More than 2,100,000 people submitted a question asking in relation to marijuana policy. His denial to discuss it and not supporting his online audience which believes he should overhaul the war on drugs got him a lot of resentment from his network audience. He is frequently pressed about marijuana.

The arrests are at an all time high of 48% for just marijuana itself. In 2007 they noted 775,000 people entering criminal justice system for marijuana related offenses. Obama has been noted many times saying that’s nonsense and that something should be done about it.
65 to 70% of the drug cartels fuel for their market comes from Marijuana; the Senate committee has brought into question how to take out the profit of marijuana. One of the senators also bravely noted that it is only fueled because our country has a very high supply and demand for marijuana.

Although this is a bad time for Obama and he has many issues to concern, he still needs to address our public policy on marijuana as it has obviously failed. We’re arresting the wrong people and spending billions of tax dollars on a democracy that has a majority supporting decriminalization. The fact that Obama has openly talked about the policy many times crushes the myth of America’s prohibition on marijuana. Though his views are on both sides and have changed from time to time we’re sure to see more. California has even approached adding total decriminalization to the ballots.

Why legalize?

The majority says to have tried it or at one time knew someone who smoked. Often people consider it less severe than alcohol on all levels. The statistics show that people who die from alcohol related incidents are way higher than any marijuana fatalities, which aren't even listed because the number is so small. Alcohol deaths average roughly 40,000 a year. Aids takes roughly 18,000 life’s a year. In comparison it’s clear that alcohol is worse yet we’re still allowed to purchase it.

The war on drugs has been an issue and for marijuana it’s virtually endless. The time spent prosecuting, the cash spent jailing citizens for petty possession charges, and fighting drug cartels is costing the country countless dollars for something that’s no less harmful than our legal products of tobacco and alcohol. If we also controlled it we could tax it and cut out the cartels efforts and bring them to their fall on the marijuana level. This in turn would help out Mexico among other poor countries that import this product with high death rates because of cartels. Our economy could recover at a better rate without having to prosecute so many people because marijuana use is at its peak.

Economist Stephen T. Easton attempted to calculate how much tax revenue the Canadian government could gain by legalizing marijuana. They came to the conclusion that eventually entrepreneurs would start their own grow over a period of legalization to where the government could no longer receive a substantial tax producing themselves, but would be able to deploy a growers fee which in turn could bring about a big profit. Not to mention it would be way safer in a controlled setting because it would be grown without hormones, among other chemicals that could be harmful to a person, including steroids.

Interesting Marijuana research

Marijuana increases brain cell growth: http://b3b4d5f2.viraldatabase.com


Marijuana myths: http://476dc34d.viraldatabase.com