Legalization of Marijuana Research Paper
The scent of marijuana enters the air as Chris Smith, a forty-three year-old woman from Trabuco Canyon, exhales a hit from her pipe. Smith has multiple sclerosis and credits smoking marijuana for relieving her muscle spasms and stopping the pain (Romney 1). Because Smith and many others like her smoke the drug for medicinal purposes, medical marijuana should be made legal in the United States. Many people in the United States are avid users of the drug because of pain or discomfort from pre-existing conditions. Dupont states that “marijuana, also spelled marihuana, is a drug made from the dried leaves and flowering tops of the hemp plant” (Dupont 201). The drug has many nicknames including grass, pot, weed, chronic and cannabis (Dupont 201).
Even though the drug has been available for thousands of years, it hasn’t been legal that long. Dupont says, “In the United States, marijuana use has been prohibited by state and local laws since the early 1900?s, and by federal law since 1937. In spite of these laws use of the drug became widespread during the 1960′s and 1970′s, especially among young people” (Dupont 201). The road to legal marijuana has been shortening over time though. Dupont states that “between 1969 and 1978, the federal government and many state governments reduced the criminal charge for possession of small amounts of marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor” (Dupont 203). Certain states however went even further when they “substituted fines for jail sentences” (Dupont 204). But medical marijuana is not a legal drug in the US. Read more…