The Legalization of Marijuana as a health care politics and Solution to Its Problems

Marijuana: Not a Problem, but a Solution

Since its legalization in 2014, recreational marijuana has greatly benefitted Colorado in a number of ways. It has also come with its more negative consequences, which are also to be examined. Colorado experienced a large benefit from the marijuana tax being raked in by the millions by the hundreds of dispensaries around the state. People could now much more easily acquire the herbal medicine they needed to assuage their ailments and the recreational greens to brighten their lives. Police forces were also given a break from trying to catch those whose only wrongdoing is possessing the harmless plant. Now that every state with proposed marijuana reform legislation in 2016 passed it with the exception of Arizona, it is almost certain that the country will start to see the spectacularity of the substance.

Tax revenue of marijuana in Colorado since 2014 is over $1.8 billion, according to a research article by The Cannabist. The tax revenue in 2015 was over $996 million alone. According to the Colorado Legislative Council Staff, tax revenue from marijuana is used for beneficial things like building public schools. Whenever voters approved retail marijuana legalization, they dedicated the first $40 million in tax revenue to school construction in the state constitution. The rest of the tax revenue goes to the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, Department of Human Services, Department of Law, Department of Public Health and Environment, and the Department of Public Safety. These benefits are projected from Colorado alone, but Washington also raked in their fair share of tax money as well. Now that California, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska, Massachusetts, and Maine have now legalized recreational usage, the dispensaries will open and the market will grow. Hopefully, the rest of the states will soon follow suit in their decriminalization.

Weed can be used as medical treatment for multiple cancers, Parkinson’s disease, PTSD, insomnia, epilepsy, and many more illnesses both mental and physical. Some states are refraining from legalization in order to give more money to western medicine and Big Pharma, which views a patient cured as a customer lost. This is a problem because they are missing out on a lot of the benefits of marijuana comes with. Simply a few drops of cannabis oil rubbed on the feet of an epileptic can halt the seizure in its wake. A small pinch of flower can stop tremors caused by Parkinson’s disease within five minutes after vaporizing yet people are incarcerated every day for consuming this substance. Big Pharma and the politicians who advocate for it don’t want to lose customers to cannabis usage, because then their western medicines would have less prominence in society. The pharmaceutical industry is evil in regards to care for each patient’s individual health, making medicine prices ridiculously high and natural remedies like cannabis illegal. There have been countless cases of medical patients being incarcerated for using marijuana to better their health because their state prohibits it, which is far beyond the realm of unjust.

Some of the downsides that people see when speculating the pros and cons of marijuana legalization do need to be acknowledged. For example, people believe that there will be an increase in underage consumption and people getting behind the wheel while under the influence of marijuana. Others believe that other crime rates will rise and threaten the safety of society. There’s also the consensus among Colorado natives who detest the excess populus that has been clogging up traffic and causing real estate to skyrocket. According to the Denver Post, “the large majority of Colorado middle and high school students – 62 percent — say they have never used marijuana. Alcohol is the drug of choice among Colorado teens, with 30 percent of kids surveyed saying they drank within the previous month.” It has been proven in multiple studies that marijuana has a measurable yet relatively mild effect on psychomotor skills, yet it does not appear to play a significant role in vehicle crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol.

Nationalizing it would even out the population dispersion (which Coloradans are begging for), take nonviolent people out of prisons, improve the health and morale of the general public, allow billions of dollars of tax revenue to flow through the economy, and put a stop to the negative connotation that some people associate with it. Because weed causes virtually no harm to anyone, impairs people much less than alcohol and other drugs, and that overdosing is fundamentally impossible, there’s little reason for it to be illegal.

• “Colorado Marijuana Sales Skyrocket to More than $996 Million in 2015.” The Cannabist. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
• Silbaugh, Larson. “DISTRIBUTION OF MARIJUANA TAX REVENUE.” ISSUE BRIEF (n.d.): n. pag. Leg.colorado.gov. Colorado Legislative Council Staff, July 2015. Web. 5 Nov. 2016. @leafly. “Hemp 101: What Is Hemp, What’s It Used For, and Why Is It Illegal? | Leafly.” Leafly. N.p., 14 July 2015. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
• Goldstein, Joseph A. Taxing Legalized Marijuana (2015): n. pag. Lexisnexis Academic. Dec. 2015. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.
• “Cannabis Tax Revenues, Looking Toward November and Beyond.” The Bond Buyer, 18 Oct. 2016.
• “Iowa Law Review.” Tax Planning for Marijuana Dealers 99.2 (2014): 523-69. Jan. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2016.

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