Unit 2 EA2 – Persuasive Essay “Why Marijuana Should Be Legal” A
Gallup poll released on Tuesday reveals that for the first time in history, Americans are more in favor of legalizing it than criminalizing it. 2013 has markedly been a successful year for marijuana legalization, with Colorado and Washington both passing laws to decriminalize the drug. Majority of Americans agree that marijuana should be legalized. It gives a great reason why the congress should legalize marijuana. Here are reasons why marijuana should be legal. “No one has ever died from marijuana overdose”
. You may think that a high amount of
THC will kill you but you are wrong. Ever since marijuana has been known to mankind, there have been not one single account of death from marijuana overdose has been recorded. “In
2010, 38,329 people died from drug overdose, Sixty percent are of those related to prescription drugs (The medicine Doctors give you if you are sick). In that same year 25, 692 people died from alcohol related causes, like drunk driving, accidents etc”. That information just proves another great reason why it should be legalized. “Marijuana is much safer than already illegal drugs”
. If you are completely fine with alcohol and cigarettes, then there should be no reason accepting marijuana as well. Alcohol and tobacco are way more dangerous than marijuana. “Marijuana is also used to alleviate a lot of medical ailments”. Medical marijuana is important to a lot of people. According to this
Discovery Health article , marijuana has been very extremely successful in relieving nausea as a side effect of chemotherapy. The drug also helps with people who have loss of appetite due to diseases such as HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, it relaxes muscle tension, spasms, and chronic pain. “Marijuana is a good drug to use for someone who has cancer, Tourette’s syndrome, or epilepsy”. Why? It is because a person with cancer can be unhealthy and have really bad nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pains. If they smoke medical marijuana, there is an 83% chance that they get healthier and their nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pains decrease, says
Scott Paplowski, a 39­year­old who is the oldest living survivor of rhabdomysocarma cancer.
People with Tourette’s or epilepsy who smoke medical marijuana are much calmer. Tourette’s can be very annoying when the ticks are common three to five minutes. Epilepsy is the same, but the seizures are more common and get out of hand. “Marijuana has a very low risk of abuse”. Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is not as addicting as one may think. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, recently wrote in his essay, “Why I changed my mind about marijuana/weed”, “that we have been systemetically misled” on marijuana. He reports that marijuana leads to dependence in around 9­10% of adult users. Cocaine hooks 20%, Heroine hooks 25%, the worst culprit is
Tobacco which hooks 30% of its users becoming addicted.

Marijuana can also substitute wood paper, fossil fuels, and most of our fibers, such as cotton.
It can also be made into dynamite to plastic. In 1935 alone, 116 pounds of marijuana seeds were used in America for paint and varnish. But after 1937, most of the industry went to chemicals. It can save the environmental issues such as sewage by using renewable cellulose as a chemical stock instead of plastic plumbing pipes. The use of marijuana is just endless. “Why is marijuana illegal when it has a lot of positive uses?”. For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It’s not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long­standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it’s been in use.
Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald
Reagan was a boy. Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and