Recent estimations show that about 1 out of 8 drug arrests are due to marijuana offenses, costing tax payers billions of dollars. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, over a billion dollars is spent to keep marijuana users behind bars, money that could be used to cut into the growing trillion dollar deficit the U.S. has. Marijuana just like alcohol and nicotine is a psychoactive drug, a chemical substance that affects the processes of the mind and body. The use of marijuana, while still potentially harmful to users has been proven, in studies, to be safer to use than alcohol. Marijuana also possesses medicinal properties which provide comfort to some patients that have terminal illnesses. Marijuana has shown to help ease the pain of the symptoms associated with diseases like cancer, AIDS, and MS.
Marijuana was placed into the Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, by the U.S. Congress, in 1972. Making the cultivation, importation, possession, or distribution of marijuana illegal, and at the time marijuana was considered as a “hard” drug, one that was only associated negative side effects. And while the federal government has their feet dug in the ground with its view of marijuana, states are starting to develop its own outlook of how marijuana may be used by their occupants. Sixteen states and the District of Colombia have some sort of marijuana reform allowing the use of medicinal marijuana, and another thirteen states have