Mary Jane

The Unbiased Reasoning of Legalization of Marijuana

Kevin J. Hagan Jr.

EN1420

ITT Technical Institute

Instructor Kenneth Frawley

August 7, 2013

The Unbiased Reasoning of Legalization of Marijuana

The term marijuana was originally used to describe a Mexican wild tobacco and has had a bum rap since mid-1930s. One key person was William Randolf Hurst, he owned a series of newspapers and printed in the paper, “When blacks and Mexicans smoked it, they raped white women” (LetsLegalizeMaryJane, 2009) and people bought into this notion without question. In 1936 a movie was released called Reefer Madness, it was a highly exaggerated and fictionalized depiction on the effects of marijuana. The fact that marijuana had therapeutic properties was denied until the 1970s and it wasn’t until 1996 when California legalized marijuana for medicinal reasons. (The Week, 2012). In 2013 we still haven’t that much progress; there are only 20 states and the District of Columbia (DC) that have legalized it for at least medicinal use. (20 Legal Medical Marijuana States, 2013) The benefits of legalizing it outweigh the bad on a large scale

The fact that nobody has ever in the history of marijuana overdosed on it, however it is still in the same drug class as heroin, cocaine, and LSD. Unlike tobacco, marijuana has the potential to reduce or rid the lungs of cancers or tumors; the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) blocks a known cancer-related protein (Zimm, 2007). However, cigarettes are a perfectly legal multi-billion dollar industry killing upwards of 440,000 people a year. Again comparing the marijuana to cigarettes: there have been studies conducted proving that marijuana is no more addictive that watching TV or fast-food. (Zimmer & Wagner, 2013) Cigarettes contain the substance nicotine, which is highly addictive and hardens arteries, but is accepted. How does that not boggle people’s minds? Marijuana is a plant that is grown from the earth and smoked;...