Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana in the U.S.

Hook: What are the benefits of legalizing marijuana in the U.S.?

Background Information: Marijuana is made from dried and shredded parts of the cannabis plant, like the stems, leaves, seeds, and flowers. Cannabis is divided into three species – cannabis ruderalis, indica, and sativa. Cannabis ruderalis contains low levels of Tetra Hydro cannabinol, which is one of 113 cannabinoids discovered in marijuana. Cannabis indica produces large quantities of THC, which provides euphoric effects that make it popular for use both as a medicinal and recreational drug. When compared to indica strains, cannabis sativa generally comprise of a higher THC concentration. However, all three can be treated as subspecies of C. sativa that originated from Central Asia (Keyhani et al., 2018). The plant is also known as hemp, even though this term refers to cannabis that is cultivated for non-drug use.

Problem Statement: This research aims to problems pushing American youth to drug use are basic. Drugs are a means of escape because when people look around, all they see are dishonest politicians, police brutality, corruption, graft, segregation, discrimination, racism, war, water pollution, and air pollution.

Research Question: How does transportation, tourism, construction, real estate, and food industry benefit from legal marijuana?

Hypothesis: It is believed that according to statistics, more than 128 million people have experimented marijuana, despite it being illegalized under federal law. Annually, almost 600,000 Americans are caught for marijuana possession, which equates to one person per minute.

Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper leads to legalizing marijuana not only boosts the economy, but also leads to decreased teen marijuana use. 

Literature review

Given the health issues related to drugs such as additions, lung diseases, cancer, mental illness, hepatitis, and HIV/AIDS there is always a strong objection against users and commercialization of any form of drugs (Institute for Behavior and Health, 2021). On the other hand, some people support the process because it will create new opportunities to improve quality drugs and access them at a lower price for treatment and recreation purposes. Some people object against recreational drugs argue that such measures will prohibit and discourage people from drug-related crimes (Institute for Behavior and Health, 2021). Multiple studies discussed and the negative effect and impact of drugs on society. However, over time the government and communities in different parts of the world also seem to initiate a new perspective that it will be better to legalize recreational drugs rather than using a law that bans them. The perspective here is that the legalization of drugs will significantly improve their quality and eliminate illegal markets. As a result, governance is expected to spend less money on law enforcement and generate more taxation.  With this in mind, this has become an exciting area of research for both scholars and professional researchers. Bach, Jaklič & Vugec (2018) conducted a study on business intelligence to determine its impact on organizational performance and find whether organizational culture influences the relationship between the two. The result of this study indicates that organizations with more mature business intelligence have better organizational performance. Bouaoula et al. (2019) conducted a study to determine the impact of business intelligence on organizational competitiveness. After collecting data and conducting data analysis, the researcher found out that an organization can significantly improve its competitiveness using Business intelligence because it enhances how an organization searches for information, treats information, utilizes information, and ensures information security. 

Pacula & Smart conducted a recent study to evaluate and highlight the decriminalization and medical marijuana laws' effect and provide clear insight into marijuana liberalization, marijuana products, and related policy dynamic/policy heterogeneity.  Generally, the context in this article provides a detailed description of the concepts related to marijuana legalization. For instance, the article defined different terminologies such as heterogeneous marijuana policies, discrimination, and related definitional problems, and heterogeneous population/product and the effect of marijuana legalization in each situation. The study shows that marijuana legalization is based on the correlation with different aspects such as people, medical needs, and time. On the other hand, Mechcatie (2018) suggests that with the current increase in the percentage of states that legalize marijuana, there is an alarming prevalence of comorbid psychiatric disorder cases and drug abuse among adolescents, hence implementing comprehensive education prevention programs. This finding still leaves an ironic question.  Why is it then that more and more states are passing marijuana medical and recreational used laws when the result still negatively impacts?

