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Did you know that over a third of the population of the United states belongs in jail, according to the law of the land? It's true, in a 2002 survey, 37% of all adults surveyed claimed to have tried (or currently use) marijuana (Roper). Keep in mind that the survey did not include the 77,000 or so individuals currently incarcerated on marijuana offenses. The war on marijuana consumers costs American taxpayers around $12 billion dollars, annually (Marijuana Prohibition Facts), and breeds an atmosphere of paranoia among users, who, if exposed, risk losing their jobs, inability to find work, loss of driver's license, imprisonment, and deprivation of the right to own firearms and vote. What kind of country would this be, if a third of our nation could not be allowed to vote, because they'd rather smoke a joint after work than drink a beer? My argument is for the complete legalization of marijuana for reasons of social viability, economic expense to the taxpayer, and ethical value.

To explore the social benefits of marijuana legalization, we must first skip ahead a little bit, and explore where that 12 billion dollars is being spent. In the United States, we employ an average of 326.37 police officers per 100,000 individuals. Individuals per 100,000 involved in drug crimes average at 533.63 (UN Office on Drugs and Crime). The number doesn't seem entirely disproportionate until you factor in the rest of the crimes reported in this country that the police must also deal with. Legalization of marijuana would eliminate marijuana smuggling, distribution, sales, possession, and usage (with the obvious exception of purchase, possession, and use by minors) from the list of infractions the police and the DEA would have to deal with. It would allow for that 12 billion dollars otherwise spent on tracking down and punishing marijuana users, cultivators and distributors, to be diverted to more useful programs (say, Social Security and Medicare, tracking down terrorists, etc). In recent TV public service commercials, a link between marijuana smuggling and terrorist funding is implied. If this is true, then taking marijuana out of the hands of criminals and regulating its cultivation, sale and purchase would logically reduce terrorist funding and therefore reduce the threat they pose, making the world a safer place.

Economically, the benefits of legalizing marijuana are enormous. The White House Office of National Drug Policy reported that between 1988 and 1995, Americans spent

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