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Persuasive Essay On Legalization Of Marijuana

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Carl Sagan once said in an anonymous essay, “The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world” (Ingraham). For decades, the prohibition of marijuana has negatively affected residents in the United States, from long prison sentences to missed tax income opportunities. The legalization of recreational marijuana would benefit both users and non-users of the drug in the United States. One reason to legalize marijuana is that it is safer than both tobacco and alcohol. Annually, smoking cigarettes causes more than 480,000 deaths in the United States alone, including 41,000 deaths attributed to secondhand smoke. Smoking can also cause lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, and other potentially deadly diseases (“Smoking & Tobacco Use”). Similarly, alcohol kills 88,000 Americans every year, making it the third preventable cause of death in the United States (“Alcohol Facts and Statistics”). While some evidence suggests that marijuana users are susceptible to developing chronic bronchitis and other respiratory problems, top scientists say that “there is no evidence that smoking marijuana increases the risk for cancers often associated with tobacco use, such as lung and head and neck cancers” (Neighmond). By these statistics, it is easy to see that marijuana carries none of

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