Race in My Community

Legalized Marijuana

Analyzing Sources

Joshua S. Watt

Axia College

CRT 205 Critical Thinking

Instructor Jeremiah Nelson

December 10, 2006

Legalized Marijuana

There does not seem to be any issues with my chosen hypothesis, “If the government legalizes marijuana, they can reduce the crime and violence associated with the sale of marijuana.” I believe my position can be argued effectively, there are plenty of documented incidents. There are several issues with the legalization of any drug, both economical and social. I will save those for my paper, the main point I want to make here is that our government looks very hypocritical when they keep drugs like nicotine and alcohol legal. How can our society tolerate the use of these substances and then turn its nose up at marijuana? We have become a society that does not question our government, we think why would they do any wrong.

The argument I am posing focuses on the social impacts of legalized marijuana, this argument could really apply to almost any drug. Why is it that nobody seems to remember prohibition? Our country has been through the process of outlawing a widely used substance before; the crime was out of control and illegal activities increased. As a country we are seeing this now, how much more do we have to endure before we just legalize the substances that cause all of this crime and punishment.