Rather, instead of trying to control individuals, it should expose positive and negative facts, such as the ones to smoking marijuana. This way, society has allowed individuals to still make their own choices, but informed choices. .
According to Rosenthal and Kubby, in 1981, about forty-nine percent of the 196,000 people arrested for marijuana related crimes were under the age of 21 (26). "For most of these youths, their pot bust is their first time in trouble with the law" (Rosenthal and Kubby 26). Perhaps not all of these youth arrested go to jail, but the ones that do get incarnated, have not only been victimized by unconstitutional marijuana laws, but will also be victimized by the brutally of jail life. These people, who break marijuana laws, are being sent to prison where others have committed crimes such as murder and rape. They are sent to an environment full of criminals where they can socialize and learn other criminal behaviors (Rosenthal and Kubby 27). A perfect example of this can be seen in the 2001 movie "Blow", which stars Johnny Depp who plays a drug dealer (marijuana) who was caught and sentence to prison where he learns to traffic cocaine. "I came here (jail) with a bachelor in marijuana, and left with a PHD in cocaine."-George Young.
Marijuana laws are not only turning people into criminals, it is also contributing to the problem of overcrowded jails, which should be holding criminals such as murders, rapists, and sex offenders, rather than people who break marijuana laws. Rosenthal and Kubby stated that in 1994, there were 481,098 arrests made for marijuana related crimes (26). $30,000 is the average cost to keep an inmate in jail, and for the average drug dealer, the sentence is about five years (Rosenthal and Kubby 43). The money that pays to keep an inmate in jail is provided by the government, which obtains this money form tax payers. If 481,098 prisoners severed at least one year in jail, $14,459,400 of the tax payers" money is spent to keep only marijuana offenders in jail.