Investigation and Development of Handwritten Hindi and Gujarati Optical Character Recognition
Drugs like heroin, cocaine, and opioids are extremely harmful to a person’s health. In fact, those drugs accounted for a little over 45,000 deaths in the United States in 2014. However, to say all drugs are bad because of these drugs, would be preposterous. “Marijuana is a drug that comes from the plant Cannabis Sativa. People smoke marijuana but it can also be eaten in eatables such as brownies, and cookies” (Abuse). Marijuana is not an evil drug in fact, there are no recorded deaths from marijuana overdose. Cannabis should be legalized in all 50 states in the US because it is not a drug that kills, it is a helpful drug when used medically, the selling of medical marijuana can serve as an economic opportunity for the Government and the people, it would decrease the amount of gang-related drug violence, and it would give the government full control over the purity of the marijuana being used.
As previously stated drugs like cocaine, heroin, and opioids account for the most overdose deaths in the United States. Believe it or not there are some drugs that are legal, and deadlier than the ones named above. However, before discussing these fatal substances, let’s find out what a “drug” is. The definition of a drug is any substance that, when inhaled, injected, smoked, consumed, absorbed, or dissolved under the tongue, causes a temporary physiological change in the body. With that being said, the two legal death-dealing drugs that are deadlier than cocaine and opioids, are tobacco and alcohol. A lot of people say tobacco is not a drug because it does not have an instant effect on oneself, but tobacco contains nicotine, which is a stimulant drug that makes people addicted. Therefore, it is a drug and the deadliest one at that. “More than sixteen million of Americans have a disease caused by smoking tobacco”, “The average smoker dies ten years earlier than a nonsmoker” (Smoking). This drug is killing millions of people through cancer, lung disease, heart disease and many other illnesses. In addition, “One out of every five deaths are due to cigarette smoking” (Brand). Tobacco murders millions of people yet it is one hundred percent legal to use. How is it that this drug can be advertised and used and yet weed, which has taken the lives of none, cannot be legal. Alcohol is a drug in liquid form, and when enough is ingested into the consumer, that person then becomes intoxicated. When somebody is drunk the brain reacts slower, their vision gets blurry, and they become clumsier. This is extremely dangerous for people who must drive, or walk home. Not to mention the fact that women and men are more vulnerable to rape and sexual assault while under the influence. Drinking alcohol kills nearly 88,000 people in the US. Alcohol causes problems in the liver, it causes heart disease, pancreatic disease and leads to numerous forms of cancer. Those are all deaths caused by the overconsumption of alcohol. These are deaths that could have been avoided had there had been no alcohol in the system of the person who unfortunately passed away. An example of a death like that is in car accidents. “31% of driving fatalities in 2014 involved a drunk driver” (Brand). Alcohol takes away thousands of lives, and in fact isn’t good for anybody’s health at all. Marijuana on the other hand has had no recorded deaths by overdose, this proves the drug is not deadly at all, and that the United States should rethink would should and should not be legal in the country.
There’s two types of marijuana, there’s medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. Marijuana isn’t just something teenagers and potheads smoke, it can be used to help benefit the lifestyle of a patient suffering from a chronic disease. Some of the diseases medical marijuana can treat are post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, and cancer. “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is an anxiety disorder caused by traumatic events, such as car accidents, abuse and combat” (Medical). There is therapy for PTSD however it isn’t very affective. It has been shown that cannabis is a great way to treat someone with PTSD, this is due to cannabinoids being located in many places around the brain and the body, this means both mental and physical symptoms will be treats by simply smoking some weed occasionally, which doesn’t seem so bad. Another disease that can be treated with medical marijuana is epilepsy. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder marked by recurrent episodes of sensory disturbance, which is what then activates the horrific seizure. Medical marijuana can help doctors and patients control seizures, cannabis was shown to be 20 percent more effective than the usual treatment for epilepsy, and the only reason it is not used more often is because the government has put a restriction on how much can be used. The final disease of discussion is perhaps the biggest disease of them all, Cancer. This horrific and extremely painful disease cannot be cured by medical marijuana but can help reduce pain. “Marijuana has been proven to help with treating nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy”, “A few studies have also shown that inhaled marijuana can be a helpful treatment of neuropathic pain” (Society). Marijuana helps ease the pain of the deadliest disease known to man, and it can’t be treated harmless drug because it’s bad for your health well science states otherwise. However, these 3 major diseases are not the only illnesses that can be treated with medical marijuana there are so many more.
Every business in the country of the Unites states pays taxes. Taxes are a percentage of money, that was made by civilians and companies, that goes to the government. There are so many people who could use and would love to by some marijuana to ease their pain. Approximately 5.2 million people in the Unites States have PTSD, and about 3 million people have epilepsy, and almost every human being gets the occasional migraine headache. The average cost for medical marijuana is around 80 to 150 dollars. Now imagine that half of the people with post-traumatic stress disorder and half of the people with epilepsy buy medical marijuana one time for the mean price of 115 dollars. That would be approximately 160 million dollars going to the government for them to use to pay for public projects, fix roads, improve schools, hire more policemen and firefighters or whatever the government decides to do with that money. Of course, all the calculations made right now were fictional. “However, in 2015 the legal sales of cannabis products amounted to 996 million dollars, that is nearly a billion dollars. The tax revenue collected from that was 135 million dollars” (Francios). This is the amount of money that was made from 18 states that have legalized marijuana. The amount of money that can be made could be tripe of what was made in 2015, which would give the government a nice check for whatever they want to do with it. Also, if the US now has tax paying businesses selling weed, that means that the drug dealers are affected and the war on drugs has been affected, and that means less money for the war on drugs. So that would mean the United States would gain a lot of money and save a lot of money. With new marijuana stores opening that would mean that more jobs are open which would mean more employees paying taxes. Money makes the world spin and the more money our government has the better our country can be. Legalizing marijuana can bring in so much tax revenue it should be a no brainer.
Gang related drug violence what is that? What gang related drug violence is it is when two gangs fight over territory, where they will be selling and making their drugs. This violence can lead to criminal acts like murder and theft. Unfortunately, it has led to gang wars and civilians have been caught in the crossfire. So not only are gang member effected by this but also innocent lives are forever changed at times because of this. Also, as previously stated with legal stores selling marijuana, the drugs that the gangs would sale are now available somewhere else and it’s not illegal to get it there. So, the drug dealers run out of business and less men are in prison for trying to support their family in a criminal way, and with less parents in jail means more children have their dads and are less likely to become gang affiliated. So legalizing marijuana kills about 5 birds with one stone.
Marijuana isn’t as bad as society puts it out to be health wise, it could be a great tax resource for our government, it could decrease the gang drug violence, and it hasn’t murdered anybody and most likely won’t, why is it that only 18 states have legalized weed when the benefits seem endless.
