Marijuana was labeled as "The Devil's Harvest". Since it was made illegal in 1937, the assembly of marijuana smokers has reached far beyond minority stereotypes. Marijuana still has some negative associations with it, but it is more tolerated now than it has ever been. .
"The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse" reports that 31.6% of Americans have used marijuana. Of the people that have smoked marijuana, 10.8% of them have used it at least 300 times in the past year. This means that in the year of 1997, about 3.4% of the total population use marijuana on a daily basis. Even larger portions of the population use marijuana less often but nevertheless are regular users. By mere numbers, one can speculate that marijuana has truly become the "middle class drug." It is not the lower class drug that it was once known to be, such as crack cocaine, which only has about six hundred thousand users as opposed to the estimated 6.8 million marijuana users. This reasoning contributes greatly to the controversy over the legalization of marijuana. .
The fact that marijuana is illegal hurts many people and scars many people's reputations when they get arrested for the possession of marijuana. The total arrests for marijuana related violations in 1997 was 695,200, which was the highest ever reported (NORML.org-Legal Issues). There has also been a sixty percent increase in marijuana related violations since President Clinton took office. Of the 682,885 marijuana violations made in 1998, eighty-eight percent of the violations were for mere possession of the drug. The vast majority of these people are regular, law-abiding citizens that otherwise would have no confrontations with the law. These people should not be punished because their intoxicant of choice is marijuana instead of alcohol like most of society. .
Another argument that contributes to the controversy of marijuana legalization is the matter of its medicinal values.
