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Cannabis Policy in Arizona
Marijuana is the most commonly used and widely distributed illegal substance in the United States. Many resources have been committed to enforcing the ban of marijuana, including law enforcement resources, filling the already overcrowded jail system, and the judicial system (Finklea 14). Furthermore, compared to harder drugs and even legal substances such as alcohol and nicotine, marijuana has been demonstrated to have medical advantages in specific conditions. Compared to stronger drugs and legal substances such as alcohol and nicotine, marijuana usage has also resulted in less spending on public health. Because of this confluence of variables, there has been a major push for marijuana policy change at the state level. By now, 20 states in the United States have allowed the medicinal use of marijuana, and Colorado and Washington are on their way to legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. One of the most prominent proponents of the first push for medical marijuana legalization in California in 1996 has now recognized that legalizing medicinal marijuana is a stepping stone toward complete legalization of marijuana in the state (Finklea 12). Like the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, several advocacy organizations have the same point of view. To effectively engage in this discussion, it is essential to comprehend the implications of any reform on society's overall well-being in both the health sector and the economy.
As a result, the purpose of this research study is to provide rationales for the legalization of marijuana. It will examine how legalizing marijuana can aid in the improvement of Arizona's healthcare system, the elimination of the state's current debt, and the reduction of drug trafficking in the state. The legalization of marijuana in Arizona is valuable to the state because the drug has shown to be beneficial in the medical field, particularly in the treatment of chronic pain; additionally, the state will earn taxes from marijuana sales, which will aid in the reduction of the state's current debt.
It should be the government's primary priority to ensure the public's health and comfort. A variety of beneficial properties of marijuana have been identified that may be beneficial in daily living. This drug can benefit many Americans who are suffering from illness symptoms. Marijuana may be utilized to alleviate pain, nausea, spasms, and other symptoms that are not alleviated by conventional medications (Troutt and Matthew 262). In addition, it has the potential to be a fantastic technique to enable individuals to relax consistently. The majority of the time, the effects of marijuana use are minimal and simple to cope with. Most of the time, persons who use this medication are not unmanageable or in dangerous conditions. Medical marijuana is a medicine that is easy to get used to, which helps users to cope with their symptoms more effectively.
Marijuana advocates claim that legalization would lead to stricter controls and safer use of cannabis, more effective use of government resources, and potentially even a drop in the incidence of marijuana use among teenagers and the use of "harder" substances in general. The effectiveness of cannabis as a pain reliever is one of the characteristics that might substantially impact the substitution effect between cannabis and opioids (Troutt and Matthew 262). Shortly said, the more the effectiveness of cannabis in relieving pain, the better it may be used as a replacement for opioids and, thus, the greater the impact. Cannabis has been demonstrated to give relief for chronic and severe pain, the sorts of pain for which opioids are often prescribed, although there is a little body of research to support this claim thus far.
International drug trafficking is a major focus of most significant criminal organizations. Violent criminal organizations, such as the mafia and Mexican drug cartels, have a competitive edge in the drug market because they can engage in violent behavior. Contracts covering the trafficking of illicit narcotics cannot be enforced in a court of law. To enforce contracts and safeguard narcotics from rivals and government enforcement, the use of violence is the only option. Consequently, worldwide drug trafficking marketplaces are increasingly dominated by organizations with a great propensity for violence (Rogeberg 154). The societal consequences of systemic drug violence are significant. It leads to a lack of law enforcement and widespread property crime, as well as mafia-like taxing of small-scale companies, migration, and the loss of a skilled workforce, not to mention many personal tragedies and losses.
