Should Weed Be Legaized

In class, this week we discusses whether or not marijuana should be legalized after we read Vidal’s essay titled “Drugs”. In my opinion, Vidal has a point. Though he seems to undermine his argument by informing the reader of his experimentations with drugs. In addition, he states that drugs really aren’t that addictive which seems questionable as well. However, his argument about the fact that if marijuana was legalized that instead of an increase in its consumption, consumption would actually go down because of the fact that now that it has been legalized, its appeal will drastically fall. In my opinion, if we live in a so-called “free society” then why not let people do things they enjoy. Marijuana being one of these activities. If marijuana is legalized, the pot-smoking population of the U.S. can only go down anyway so why not? Why deny people something they enjoy. Especially something which compared to all the other problems the world has is not even worth mentioning. I don’t even understand why people make marijuana out to be so bad anyway. I’ve never smoked it myself but most of my friends that do it seem to be perfectly fine. A few of them even have straight A’s in school and keep up with a sport that they are actually good at. The best part is when your in health and they tell you “Marijuana is incredibly addicting”. How did they figure that? Sure you can get addicted to the “feeling” you get when your high but I don’t see how so many people I know smoke and are clearly NOT addicted to it.

Not only this, if marijuana was legalized then the U.S. government could tax it and actually make a profit out of it. This would not only help with our national debt but it would also keep consumption of it down ( just in case people start flocking to buy it). After all how many TRILLIONS of dollars are we in debt already. I lost count. I was hoping Obama might actually be a decent president but apparently I though wrong. Then again, he has not real power to change anything anyway. Its all propaganda.

Even after all of this, people still say well if you legalize marijuana then our society will just be filled with a bunch of lazy underachievers. (As if society isn’t already almost entirely full of them) This is a reaction you would typically expect from someone who has been sheltered their entire life and is probably an overachiever themselves. Someone who clearly has no stake in the outcome and some who has absolutely no idea what the real- world is like. Not to say that my life isn’t sheltered or that I don’t really now what the real-world is like, but some of these people just take it to the extreme. I mean seriously…live a little. Make an effort to actually try something new and out of the ordinary. Look around you. I think genocide, the threat of global nuclear war, and environmental change are way more pressing issues than…marijuana.