Many people seem to think and say that marijuana is bad for
you and should be illegal. They argue
that it’s bad for a person’s lungs, it’s addictive, and it has a terrible smell
to it. Yes, these people seem to think they know what they’re talking about and
what’s best, but how about cigarettes? I
almost never hear people who complain about pot ever say a word about
cigarettes. Cigarettes are the leading cause of lung cancer, highly addictive
due to added nicotine, and produce a terrible smell of their own but continue
to be legal and no one bats an eye at that.
My point here isn’t that cigarettes should be illegal, but more that
these two products are very similar except that one is legal and one is
not. But which one is truly worse for
you?
According to the CDC at cdc.gov, smoking has been known to
cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, and diabetes. Tobacco use causes around 5,000,000 deaths
per year worldwide and at the rate it’s going, it will rise to an annual
8,000,000 by the year 2030. I will say
that selling cigarettes is good for the economy because it brings in so much
money, but it also costs the country a lot of money. More than $289 billion a year is spent in
direct medical care to treat people who suffer from the effects of smoking
cigarettes. To me, it is ridiculous that
everyone seems to be fine with this being legal. I feel like it’s because cigarettes have been
around long enough for people to just think it’s normal. The truth is, if these are legal when they
have been directly proven to kill people, then there should be no reason why marijuana
is illegal.
Let’s look at the facts about marijuana. We can start off by saying that there is no
direct proof that marijuana itself has ever killed somebody. In my opinion, that should be enough to
legalize it right there! I mean, if
cigarettes are proven to directly kill millions of people each year and weed doesn’t,
why are cigarettes legal and not marijuana?
Think about how much money people spend on cigarettes. If marijuana was legal, it would greatly
boost our economy and bring in an estimated 8.7 Billion dollar revenue each
year, according to factslides.com.
Marijuana is safer than cigarettes and much less
addictive. Although it is possible to
manipulate it, most marijuana smoked is natural and organic. Cigarettes use tar and nicotine and other
chemicals added to the tobacco. I will
smoke weed any day before smoking a cigarette if given a choice between only
having one or the other. So which
substance is truly better? You decide.
"Let’s look at the facts about marijuana. We can start off by saying that there is no direct proof that marijuana itself has ever killed somebody."
ReplyDeleteThat should definitely be enough evidence right there to legalize it. We have hundreds of advertisements and commercials for cigarettes and even alcohol, which have both done serious damage and even resulted in death to a number of people. Yet weed is illegal, when it has the power to relieve pain and to basically aid the healing process in some aspects. Crazy.
I agree completely. It also has the ability to help people with eating disorders like anorexia by making them want to eat. Cigarettes kill people and marijuana has the ability to make people better but it remains illegal...
ReplyDeleteThere is not an excluded middle, here. You're forcing a false dichotomy. If given a choice between one or the other, I'd abstain from both. Others might choose both.
ReplyDeleteI went and factchecked factslides.com. Their about page says that the source for their facts is in the lower left corner of each slide. Since that button is missing in Chrome, I had to fire up IE and found they were linking to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/legalizing-marijuana-tax-revenue_n_3102003.html . The HuffPo article links to a 2010 white paper http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf .
Now, the first problem here is that the $9.1billion figure is increased sales tax revenue and does not include savings from firing everyone currently enforcing drug laws. Add that in with tax all controlled substances the same way as alcohol and tobacco, and local, state, and federal governments get $46.7billion.
But the bigger problem is that, well... the Cato Institute has an axe to grind. They are the "think tank" for the Libertarian Party. I don't have the expertise to crunch their numbers and see if they are reputable. However, these nice people did: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2010/12/drug-legalizationposner.html
The third problem (which the rebuttal closes with) is that the Cato Institute report does not "estimate the social costs of increased drug use." IE, how much would various layers of government have to spend taking care of addicts and their families.
Both my parents smoke cigarettes and let me tell you I wish they were illegal. I will never touch a cigarette to my mouth because of my parents. Thankfully they are both healthy (despite the fact that they smoke) but the amount of money they spend on cigarettes a year is CRAZY. The amount of times I have tried to average the amount and tell them thinking it would convince them to stop since money is tight already, it still doesn't help. My dad has tried to quit before, but being around my mom and the smell of cigarettes didn't help. It didn't last very long, I think it needs to be a joined effort. I 100% agree that cigarettes are a million times worse than marijuana.
ReplyDelete