Marijuana Medical Marijuana: The Interplay between State and Federal Law History of Criminalization The Current War on Drugs Political Issues The legal status of medical marijuana in the United States is something of a paradox. On one hand, federal government has placed a ban on the drug with no exceptions. On the other hand, over one-third of the states have that legalizes the cultivation, distribution, and consumption of the drug for medical purposes. As such, the

Marijuana Legalization Marijuana, also known as marihuana, is a drug that is taken from Cannabis sativa, a hemp plant. It is one of the most frequently used and popular drugs in the world along with caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. The United States of America is one of the world's leading producers of marijuana where it is generally smoked and is also referred to as weed or reefer by the citizens ("marijuana"). Marijuana

The state currently spends a great deal of money on detaining people on marijuana related offenses. Legalization could help to free up some of these resources which could then be used on more important programs throughout the state. When examining the economic benefits of marijuana legalization it is important to weigh the social costs related to outlawing access to goods, because such restrictions create black markets. Black markets are associated

Since 1998, medical authorities including the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences have documented marijuana's unique ability to relieve both intractable pain and nausea." We're in the Money The prohibition of marijuana costs American taxpayers a fortune, in the tens of billions per year, much of which is channeled toward the cost of law enforcement and incarceration (Beatty, Holman & Schiraldi). Prominent economists

Already, "lawmakers in at least three states are considering joining the 13 states that have legalized pot for medical purposes. Massachusetts voters last fall decided to decriminalize possession of an ounce or less of pot; there are now a dozen states that have taken such steps." (Crary, 1) And as demonstrated by the Appendix B contained below, there is a clear penetration of legalization in every region of the U.S.,

The authors do not state that public perceptions of severity should be discounted, but merely that these should not be over-emphasized, as was the case in previous literature. Another existing mode of measuring crime severity is that of economic models. Economic measures of costs may seem more objective, but given that they also involve speculative losses (such as lost productivity), they are not universally agreed upon. One widely-used model to