Lyszczarz 1

Krzysztof Lyszczarz
Professor Anselmini
English 101-012
28 November 2015
Should marijuana be legalized recreationally?
I believe that marijuana should be legalized for recreational use. Im not saying that I want it
legalized so that people can just go around and smoke pot all day, Im saying that it should be because
legalizing marijuana will be quite helpful to our community. Marijuana will be an easy way to help fix all
the things that need work. For example, the roads, schools, etc. If one thing can get fixed it leads our lives
to a more calming tone. Everything in life is like the domino effect, meaning if one thing falls the rest is
to fall soon. Most people in the world just want marijuana to be legalized for the fact that they can now do
it publicly and dont have to really hide from the police or even worry about getting caught. I dont want
pot to be legalized so I can smoke it whenever I want, I want it to be legalized for all of the benefits that it
could bring us.
Marijuana will help our community out by bringing in a ton of tax money. The Huffington Post
has an article whos title simply says Legalizing Marijuana Would Generate Billions In Additional Tax
Revenue Annually. The article shows that they did a study that was with Colorado and it showed that
they generated $8.7 billion dollars in federal and state tax. This is a ton of money coming from just one
state so if we multiplied that by 50 we would say that the US would generate about 435 trillion dollars in
federal and state tax. All this money would help us take care of problems that we visit every day.
Problems such as potholes, potholes are a terrible everyday struggle that could get fixed easily if we just
had the money for it and now if marijuana was to be legal then we wouldnt have to worry. When I drive
to school and to work I get worried that the roads everyday are going to give me a flat tire and I wont be
able to get to work or school on time or even make it there period. Once the roads get fixed I will be

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living a better life not having to worry about if my tires will explode on my way to school or work. The
least amount of stress I have the better I can focus on more important problems.
Another thing that the tax money could help us with is with the schools. Everyone wants the
schools to be in top notch shape for the students. I went to Linden High School in Linden, NJ and every
day I would hear at least a good handful of students complaining about the schools situation. I would
walk into the hallways and the locker rooms in the gymnasium and it would look and smell absolutely
horrid. To me the food was edible but there are tons of students who hated it and would leave school to
buy food elsewhere or go onto the snack line and just spend their money on fatty foods because they
couldnt stand it. Students would also be freezing during the winter time that they had no choice but to
wear their thick coats just to stay warm, in the summertime the classrooms would get so hot that when
you opened the window it only made it hotter and everyone would be sweaty and in a bad mood. The
books would be very old and ruined with drawings or have pages missing. With the tax money from
marijuana we can provide better food, better books, heat, air conditioning, and a nice inviting
environment for the everyday student to enjoy.
In the law dictionary they talk about how much it usually costs to house inmate per year and it is
roughly 20 to 40 thousand dollars. In another one of the Huffington post articles they say that about 1.5
million people are arrested yearly for drugs. When you multiply 1.5 million by lets say about 30,000 and
it would come out to be $45 trillion dollars that we spend just on housing inmates for drugs. If marijuana
became legal we could stop wasting so much money and actually start using it for better things such as
research for cancer or the development of new medicine. In the cancer article from cancer.gov they say
that Based on growth and aging of the U.S. population, medical expenditures for cancer in the

year 2020 are projected to reach at least $158 billion (in 2010 dollars) an increase of 27 percent
over 2010 from all the money weve been wasting on housing the inmates we could spend it on
finding a cure for cancer and many other things.

