Persuasive Essay On Legalizing Marijuana

The legalization of marijuana in the United States is a very controversial topic. The legalization of cannabis would: boost revenue, allow wider access for medical use, increase personal freedoms, promote more effective criminal justice and law enforcement, and permit safety controls on the substance. Prohibition on cannabis costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. Legalizing marijuana and establishing appropriate regulations for the use and distribution of marijuana, would allow for ample money to be saved and put into the economy. People inside and outside the medical field argue that marijuana is effective in treating a range of health conditions, including Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and posttraumatic stress disorder. The government intrudes on personal freedom by limiting the use of marijuana to the citizens. Smoking cannabis is generally considered as a “victimless crime”, where only the user is at risk of …show more content…
“Associated with marijuana prohibition comes many government intrusions into personal life including invasion of privacy, loss of freedom due to imprisonment, civil asset forfeiture and the exclusion of medical patients from a potentially useful medicine. The liberties lost by the population cannot be summed in numbers, but there certainly is a high cost for anyone interested in the rights of the individual” (Melton). The government’s interference into the choices of each and every individual is an affront to personal sovereignty and supposes that the government knows what’s best for you better than you do. “Many great scholars have pondered upon what rights every individual has been endowed, and it has been concluded by some that as long as an individual does not harm others in their actions, they should have a right to act freely without fear of repercussions, what we put into our bodies should be our choice entirely”