Being in Colorado for 2 weeks, I’ve been thinking about the legalization of marijuana and the reasons I support it. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding this topic for many understandable, but invalid reasons. First of all, marijuana is an all-natural substance, as opposed to substances such as alcohol and cigarettes, which have proven negative effects on the body. There have been no known pot related deaths, yet many have been caused by and involved alcohol and cigarettes, which are entirely legal. In my opinion, it’s complete crap that 2 extremely harmful substances are easily accessible and normalized, while marijuana which has been proved beneficial to numerous medical conditions is criminalized. Not only does this make it difficult for people who could actually benefit from occasional use, but it incarcerates an unnecessary amount of people and fills out nation’s prisons with “criminals” who have committed petty crimes.

Another aspect that people tend to overlook is the use of hemp. Hemp is a precious resource that is ignored because of its relationship to pot. Hemp can produce paper, clothing, oil, medicines, food, and plastics and grows at a much faster rate than trees and other resources currently used, making it an optimal resource for an abundance of products.

If people could just stop making marijuana out to be an evil, life ruining substance and realize all the good it can do, the world would be much better off. Although it has negative connotations, the drug does a lot of good things for a lot of people, and we as a society need to start looking at it in a different light.