Marijuana use is on the rise in almost all communities, and the recent drug search done at Manhattan High shows the concern our communities have about it.

People continue to see marijuana as a bad thing but LEGALIZED marijuana has many benefits, including improving physical health, providing more money in taxes and preventing overcrowding in prisons. Even with it not being legalized in all places most states decriminalized or made it legal for medical use. It’s time for Kansas to consider legalizing it marijuana.

Medical marijuana for physical health was one of the first ways it was legalized, and in some states it’s still only legal to use with a prescription. According to Peter Grinspoon, a professor who teaches medicine at Harvard Medical School, the most common way marijuana is used in the United States is for pain control. He believes that it’s a much safer option than other pain killers because it is impossible to overdose on and far less addictive. Some prescribed pain killers do people way more harm than they do good. People can become highly addicted to them, but another less addictive and more safe option could keep people safe. All the current evidence on medical marijuana shows the great things it can do for people, which is a good enough reason for it to be legalized for medical use in all states.

There has been nearly $8 billion in tax revenue from cannabis since legal sales first began in 2014? That money goes to so many great things like fixing roads, funding school, medical care, and could do so, so much more, such as build more schools. It could also be more affordable for  people who can’t afford medical care. Despite all of the potential good, people still only want to see bad things.

My last point to why I think it should be fully legalized in Kansas would be to stop the overcrowding in jails. When jails release people early due to overcrowding, I would rather have someone who got in trouble for having weed rather than someone with a possibly violent charge getting out of jail. For this reason, they have started to just decriminalize it in some states, which means that instead of people getting changed and going to jail, depending on the amount they have with them they would only get a ticket.

Some people have been taught throughout their lives that all drugs are bad and they have little to no positives to them, but I think it’s important to rethink that and consider legalizing marijuana in some forms now.