Title: Why legalize weed in the common wealth ?

Name: Michael Osorio

General Purpose: To persuade
Specific Purpose: To pursued the audience on why to legalize weed in the common wealth
and its benefits to us

Time: 7 minutes

I. Introduction
A. Icky sticky, Pot, Mary Jane. Reefer. By now most of you now that I am talking about weed
and most know that this substance is illegal. But what If it wasn’t illegal in the common wealth
B. If weed was legal in VA most of you would rejoice and jump in happiness ,but it would
also effect you economically in a good way.
C. After spending a good amount of time researching this I can say that I am qualified to
talk about this.
D. I will talk about the economic benefits of weed legalization and its impact on the job
market and crime

*Now Let me talk about its economic benefit in the common wealth.
II. Body
A. Economic Boost in the commonwealth.
1. So the only economic model we have to go by is Colorado and medical marijuana sales.
a. So as you can see since its initial legalization medical marijuana sales are predicted to rise
to from a 1 billion industry to 4 billion industry (Downs)
2. Now lets look at Colorado and its recreational use sales compared
to its medical
a. So this chart represents sales from Jan to Aug. Of this year and its
clear that recreation sales will surpass medical sales in the future.
b. It has gotten to the point were Colorado has begun to see the
sales tax come in in the millions (Maya)
3. Now were does Colorado weed money go
a. Well its been suggested that the tax money collected will be going
to help fund schools that are underfunded.(Breeze-Courier)
b. Something like this could help Va and its underfunded schools.
*Now let me talk about the jobs that come with legalized weed
B. Growing weed
1. For those of you that are unfamiliar with cannabis is a plant and its buds is what is used to get
high.
a. So to no surprise like any other plant it needs to be grown and produced by farmers.
The farming of cannabis is a booming industry especially in Colorado and in Washington were
weed is legal (Becker).
b. But cannabis has brought even more jobs then we could think of . Let me list a few and
give a brief description. (Becker)
c. There are edible creators theses guys make foods infused with marijuana things like
soda, coffee, candy, and even baked goods like pot brownies. (Becker)
d. There are even trimmers they are the ones that produce the leaves and make it into the
buds (Becker)
* now that I talked about the jobs weed brings let me talk about the fall of crime industry in the
us.

C. Fall of cartels
1. So many of you might have heard of the Mexican cartels at some point n your
life’s. For those of you who don’t know the cartels that operate all over the use and are involved
in the selling and producing of drugs the most noted one is marijuana.
a. So the cartels have had a monopoly of weed and it’s sales for decades.
b. They fight other cartels in us borders over who gets the right to sale weed. They make
so much money they are willing to kill over it.
c. But with the legalization of weed in the us. The cartels have been starting to lose profits.
According to vice news the sale of weed has gone so low that a kilio that was wroth hundreds to
sale now is only wroth 25 dollars. (O’Hara)
d. In fact weed sales have gone so low that the us has takes over 40 % of the cartels drug
profits and sales.
e. This is good news to Americans who have to pay to fight this drug war we have spend
over 51 billion a year in taxes to support the DEA and its war on drugs we have spent over 1.7
trillion since 1970 Talk about saving money (O’Hara)
2. More than half of all drug crimes are that of marijuana related charges. (HOTAKAINEN)
a. In 2012 the most reported crime was that of marijuana possession. (FLATOW)
b. In fact in the new york city department desperate to meet their quotas they
introduces the stop and frisk program which allowed any cop to search you in public. (FLATOW)
c. This helped the new york police department reach their quota which meant more
people in jail that tax payers had to support. (FLATOW)
D. What was worse is that most of those arrested were minorities African Americans males
were twice as likely to be arrested than white males who had the same amount of weed on
them at the time of a frisk. (FLATOW)
c. All of this could have been avoided if weed was legal all this unneeded arrests and all
this extra money we the taxpayers have to burden.
* Now we know how weed would effect crime if it was legal
III. Conclusion
A. Marijuana can only benefit us with all its economic, criminal and job market.
B. Right now we can only observe how it works in Colorado and in Dc and hopefully the
commonwealth will see its benefits and legalize weed
C. I hope I have persuaded you into legalizing weed with your votes and voice.
 Bibliography
Becker, Sam. 16 Jobs Being Created By the Marijuana Industry . 13 10 2014. 17 11 2014
<http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/16-jobs-being-created-by-the-marijuana-industry.html/?
a=viewall>.

Breeze-Courier. "News Bank Access world news ." Marijuana tax in Colorado may fund schools
there 1 nov 2013.

Downs, David. Medical Marijuana Sales Total $1.5 Billion for 2013, $6B by 2018. 22 03 2013.
TRUMEDIA. 18 10 2014 <http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2013/03/22/medical-marijuana-
sales-total-1-5-billion-for-2013-6b-by-2018/>.

FLATOW, NICOLE. Police Made More Arrests For Drug Violations Than Anything Else In 2012 .
17 september 2013. 17 11 2014 <http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/17/2627601/people-
arrested-drug-abuse-violations-2012/>.

HOTAKAINEN, ROB. Maclathy Dc. 13 may 2013. 18 11 2014

<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/23/192101/marijuana-is-drug-most-often-linked.html>.

Maya, Roden. "Colorado Recreational Pot Purchases Add $2 Million to State Revenue." U.S 11
3 2014.

O’Hara, Mary Emily. vice news . 8 may 2014. 17 11 2014 <https://news.vice.com/article/legal-

pot-in-the-us-is-crippling-mexican-cartels>.