Discussion Question: Should marijuana be legalized nationally?

Ideas
Introduction: 6 minutes and 33 seconds approximately

Health benefits or risks (Maddie)

Im going to be explaining the health benefits and risks that comes along with consuming
marijuana. As far as the benefits, there has been so much research to show really how
beneficial marijuana can be in so many cases. A few health issues marijuana can and has
helped with that I will go more in depth in is Parkinsons Disease and people who battle cancer.

When it comes to Parkinsons Disease, medical marijuana can make a huge, positive impact on
the pain and tremors within minutes. Not only that, but it has also helped patients to have better
nights of sleep. Here Im going to show you a video (Video 2:33)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNT8Zo_sfwo

So now Im going to explain how marijuana can impact people who have cancer. A huge role
that medical marijuana plays here is that it simply just reduces the pain that these patients go
through on a day to day basis. Not only that, but adding marijuana to these people's lives can
decrease vomiting, nausea, and can help to bring back their appetite therefore increasing their
food intake which is very important in patients who are going through chemotherapy.

Marijuana can also be helpful for those suffering from PTSD, anxiety and depression, treat
headaches and nausea, lower blood pressure, calm asthma, and can decrease the symptoms
of seizures, just to name a few.

On the other side of things, there are downfalls that come along with marijuana. It is possible to
consume too much marijuana at a time, which can actually drastically increase anxiety and
cause one to become very paranoid of their surroundings. There also arent only good
substances in marijuana, there are also some things that are very similar to the same harmful
substances found in tobacco smoke. Another big downside is that, just like anything else drug
related or not, it can become addictive. If it becomes an everyday, multiple times a day thing, it
is very easy for you body to start to need it everyday to even feel like you can function properly.
Developing such a strong dependence on marijuana moves it from the beneficial side to the
unhealthy side very quickly. (5 min total)
Regulation (Cody)
- How to tell if someone is currently high
- Current Drug Recognition Experts (DRE) are officers with special training to
perform tests for drug impairment, similar to a sobriety test.
- Test consist of 12 steps, including motor skills tests, visual tests, muscle
response and blood pressure, and finally a urine test.
- Holds in court. (Nebraska vs Jacob Daly)
- Currently no breathalyzer for pot exist.
- Current tests for roadside saliva tests suggest devices ready to use in 3-5
years
- Colorado and Washington have set their legal limit of marijuana intoxication at 5
nanograms per milliliter.
- Science has shown this is high enough that regular users will not be
caught by the residual THC left in bloodstream as soon as 24 hrs.
- Data suggest that at this level fatal traffic accidents go from 3% to 6.6%.
- Promote consumer safety
- Test for fungus, mold, and other bacteria along with fertilizers, or pesticides used
during growing.
- Products should include a cannabinoid profile (similar to that of nutrition facts on
food) that show the consumer how much THC, CBD and other major
cannabinoids are present
- Includes suggested dose size and concentration for edibles.

Economics (Libby)
- Taxes: Taxes are split up into 3 different categories based on type of marijuana sale.
- First $40 million in excise tax on wholesale retail marijuana goes to school
construction as part of BEST plan. Revenue exceeding that will go to the public
school fund.
- Regular sales tax and special sales taxed items revenue will go to the Marijuana
Tax Cash Fund (MTCF).
- MTCF helps with health care, monitoring health effects of marijuana,
health education, substance abuse prevention and treatment programs,
and law enforcement.
- 15% of that will go to local governments.
- Total revenue for year 2015-16 and 2016-17
- Jobs
- Over 62,000 jobs have been created as of May 2016
- Colorado has a very low unemployment rate
- Only 0.4% of Colorados jobs are cannabis related: good thing for economy
- Most cannabis related jobs pay higher than the national minimum wage.
- Decomposition of Black and Grey Market demand
Criminal
- Will legalization increase or decrease crime rates
- Increase
- In an article by David Evans the Executive Director of the Drug Free
Projects Coalition. He claims medical marijuana dispensaries are
million dollar enterprises due to physicians faulty recommendations for
medical marijuana. With this he also claims that in neighborhoods where
dispensaries have been used a front for drug traffickers and are targets of
violent crime.
- Neutral
- In a book written by Jonathan Caulkins called Marijuana
Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know he writes about and uses
scholarly studies and research to critically analyze the marijuana
legalization debate.
- The biggest argument related to crime rates and prison populations is that
basically nothing would change.
- Black markets and drug cartels do not profit too much off of marijuana
and if turning that into a legal business it would do nothing noticeable to
help the U.S.
- As for prison populations, persons in jail for marijuana possession more
often than not ar in jail for more than just marijuana usage or possession as
often times they are caught with other illegal substances or committing
other crimes.
- Will it lead to abuse of other drugs or enhance abuse of others
- No
- The amount of unpredictability, studies, and research do not prove nor
disprove any correlation between marijuana usage and other drugs (legal
or illegal)
- Due to cannabis being an illegal substance federally its effects cannot be
officially tested and monitored so the effects cannot/should not be tested
within the United States unless/until cannabis is legalized.
- Downside to that is that it would legalize a drug thats effects are unknown
or the deepest extents at the very least.