Policing and enforcement methods are virtually always used by policymakers to prevent drug-related violence. Existing strategies to rein in the activities of Mexican cartels include military deployment and the assassination and apprehending of the leaders of the organizations. However, numerous research demonstrates that these approaches are counterproductive because they intensify rather than decrease violence (Rogeberg 157). Specifically, we demonstrate in our research that medicinal marijuana legislation has had an unanticipated advantage in that it has successfully lowered drug-trafficking-related violent crime. Medicinal marijuana laws (MMLs) allow for the use and production of marijuana for medical reasons in several jurisdictions across the world. The definition of medical reasons, on the other hand, gives plenty of room for interpretation. The upshot is that in reality, marijuana usage and small- to medium-scale marijuana manufacturing are no longer considered illegal under these regulations. Since California became the first state to approve a medical marijuana law in 1996, 33 states and the District of Columbia have done the same as of 2019 (Rogeberg 154).
In the past, marijuana has proven to be a profitable crop for Mexican cartels, owing to the plant's ease of being grown in the country's environment. Nevertheless, with the introduction of MMLs, the cartels' illicit marijuana importation is putting up a fight against the government's authorized supply of medicinal marijuana. Legal marijuana is more diversified than illegal marijuana, and there is no danger of physical harm when obtaining it. Consequently, Arizona gangs operating in the marijuana industry have seen their profit margins plummet to dangerously low levels (Rogeberg 154). Because of lower profit margins, Mexican cartels are less motivated to engage in violent activity.
On the one hand, the new rules decrease the advantage of employing violence to preserve the supply of marijuana. On the other hand, violence is expensive for the cartels since recruiting, equipping, and retaining troops' allegiance is a time-consuming and expensive endeavor. As a result, as the earnings of the drug trade decline, violent crime associated with drug trafficking likewise declines in proportion (Rogeberg 154). As a result, we anticipate that the deployment of MMLs will result in a drop in violent crime in the United States. Because Mexican drug gangs focus the majority of their violent activities near the border, the impact should be greatest in border states such as California, Arizona, and New Mexico, among others.
The legalization of marijuana has been found to have the opposite effect of increasing crime. Individuals must resort to criminal means to get marijuana, which often includes drug traffickers who smuggle the substance into the country and are involved in several other crimes in addition to marijuana smuggling (Joy 34). It often leads to criminalizing folks who are otherwise well adjusted just because they choose to consume marijuana. It is possible that if marijuana were to become legal, there would be a safe and legal way for everyone who wants to get it. So there would be fewer instances of desperate persons stealing and being linked with the wrong people, ultimately leading to violence and murder to get their marijuana supply.
As a consequence of legalizing marijuana, law enforcement costs would be drastically reduced, and the efficacy of the court system would be increased as well. There is already overcrowding in prisons, and it has been shown that those who are only imprisoned for a short period are more prone to commit more violent crimes once they are released (Joy 12). They are driven to become violent to fit in, and consequently, their negative habits may be handed down to future generations in the prison system. If marijuana were legalized, persons whose only crime was acquiring, selling, or consuming marijuana would be protected from being sent to prison and losing their capacity to contribute positively to society.
Furthermore, law enforcement officials may save a substantial amount of time and effort by not hunting down marijuana users and sellers, enabling them to focus their resources and time on apprehending violent criminals and those who intentionally cause harm to others. There would be a significant reduction in the expense to the taxpayer since more people would not be detained or imprisoned as a result of this policy. There would be legal avenues for resolving
conflicts between sellers and buyers, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could oversee the quality of marijuana to ensure that it was safe.
Health care lost productivity, crime, and other expenses incurred due to illicit drugs totaled $193 billion in the United States in 2007. That figure increased to $209 billion in 2011. Drug legalization and taxation are expected to result in significant financial savings, but optimistic estimates of these savings are often inaccurate because they fail to account for the significant economic and social costs of drug use and its repercussions.
This dilemma is particularly relevant in the context of the debate over marijuana. To provide an example, according to the Board of Equalization of California, legalization may generate $1.4 billion in potential revenue from marijuana sales. "This judgment is based on a set of assumptions that, in some cases, are open to great ambiguity and, in other instances, are not accurate," according to the RAND Corporation.