The researchers such as Bin, Xinyang Chen, Xiangfan, and Hong Yan are among other researchers that have recently carried out studies related to Marijuana legalization (Yu et al., 2020). One of their recent studies under the title  Marijuana legalization and historical trends in marijuana use among US residents aged 12–25 involves a national survey on drug use and health.  The researchers used about 749,152 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and health recorded from 1979 to 2016 to determine the rate of marijuana use over more than three decades. The researcher found out that the rate of marijuana use would either increase or reduce in different historical periods. Specifically, after more states in the USA have legalized Marijuana as a recreational drug, it is becoming essential to emphasize youths' protection from using these drugs.  But if legalization of Marijuana is considered the best approach, why is it becoming essential to protect youth from using it? What are the benefits of this approach? And if any doe they outweigh the drawbacks involved?  Yu et al. (2020) suggest that the legalization of marijuana started in 1993, and California was the first state to pass the Medical Marijuana Law.  Today, we have more than 30 states that have passed the same law, and 11 states have passed the drugs for recreational use. The increasing percentage of legalized medical and recreational use of  Marijuana show that there are significant benefits, but this is still unclear what those benefits are in particular.

Research Method:

For this study, a meta-analysis method was used to synthesize different results found among several studies. The researcher accessed the virtual library through the MRU home page. Then, the researcher accessed the EBSCOhost databases. Once there, the researcher selected both MEDLINE Complete and CINAHL Complete. An advanced search was performed, for which the following keywords were entered in the Boolean search: “Benefits”, “in the united states”, and “legalizing Marijuana.” The search was limited to references providing full text, peer reviewed, and abstract available. A limitation was set for research published within the last five years, from 2016 to 2021. Additionally, researcher consulted only articles published in English. The search provided access to a total of 185 articles, of which only five (5) studies were selected based on their relevance with the topic; the other 180 were discarded. 

Results

he graphs shows impact of using marihuana in the United States. Series 1 indicates partial impact of use of marihuana. Its important is that those who use the drugs at sometimes are highlighted in this series. Series 2 is a record of its impact to when students are using marihuana and they are married. The importance of this series is to show that marihuana affects even married students. Finally, series 3 is an indication of marihuana to students who have their own children. Having children is important but this is an indication of responses to the use of marihuana.

Discussion

The fact that marijuana is the second most popular drug in the united states among the youth makes it more prevalent among the students as indicated y the graphical representations. The passive impact of marijuana uses among the students presented in series 1 means that the number of impacted students and young users is almost equally high just like in the active users of the drug. Further, the effects of marijuana use are determined among the married students to evaluate possible variance between the married and unmarried students. The graphical representations indications conclude that the impact of marijuana on students whether married or unmarried is relatively equivalent. Extensive evaluation of the hypothesis indicate that the results of the study concur with the experiment’s hypothesis (Nkemdirim Okere, 2018). The hypothesis generally indicates the extensive use of marijuana in the American society without specifically singling out a specific niche of human population for example, students, or the senior citizens. On the other hand, the research experiments evaluate the impact and significant use of marijuana among the students both married, and unmarried. The results presented graphically shows high rate of marijuana use and increased social impact among the students even among students with families. The results compliment the hypothesis and initial perception that majority of American citizens have abused or used marijuana illegally in the past.

LIMITATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

This study, done to assess the benefits of legalizing marijuana in US suffered several limitations; Firstly, there was no laboratory study to measure and determine  whether the patient had IBS or not. The diagnosis of IBS was based on the patient’s own subjective report concerning their symptoms. To rule out other diseases, a patient ought to undergo several tests. Therefore, based on signs and symptoms, the doctor diagnosed whether one suffered from IBS.  Because of this, therefore, the researcher only found qualitative information that was offered by patients based on their symptoms. In addition to this, the articles that were analyzed made use of samples which were smaller in carrying out their investigations. Because of this, therefore, the results that were obtained were verified on a much smaller scale.

Concerning the research method that was used, the researcher only used materials published from 2016 to 2021. This was a limitation for the study because the information that collected was insufficient. In addition to this, only five out of 185 articles were selected based on their relevance to the topic. By picking only 5 articles for research, the information that was accessed by the researchers was narrowed in scope. In addition to this, researchers used meta-analysis method in conducting their research. This method is ineffective because the researcher combined different articles in the same study. The researcher had to come up with the summary and there was a possibility that this left out important differences across the articles. Additionally, there was the possibility of biasness in this study because in most cases, researchers only want to make conclusions that are favorable to them.

In light of these limitations, chances of a proper outcome from this study were slim and the researcher could have changed this by correcting them or by using a different research method in conducting this research