During my first semester in college, I was charged with simple possession of marijuana and soon after my closest high school friends were charged with simple possession of marijuana at their college. We all started using marijuana in high school and thought of the plant as a harmless recreational activity rather than a dangerous drug, the older generations told us it was. We were all able to get this charge off our records with minimum punishment, which was fine until I was applying for an apartment in which I was refused a lease because I was a “criminal”. I was shocked and taken aback that this nonviolent crime suddenly had a major impact that could negatively affect my future. This experience started to make me think about the negative stigmas surrounding marijuana as well as how this nonviolent crime has affected other people’s lives. It also made me think about how different my experience would have been if I wasn’t white, which could have led to receiving a harsher punishment. I believe, marijuana decriminalization and legalization would bring a positive impact to America’s economy and would help change the unproportionable amount of arrests of minorities, by cutting costs of resources used as well as profit gained from taxes and having law enforcement focus on the bigger issues plaguing communities instead of this nonviolent crime.

Before I begin my main argument, I would like to define what marijuana is and bring up the stereotypical arguments surrounding marijuana to give the audience a better understanding of the background. Marijuana is a plant that when heated and ingested, its main compound THC is released and absorbed into the body to make the user feel an euphoric high. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, “Marijuana is properly categorized under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act” (1). A Schedule I substance means that the substance “has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical value in treatment in the United States, and evidence that there is a general lack of accepted safety for its use even under medical supervision” (Drug Enforcement Admin 1). 

The main argument many push for marijuana legalization is that it has positive medical effects for its users. Many studies have been done showing that marijuana can be used to treat Glaucoma, help stop the spread of cancer in patients, and could be used as a minor pain reliever. Many oppose this argument stating that it has no medical benefit for its users but claim that it causes memory loss, decrease in cognitive function, and an increase in cancer. Depending on how marijuana is ingested, like if it is smoked, it can cause an increase in lung cancer due to the fact of smoking it and anything a user smokes can have negative effects leading to lung cancer. If the plant is ingested in another way, the chance of cancer decreases severely. Another common myth about marijuana is that it is an addictive, gateway drug that can cause serious harm in its users. Adam Conover from Adam Ruins Everything goes to explain that marijuana isn’t as harmful as everyone thinks it is and “Counting deaths from the substance alone, tobacco kills 480,000 people a year (CDC), alcohol kills 88,000 (NIH) , and marijuana kills absolutely no one (Sharpio)”. As for addiction in marijuana, addiction can happen for some marijuana users but it is rare. Lastly, many people are afraid of marijuana being a gateway drug that leads into harder drugs and according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration study in 2012, they found that most users of marijuana don’t continue the practice. 

John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy chief, told Dan Baum: 

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” (Baum 1)

This began the reign of arrests for nonviolent crimes and harassments on minorities and their community. This continues today as a majority of minorities, heavily focused on African American communities, are being incarcerated for possession of marijuana more than white people. The New York Times looked at federal data and found that “black Americans were nearly four times as likely to be arrested on charges of marijuana possession in 2010, even though the two groups used the drug at similar rates…” (Urbina). It is clear that racial bias is present with this drug and present in our legal system.  Michael Render, also known as Killer Mike, exemplifies this injustice in his song Reagan (2012) by saying, “They declared the war in drugs like a war on terror/ But what it really did was let the police terrorize whoever/ but mostly black boys.” Killer Mike saw first hand how the war on drugs plagued his neighborhood and how African Americans were being targeted by the police and now speaks out against it through his music. There are those who think the arrests happen in communities of people who earn low income, but the ACLU reports that “racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests exist regardless of county household income levels, and are greater in middle income and more affluent counties”(Edwards 17). 

So if African Americans and whites use the drug at the same rate and household income levels do not affect the rate of arrests for this nonviolent crime, why is there an unproportionable amount of African Americans being arrested for it. Going back to John Ehrlichman, the war on drugs was made to protect the Nixon, and later Reagan, administration’s power. It soon become second nature for police to arrest minorities for nonviolent possession crimes due to the high incentive to arrest people who commit low-level offenses. To this day, it still has plagued minority communities ruining lives and tearing apart families. That’s where legalization of marijuana will help stop these unproportionable arrests. The outcome to this solution will be police spending their time and effort to focus on higher level offenses, such as illegal distribution from cartels, possession of life threatening drugs, an other violent crimes. 

Beto O’Rourke discusses how his hometown has became one of the most dangerous cities in the world due to cartels controlling everything and making sure their product and profit is protected. In his book, Dealing Death And Drugs : The Big Business Of Dope In The U.S. And Mexico: An Argument For Ending The Prohibition Of Marijuana, he says “North America consumes illegal drugs, Mexico supplies them. When there is interference between the supply and demand, people start dying (O’Rourke 15). O’Rourke is in favor of ending the prohibition of marijuana to help put an end to the cartels that are doing more harm to their communities than the people using the drugs. If legalization were to happen, the cartels would have one less product to sell, which could mean less chance of innocent people dying from being caught in the middle and less crime. Many people believe that with marijuana legalization would mean an increase in crime rates in cities, but from Rourke’s perspective if marijuana were to remain illegal it would give more power to the cartels and only make his hometown more dangerous. 

My next paragraph will go into the topic of how marijuana legalization will help the economy and discuss how the industry needs legalization so the banks will legitimize and actually give business accounts. Then for the conclusion, im thinking of summing up my arguments and addressing how this could benefit everyone. 
