In recent years, the topic of recreational marijuana legalization in the United States has been more widely and frequently discussed with the movement for legalization rapidly gaining support. A recent petition on The White House website entitled “Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol” received 74,169 signatures, nearly 3 times the amount needed to warrant a response from a policy official in the Obama administration as well as the highest number of signatures received on any petition posted on the site. Polls regarding marijuana conducted regularly since 1969 by Gallup (a company that studies human nature and behavior) regarding marijuana legalization show that support has continued on a slow but steady incline until mid 2010 when 50% of Americans voted in favor, the highest percentage reached. If marijuana trafficking remained illegal in the United States, but marijuana was legalized for medicinal use and decriminalized for possession of small, personal amounts, it would exist in the area of the law safest, healthiest, and best suited for the marijuana user, the public, and the government. Marijuana should be decriminalized because people are currently in prison for the nonviolent crime of possession of small amounts of marijuana. Medical marijuana should be legalized nationally because it would benefit both patents and illegal users. And finally, the corporate takeover of marijuana in the United States would lead to unhealthy consequences.

One reason the United States must decriminalize possession of marijuana is because many people have been arrested for this non-violent crime. If the federal legality of possession of marijuana and the privacy rights of citizens in the United States were altered to a state similar to that of Western Australia, where small, personal amounts of marijuana are legal to possess, or Spain, where growing and using marijuana privately is legal, fewer United States citizens would be in prison on non-violent charges, and the United States could do a better job of focusing their law enforcement on stopping the drug trade that funds street gangs and drug cartels. According to information released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from 1980 to 2010, 10,106,550 people were arrested for possession. This is nearly 10 times the number of people arrested for selling marijuana. Many United States citizens are already illegal users of marijuana, and putting them into federal prisons has done little to stop the further use and purchase of this drug. Possession of personal amounts of marijuana should not be illegal because it is a victimless crime. Possession of even small amounts of marijuana is considered as a class C felony, the minimum jail sentence for which is 10 years(Schaler 74), while the average sentence for rape is 6-7 years(Tempkin 204). Marijuana has already been decriminalized in thirteen US states and the District of Colombia, but because marijuana is illegal on a federal level, possession of even small amounts still counts as a misdemeanor, the consequences for which can include probation, a large fine, mandatory drug classes, and in some cases jail time(Schaler 32).

If marijuana was legal to posses in small amounts, the United States could effectively focus it’s law enforcement on drug cartels and other specific ways that the trade of marijuana funds other illegal activities due to the lack of focus needed on possessors. Even in areas of the US where the primary source of marijuana is through drug cartels, if the US could do a better job of attacking them instead of users, the users would find a new and non-harmful source of marijuana, such as local growers not affiliated with gangs or cartels. This would be especially true if the United States altered their laws about personal privacy rights to match those of Spain, where marijuana can legally be grown and used privately. This would solve the problem of drug cartel and organized crime funding completely. It is important that the United States decriminalize marijuana, extend the privacy rights of citizens in their homes, and focus its law enforcement’s power on organized crime funded by drug trade in order to keep thousands of innocent and non-violent citizens out of federal prisons and end all funding to drug cartels by treating the private cultivation and usage of marijuana as being included in ones privacy rights.

Aside from the obvious medical advantages, the United States would benefit from the federal legalization of medical marijuana due to the promotion of healthy ideas about the drug, the promotion of healthier and safer methods of use, and the addition of sources of marijuana that do not fund organized crime for illegal users. As it currently stands, there are still many marijuana users who use the drug as a way to get “fucked up” or intentionally impaired for recreational purposes. This is comparable to alcohol use. Most people who drink alcohol drink it responsibly. They still have the intent of experiencing alcohols effects, and the don’t try to pass it off as medicinal and are therefore recreational users. It is important to understand that there is a large difference between these recreational users and those who binge drink and try to get as impaired as possible. While most recreational users use marijuana responsibly the legalization of medical marijuana will promote responsible marijuana use to those who still consider it a party drug.

The national implementation of medical marijuana will also promote healthier methods of ingestion than smoking among legal patients and recreational users alike due to increased availability of vaporizers and smokeless marijuana and awareness of their existence among users. Patients of medical marijuana are often recommended to use herbal vaporizers as a method of medication. Vaporing marijuana is much healthier than smoking because it contains no tar, and because no combustion is occurring, the only gas the user are inhaling is oxygen. It is also becoming more popular for medical marijuana dispensaries to sell food and drink products containing marijuana, or purifies forms of it’s active chemical THC. Having these herbal vaporizers and marijuana food products available will promote healthy marijuana use. Also the promotion of the use and sale of safe paraphernalia such as vaporizers will open this market to recreational users who will stimulate the economy.

The national use and sale of medical marijuana will also heighten the number of sources that recreational users and illegal buyers of marijuana have to purchase from, therefore removing any dependance on drug cartels and ending funding towards organized crime. In states in which medical marijuana is legal, cardholders often illegally sell either marijuana purchased from dispensaries or grown in their homes to non-prescribed recreational users. Because they are illegally purchasing marijuana from a federally legal source, they are not funding organized crime. The point has already been made the possession and use of marijuana are victimless crimes and therefore justifiable assuming the source of illegal marijuana does not fund drug cartels. Federal medical marijuana legalization even better ensure this. The United States must establish legal medical marijuana nationally in order to promote healthy and safe ideas about marijuana use, promote less physically damaging methods of both medical and recreational use of marijuana, and help cut funding from organized crime. If this is accomplished, we will have a overall healthier and safer nation that is free of organized crime.

The United Staes must keep the trade and production of marijuana illegal so corporations don’t take over it’s production. If marijuana trade becomes completely legal, corporations will take over its cultivation, processing, and sale to such degrees that it will lose quality, and also become unhealthy to the user due to the inclusion of poisonous and addictive additives. This is because once legalized, marijuana will cease to be homegrown or sold in it’s pure form and, following the path of tobacco, be sold in mostly cigarette form only. This mass production on marijuana will necessitate the outdoor cultivation of marijuana in large quantities for the lowest cost and highest profit margins. This will take the focus on marijuana production away from quality and toward profit. In order to increase profit more, it is likely that companies will introduce harmful and addictive additives into marijuana cigarettes, making smoking them more harmful to the user. The history of tobacco commercialization is clearly enough to warrant this prediction. Dr. V. Norman’s scientific report on the history of cigarettes contains information about the chemical changes of cigarettes over time in the US. “Until the 1930's, the number of home-rolled cigarettes was still comparable to manufactured cigarettes . Cigarettes became standardized with the advent of a small number of dominating brands in the 1920's and remained relatively unchanged until the introduction of filter cigarettes in the 1950's.”(Norman, 3) After the 1950’s, the chemistry of cigarettes changed rapidly. Manufacturers decreased the the amount of tobacco by expanding it with gas and added chemicals to flavor cigarettes, the most popular being menthol. The United States Department of Health and Human Services reports that today there are 599 additives in cigarettes, which become about 4,000 different chemicals when burned. Most of these chemicals are very bad for a smokers lungs and many are carcinogenic. Also, many of the additives in cigarettes are added with the intent of making smokers more addicted, making it difficult to quit. If marijuana were legalized, the same additives would eventually be added to marijuana cigarettes, making them unhealthy to use. The possible corporate takeover of marijuana would make home growing a thing of the past. Marijuana would lose quality due to mass farming and additives would make it more harmful and addictive, which would be bad for marijuana users, and the overall health of the United States.