Currently, drugs remain high on the politicians and many organizations list of issues. Stories are constantly on the news about the drug trade, medicinal marijuana, and ecstasy. Drugs affects not only users but non-users as well. It is obvious that drugs are quite present in our society, therefore has the United States drug policy deferred drug trafficking to the point where it is beneficial to our society. Increasing public support and media attention is slowly forcing the legalization issue into the forefront of the American political arena. Should the American citizens be allowed to partake in the uses of drugs and, if so, which drugs should be federally mandated? The two substantial drugs at issue right now are marijuana and ecstasy.
Marijuana is a derivative from the top leaves and flowers of the female hemp plant, which can be readily grown on the fields across the nation and was heavily cultivated in the colonial period. The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 made the use and sale of marijuana federal offenses it was signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in December 1937. The supporters of marijuana legalization believe that it will benefit American society in three major ways, which include revenue enhancement, medical benefits, and hemp production.
The largest and most appealing argument for marijuana legalization is a revenue enhancement for the United States Government. Much of the money normally spent on law enforcement, court time, and the cost of incarcerating prisoners would be saved and used towards something more beneficial. The United States spent roughly one billion dollars on marijuana enforcement last year and the Drug Enforcement Agency has proposed a four hundred percent increase in anti-pot spending within the next ten years yet domestic marijuana has only been reduced by ten percent (NORML 2). Allen St. Pierre, Assistant National Director of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML), say that legalization will wipe out the already sixty billion dollar black market by placing marijuana in the open market (NORML information pack 3).