The RAND Corporation has just produced a report that dives further into this topic. According to the study's findings, legalizing and taxing marijuana would result in a huge decrease in the drug's retail price, maybe by more than 80%. The price of marijuana is expected to fall significantly as a result of legalization, although there are several uncertainties, such as the effect of legalization on the cost of production and price, as well as the Federal policy response to the state's legalizing marijuana that would continue to be illegal under federal law. Furthermore, since marijuana use is very sensitive to price, especially among young people, increases in drug prices are beneficial in keeping consumption rates low, as previously mentioned.
A total of around 26 million pounds of marijuana are smoked each year in the United States, making the marijuana market in the country worth $45 billion each year. The federal and state governments have a plethora of alternatives for taxing the legal cannabis sector. It is estimated that if the federal excise tax on marijuana (about $23 per pound of product) were applied, it would generate an extra $500 million in income. Mungmunpuntipantip and Viroj (230) posit that the state representatives suggested a 10 percent sales surtax, similar to those recently imposed in Arizona and other states, which he estimates will generate an extra $5.3 billion in revenue annually. Higher excise tax rates would result in a proportionally higher cost of living.
The legalization of marijuana would yield more than $5.5 billion in federal tax income, as well as an additional $1.5 billion in state and local tax revenue, according to the Tax Foundation (Mungmunpuntipantip and Viroj 230). As more enterprises join the market, it is projected that sales will decline, resulting in lower profit margins. An estimated $1.5 billion in federal funds were generated in the first year after the legalization of marijuana, with an extra $1 billion in state and municipal funds (Mungmunpuntipantip and Viroj 230). This kind of revenue is projected to grow in the future as the company grows its manufacturing capacity. Assuming there is no black market for marijuana, taxes on marijuana equivalent to those adopted in Arizona have the potential to generate $13 billion in global state tax collections, with an additional $5 billion coming from conventional sales taxes. Tax receipts will be lowered if the illegal market continues to thrive, whether due to increasing tax rates or for any other reason.
The number of people who drink and drive seems to drop when medical marijuana is legalized. The long-term effects of legalizing recreational marijuana usage are unknown. Since marijuana possession is no longer illegal, demand for it has increased. Legalizing marijuana in places where it is not already legal for medicinal or recreational purposes might increase crime in such jurisdictions (though the evidence is weak). In states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, any negative effects of increasing demand are matched by the drop in crime that results from legalization. Marijuana legalization for adult recreational use, with the probable exception of traffic-related penalties, is expected to have the greatest impact on reducing crime. Competition in the marijuana industry is likely to result in cheaper marijuana prices and fewer levels of criminal activity related to marijuana production, distribution, and supply.
Considering everything, marijuana should be legalized, and the current policy should be modified right afterward. Many individuals support a policy change, and the government should follow their lead. Marijuana has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life in the nation in various ways. As a result, the government may be reluctant to legalize marijuana because of concerns about public health. As studies have shown, cannabis poses few health risks and may have some beneficial effects on one's health. Another argument for changing the legislation now is the potential benefit that legal marijuana may have on the government's financing and judicial system. Hard drugs may be less likely to spread to the wrong individuals if marijuana is made legal in the United States. The number of drug traffickers will be kept low, while legitimate outlets will increase. Overall, if marijuana were legalized, it would have much more good than negative effects. Changes must be made immediately to the policy impeding the legalization of marijuana. It may be possible to benefit from legal marijuana. As a result, the federal government must acknowledge these realities and reform its marijuana policy as quickly as feasible. A substantial influence on the state's healthcare, business, and social elements has resulted from the legalization of marijuana in Arizona. The research results will be used as the basis for a legislative proposal on how to handle this problem in Arizona.
Works Cited
How could my paper be stronger?
1.The student can emphasize and use more specific statistics to show that legalizing marijuana would positively impact society.
2.The student can have a stronger conclusion by shortening the paragraph and only stating reasons why marijuana should be legalized.
3.The student could improve the flow of the paper by not only putting cited authors at the end of cited material, but instead, put the authors within the sentences.