Marijuana Legalization Could Improve the United States Economic State of Affairs

The United States offers its citizens a vast variety of freedoms. People have the freedom to vote for their leaders, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, and also the freedom to possess vices. They have the freedom to gamble away all of their belongings, drink away their livers, and smoke tobacco until cancer takes their lives, yet the ownership or use of marijuana is prohibited by law. In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was passed with the help of untruths spread by Harry J. Anslinger, who was the first Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Less than a year after the acceptance of the Act, the mayor of New York City at the time, Fiorello La Guardia, assembled a group of illustrious scientists to investigate the effects of marijuana and found that their research contradicted Commissioner Anslinger’s arguments (Lupien). The question is: why is marijuana still illegal? Lawmakers and the medical community still fight the marijuana war when there is sufficient proof that it is not as harmful as Anslinger and his associates led the American people to believe, that the physical impairment from marijuana use is comparable to alcohol or tobacco use, and that the economy could benefit immensely from the legalization of marijuana.