Imagine a substance out there that could be used to make many different kinds of products, help heal certain illnesses, and could boost our economy greatly. Sounds too good to be true right? If not then why aren’t we already using the product and making it in mass production? Because for all of time up to this point it has been known as a drug, and not the good kind, and with this label takes on the bad reputation because of other dangerous substances with that title. I am talking about Marijuana. Just bringing up that word around certain crowds can cause quite a scene. But why? Because people are often extremely uninformed and unaware of the benefits that can come with legalizing marijuana, and often just think of it as another kind of heroin, or cocaine. Rather than being able to see if for what it truly is and what is has the potential to do. The United States as a whole is in a huge economic recession, and the legalization and taxation on marijuana can completely help us with this problem. According to statistics the cost for the war on drugs in 2010 was over $41 billion dollars. Of that amount about $8.7 billion can be attributed to marijuana. So legalizing marijuana would immediately save us $8.7 billion dollars a year enforcing existing laws. More than 5,000 people are put in jail each year on marijuana related charges, most of which are non-violent offenses. In the State of California, it costs more than $47,000 per year to incarcerate just 1 person. That’s nearly $250 million dollars a year to keep marijuana users in prison because most of those cases are simple possession cases. Not to mention that our prisons are currently exceeding their capacity, and criminals who did a lot worse things than smoking marijuana are being released early to make room for new inmates. Is that really what we want? I’d much rather have marijuana users out in the streets then a convicted murder or rapist. It is estimated that if marijuana were to be legalized and taxed as much as alcohol and tobacco, that the profits could exceed $8.7 Billion. Not to mention the billions that could be made by our farmers for the production of this product. As it stands now an estimated over $1.5 billion dollars worth of marijuana is smuggled in from Mexico every year, with all of that money leaving our economy and going straight to drug cartels instead of our farmers. Also the market for the wide range of Hemp made products is estimated to be easily able to exceed $600 million dollars a year. This is all on top of the thousands of new jobs that could come with starting up this industry. Let us not forget that alcohol was at one point also illegal as well. And just like marijuana people still continued to use it and we lost out of years of high profits and for what reason? Why are we allowing ourselves to make the same mistake twice? Marijuana is no more dangerous and no more a risk to your health then alcohol or tobacco, yet both of those products are legal. While a product with the exact opposite, proven healing abilities, continues to remain illegal. Anything in excess is dangerous to you and your health whether it be fast food, or soda, or candy. But is McDonalds, or coca-cola, or Hershey’s illegal? No it is not. So why wait around for some miracle to come around and save our economy when we have a product that can be part of that solution right in from of us. Not to mention the more time we waste keeping it illegal, the more money we lose out on. And on top of that the more people we arrest for simply using the drug the more money we waste on putting them in jail, and the more dangerous criminals that get released because our jails are too full. Not to mention that we can at the same time take away power from dangerous gangs and drug cartels. If we take their source of money, we also take their power with us. We have the power to make all these things happen with a simple yes vote, you alone can help change the face of our nation and help change the direction of our economy.