Having said that, I still believe that marijuana should be legalized. I have travelled profusley around the United States, mostly by hitchiking. On average, in my travels, I would say that one in every ten people I meet smoke pot. This is not a certain group of people I hang out with (in case you were picturing a bunch of hippies on a bus), but rather a wide scope of United States citizens that I have met: a wealthy white man in a sports car who talked about money for hours on end, a couple of mexican men on their way to work, a woman with children…the list is long, wide and varied.

To believe that these people are all criminals is quite a judgement. The people who support the silly laws against marijuana seem to always quote reasons read straight off of an anti-drug pamphlet: “Pot is a gateway Drug”  “It is highly addictive”  Smoking Pot causes car accidents”  and many more such lines that I cannot remember but all are founded on ignorance of what effects pot really has on a person.

It is frustrating to talk to these people, since they are usually adamant about their opinions, while they clearly don’t know what they are talking about. Do people really believe that weed is more harmful than alcohol or tobacco? It is a difficult stretch of the imagination to grasp this. Alcohol is legal, yet thousands of people are killed by drunk drivers, or alcohol poisoning. My uncle died from liver failure caused by excessive drinking. We all probably know someone who is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, struggling with their addiction to drink. Yet, alcohol is not only sanctioned by the government and our culture,  but a huge profit is made every year in taxes on beverages.

Cigarettes are the apex of this same sort of hippocrytic thinking that criminalizes responsible adults who smoke weed in their leisure time, while supporting and profiting from giant tobacco industries that clearly profit from the addiction and subsequent deaths of thousands of people in our country.

In short, I am against laws that  criminalize a large portion or our population based on reasoning that crumbles to dust on close observation. Smoking marijuana only affects the individual who chooses to smoke it. Some people benefit from the effects of weed. The laws that put our citizens into prison, or lay heavy fines on the poor, are far more harmful and costly than the very thing they are against.

-endle