Marijuana Legalization Essays (393 words) - , Term Papers

Marijuana Legalization Most Americans do not want to spend scarce public funds incarcerating nonviolent marijuana offenders, at a cost of $23,000 per year. Politicians must reconsider our country's priorities and attach more importance to combating violent crime than targeting marijuana smokers. Marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers at least $7.5 billion annually. This is an enormous waste of scarce federal dollars that should be used to target violent crime. Marijuana prohibition makes no exception for the medical use of marijuana. The tens of thousands of seriously ill Americans who presently use marijuana as a therapeutic agent to alleviate symptoms of cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, or multiple sclerosis risk arrest and jail to obtain and use their medication. Between 1978 and 1996, 34 states passed laws recognizing marijuana's therapeutic value. Most recently, voters in two states -- Arizona and California -- passed laws allowing for the medical use of marijuana under a physician's supervision. Yet, states are severely limited in their ability to implement their medical use laws because of the federal prohibition of marijuana. America tried alcohol prohibition between 1919 and 1931, but discovered that the crime and violence associated with prohibition was more damaging than the evil sought to be prohibited. With tobacco, America has learned over the last decade that education is the most effective way to discourage use. Yet, America fails to apply these lessons to marijuana policy. By stubbornly defining all marijuana smoking as criminal, including that which involves adults smoking in the privacy of their own homes, we are wasting police and prosecutorial resources, clogging courts, filling costly and scarce jail and prison space, and needlessly wrecking the lives and careers of genuinely good citizens. Marijuana legalization offers an important advantage over decriminalization in that it allows for legal distribution and taxation of cannabis. In the absence of taxation, the free market price of legal marijuana would be extremely low, on the order of five to ten cents per joint. In terms of intoxicating potential, a joint is equivalent to at least $1 or $2 worth of alcohol, the price at which cannabis is currently sold in the Netherlands. The easiest way to hold the price at this level under legalization would be by an excise tax on commercial sales. An examination of the external costs imposed by cannabis users on the rest of society suggests that a"harmfulness tax" of $.50 - $1 per joint is appropriate. It can be estimated that excise taxes in this range would raise between $2.2 and $6.4 billion per year. Altogether, legalization would save the taxpayers around $8 - $16 billion, not counting the economic benefits of hemp agriculture and other spinoff industries.

Latino essays

Latino essays The first inhabitants to occupy the Americas were Europeans who came from Spain and England. Theses settlers had the greatest deal of diversity that was spread through cultures and over the land. Each in it self created its own powerful empire and ruled and governed its people. These two groups also fought for what they thought was right in their independence that redid their political systems. The large and sometimes unruly groups spread across the country forming small towns and sometimes much larger cities in and around where everyone migrated. What many scholars though to believe at the time was a native population of close to 110 million people, (Gonzalez P.4). The Spaniards and English with both awestruck and the inhabitants that currently resided in the Americas, many tried to build their cities in much the same format as these groups. But, with the new comers to the Americas so did disease, and sickness, and the onslaught of new religions and customs on the current inhabit ants. The church also played a key role in this. It tried to spread the word, and convert as many of the natives to their form of Catholicism. The natives were spread throughout the land, and the new arrivals were migrating into their territory. Seeing as how the natives were scared of these new people, many were forced into slavery due to the face that they new immigrants saw them as a lower class. On the other side of the boarder, in Latin America, things where happening at a different pace. Annexation of the Spanish-speaking borderlands evolved in three distinct phases: Florida and the Southeast by the 1820s; Texas, California, and the Southwest by 1855; and finally Central America and the Caribbean during the second half of 1898 (Gonzalez P. 28). Even those much of this land was already inhabited by local tribes like the Aztec, Mayas, and Incas. Even though these civilizations lived by their own rule and authority, as s ...

Personal statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 8

Personal statement - Essay Example er’s degree in the United States and was considered to be a very good specialist, therefore, the senior faculties were asking me if I was good in statistics as well as in SPSS. It was not very pleasant for me to see that they really got disappointed when I said that unfortunately, I was not. When I asked them about the reason behind asking me they explained that they were looking for help in statistics course. This was a great surprise for me and I really couldn’t understand why they asked me as they have a person who taught that course and I assumed that she should have been a specialist in the field. I didn’t bother myself to find out this since I was busy teaching other courses. At the same time it was upsetting that I could not provide any help when I was asked for it. As I’m working as a lecturer I have an opportunity and great desire to receive PhD. Therefore, I did apply for several universities and I was lucky enough to be accepted in George Mason University (GMU) but I faced a problem connected with statistics again as I did not have a statistics course in my master, but it was necessary to enter GMU. Consequently, GMU required me to take a pre-request course of statistics. The good thing was that course was online so I did not have to travel to the USA for a summer course and the bad thing was that my background in statistics is not good enough to start with online course. I understood that I should improve my statistics as soon as possible as I had statistics in my undergraduate and I started to struggle. To tell the truth, at first I hesitated whether to take the course or not. I called my friend who is studying at GMU to get her advice. She told me if I don’t take it this summer I will not definitely be enrolled in a PhD program. In other word, I’ll have to wait a year. After her advice, I decided to take the online pre-request course of statistics. I enrolled in the course and the drama started. At the beg inning I needed some help with