Legalizing Weed: An Argument for Policy Reform

There are many different categories of drugs: Stimulants, inhalants, cannabinoids, depressants, opioids, anabolic steroids, hallucinogens, and prescription drugs to name a few. Each drug category has many drugs within it. These drugs vary in terms of how they affect your body. Marijuana is under the category cannabinoids because it comes from the cannabis plant. Marijuana should be legalized because it is not as bad as all these other drugs. Also, if it was legal it would keep people away from other bad drugs because they are using marijuana.

Four ways that people use marijuana are: Smoking, vaping, eating edibles, and dabbing. Smoking is the most common way because of how easy it is. One simply rolls it into a joint, lights it and then inhales the smoke. Others might smoke using a pipe, bong or bowl.

Edibles would probably be the next easiest because you can simply mix the cannabis in with a batch of cookies, brownies or gummy candies.

Vaping is also easy, but it could be deadly because there are people making illegal vaping carts that could contain pesticides, lead and other harmful ingredients.

Dabbing in the process where one has to extract oil from the flower, put in a bowl, heat it up and then pack it in for it to turn into smoke. This is another reason it should be legalized. There are other ways than smoking marijuana so people will be getting the “high” they want without ruining their lungs.

You are legally allowed to smoke weed anywhere you want (besides like stores and stuff) in: Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine. And every other state it is legal for medical uses if you get it prescribed. They should make it legal everywhere because then the places that they are legal don’t get overpopulated.

Drug charges in MN for possession of weed: you can get up to a $200 fine for possession of up to 42. 5g of weed More than 42. 5g is a felony charge and you can face up to five years in prison. This is also a reason it should be legalized because it would 1 save the police time, 2 would keep the jails empty because many people that get in trouble for don’t go there.

Effects of weed: Some short term effects are paranoia, psychosis, panic, and hallucination. Some long term effects are decline in IQ, impaired thinking, addiction, and relationship problems. This is one of the downsides. It would cause people to trip out but if it was legal and they used it enough, they would get used to it.

Marijuana has a lot of medical benefits. It can help people with Parkinson’s calm their bodies down, cancer patients undergoing chemo-therapy take it to relax themselves from the headaches, it relieves stress from very hard working people, and it opens your mind. Another thing is weed has caused 0 deaths (besides the fake vapes) and is not linked to lung cancer what-so-ever. That's another reason that it should be legalized because the people that have those horrible diseases would be able to get their symptoms reduced.