There are several advantages to legalizing marijuana. Besides the recreational values, it’s been proven to have certain positive medicinal values. It can also create a whole new source or revenue in taxes to the federal and state governments. What’s more, current funding for the persecution and prosecution of marijuana smuggling, growing, selling, and using could be used, perhaps more effectively, in other areas.

Those who favor prohibition however claim several disadvantages. Most of these focus on mental and physical health issues that have yet to be proven convincingly. Others, make the claim that the legalizatio

Since NORML's petition in 1972, there have been a variety of legal decisions concerning marijuana. “From 1973 to 1978, 11 states adopted statutes that decriminalized use of marijuana, although most all of them re-criminalized marijuana use in the 1980s and 1990s.”(Joy,17)

First, however, I feel it is important for us to take a quick glance at the origins of our current laws against marijuana and how they progressed to where we are today. Marijuana was first regulated at the federal level by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which required anyone producing, distributing, or using marijuana for medical purposes to register and pay a tax and which effectively prohibited non-medical use of the drug. Although the act did not make medical use of marijuana illegal, it did make it expensive and inconvenient. In 1942, marijuana was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia because it was believed to be a harmful and addictive drug that caused psychoses, mental deterioration, and violent behavior.

Another clear advantage of legalizing marijuana comes in the form of taxation. The Federal and State governments currently have special taxes for tobacco and alcohol. Currently, the Federal tax on tobacco is $0.34 per pack. That equals billions of dollars raised annually through the tobacco tax alone. Imagine a similar tax on marijuana. Whether the figure is in the billions of millions, the fact of the matter is it’s more money coming in than there is now. This money could be used, to give an example, to fund drug prevention programs in our schools or community centers. The bottom line is, whatever the money is used for, it will be coming from the marijuana market which currently provides 0 dollars to the communities it is found in.

Now that we have gone over a brief history of marijuana in the US we can get to the matter at hand. The most widely accepted argument for the legalization of marijuana is the medical use argument.

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