Marijuana is a very popular drug that many people have used. Over 98 million people over the age of 12 in the United States have smoked marijuana. It is known under many different names such as: weed, bud, ganja, hashish, doobie, reefer, mary-jane and grass. It plays quite a substantial role in modern day pop culture and almost everyone over the age of 16 knows what it is. Despite all this, marijuana is illegal and in most states a person can be sent to jail for the possession of less than a gram of this substance. Even if the person is doing nothing wrong and is subjected to a random search, if that person has marijuana on them, they will be charged with a criminal offense and sent to jail. Marijuana should be legalized because it can …show more content…

When a person smokes salvia, they hallucinate. It was recorded on March 7, 2011 that a man jumped from his fifteenth story apartment in Brooklyn immediately after smoking salvia. His hallucination off this drug caused him to kill himself, yet salvia is legal (Jen Chung, Man Jumps to Death from Roosevelt Island Building). Marijuana is also used for medical reasons. It has even been legalized for medical use in some states such as California, Colorado and New Jersey. Everyday experiments are being conducted on other ways marijuana can assist a person’s health. Marijuana can help not only human, but the economy as well. Marijuana has the potential to become a multi- billion dollar industry. According to Milton Friedman and 500+ economists, if marijuana was taxed and regulated the government would be receiving 10-14 billion dollars a year (Miron, Jeffery A. "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition."). Regulating and taxing marijuana would also lead to the creation of new jobs; people could farm marijuana and work in smoke shops. Taxation of marijuana would not be the only benefit to the economy. If marijuana was legalized it would also save money that would normally be spent. Each year millions upon millions of dollars are used to prevent Mexican drug cartels from entering the Unites States. Drug cartels are a large source of where the marijuana in the Unites States comes from. If marijuana could be grown in the U.S there would