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Marijuana Policy in the Usa

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Marijuana Policy
Ashford University: POL 201

Marijuana Policy
A topic that has been in and out of the news a lot over the past 20 plus years and has had an immense amount of public opinion either for or against it, is the legalization of marijuana in the United States. This is a product that is illegal in 48 states for general recreational use and illegal in 26 states for medicinal use. But our country did not always have this sort of sentiment toward this plant. Marijuana is the mixture of dried and shredded flowers and leaves that come from the hemp plant. In 1619 legislation was passed in Virginia that required every farmer to grow hemp, and it was even used as legal tender in three states. By the 1900’s the drug became associated with immigrants and an anti-drug campaign was started. By 1931, 29 states had outlawed marijuana, and in 1937 the Marijuana Tax Act made is illegal under federal law to possess it (Marijuana timeline). In 1996 California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes and as of July 7, 2014 New York became the 23rd state in the U.S. to do the same. A survey found on USAtoday.com stated “that in 7.3% of Americans 12 or older regularly used marijuana in 2012(Leger, 2013),” that is approximately 23.9 million people.” The stance that the federal government is holding firm onto is that marijuana is illegal, and is a schedule 1 controlled drug.
There are many advocates in the legalization of this drug deemed by the federal government to be illegal. Most recently the states of Washington and Colorado voted in 2012 to legalize it for sale and recreational use which started in 2014. A big factor for wanting to legalize marijuana is the money that can be made. The state of Colorado sold approximately 1 million dollars on the first day of legalization, and nationwide legal sales were over 1.3 billion dollars in 2013 and

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