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One person that smoked marijuana and still became extremely successful was president
Obama. Obama used to smoke a lot of marijuana when he was younger and he admitted that he
did and wasnt ashamed of it and he still came out to become a senator of Illinois which later on
brought him to becoming president. Barack Obama is living proof that marijuana isnt a bad
thing to legalize. He showed the world that it is okay to smoke marijuana and that you can still
be successful. He shows you that you just need to keep focused and stay on your path towards
your own personal goals no matter what they are and just keep on going. Marijuana didnt slow
down Barack Obama so it shouldnt be an excuse as to why we cant legalize marijuana.
In medicaldaily.com they show how marijuana is safer than alcohol. They say that
marijuana up to date has no reported deaths. For marijuana they say that the amount of THC a
single person would have to smoke is twenty thousand to forty thousand times the amount that is
in a single joint. This means that a single person would have to smoke at least twenty thousand
joints to at least be in risk of some type of danger of dying. This isnt true for alcohol; this is by
far true for alcohol. They say that for alcohol The World Health Organization discovered that
there were about 3.3 million deaths in 2012 because of alcohol consumption. The article shows
that a comparative assessment was published in Scientific Reports found alcohol to be 114 times
more deadly than alcohol. This is something that shows that the USA has something legalized
that causes a tremendous amount of deaths every year when on the other hand marijuana is
illegal and there has been zero reports on any deaths that had anything to do with marijuana
besides the gang violence of course.
Dr. Aaron Carrol says in a CBS news article that if he had to choose between smoking pot
and drinking alcohol he said that he would much rather smoke marijuana rather than drink. He
chose this because it is clear that marijuana has much less health risks than alcohol does. He also

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states that most of the crimes for marijuana arent from people who smoke it, its from the cartel
and gang crimes meaning that they get arrested just for illegal distribution.
I had interviewed an officer from the Linden Police Department to see what he thought. I
had asked him a couple questions such as if marijuana should be legalized. He responded to me
saying In all honesty I think that it is a great idea because it is very tedious to arrest someone for
having pot on them. I believe that it is such a small crime but gets treated so big. Id rather be
doing paperwork rather than having to arrest someone for the possession of marijuana. He
continued with it makes me so furious to have something so small waste so much time and
money. I agreed with the officer and explained how I felt about it which was pretty similar to
his to say the least.
People also say that pot is dangerous because it is a gateway drug. A gateway drug is
something that you start with which you think is something small and then eventually keep
moving onto something stronger. Carrol says that research shows that theres only 9 percent of
people who become dependent or abuse marijuana while in alcohol that number moves on up to
greater than 20 percent. He also says that people who use alcohol have problems with it later on
in life while he says nothing about this for marijuana smokers.
In conclusion legalizing marijuana would be a great idea. It has a ton of benefits for us.
The money that we could make and save from legalizing marijuana will be a tremendous
amount. The money from taxing marijuana could help us build roads and help shape up our
schools. When we legalize marijuana we will save a ton of money just from the jails because it
costs a lot of money just to house one inmate for a year. Obama was someone who smoked a lot
of marijuana and it didnt seem to affect him since he currently is ending his second term as
president of the USA and I would say that he did a great job. Marijuana is a way better choice

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rather than drinking any type of alcohol because it has fewer health risks. Marijuana is also not a
gateway drug so if you smoke marijuana you most likely will not get addicted and want anything
stronger.

Work Cited
O'Connel, Kit. "New Schools, Less Crime: Colorado Sees Benefits Of Marijuana Legalization."
MintPress News. 2015 Copyright Mint Press, LLC, 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/new-schools-less-crime-colorado-sees-benefits-of-marijuanalegalization/208751/
Fairchild, Caroline. "Legalizing Marijuana Would Generate Billions In Additional Tax Revenue
Annually." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Apr. 2013. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/legalizing-marijuana-tax-revenue_n_3102003.html
Burnett, John. "What If Marijuana Were Legal? Possible Outcomes." NPR. NPR, 20 Oct. 2009.
Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103276152
Ferner, Matt. "One Marijuana Arrest Occurs Every 42 Seconds In U.S.: FBI Report." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Oct. 2015. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/one-marijuana-arrest-occu_n_2041236.html
"Cancer Costs Projected to Reach at Least $158 Billion in 2020." National Cancer Institute.
NIH ... Turning Discovery Into Health, 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
http://www.cancer.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/CostCancer2020

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Castillo, Stephanie. "Marijuana vs. Alcohol: What Science Has To Say." Medical Daily. 2015
Medical Daily All Rights Reserved, 06 May 2015. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/marijuana-vs-alcohol-effects-psychoactive-drugs-have-physicaland-mental-health-332094
Lyszczarz, Krzysztof. Legalizing Marijuana. 27 Nov. 2015. Raw data. Nj, Linden.