MORE REASONS THAN FINANCES TO LEGALIZE

This letter is in regard to the article [editorial] "Finance the
bailout: Legalize weed" published on April 7, 2009 where the author
proposes the legalization of marijuana as a possible solution to
funding our fumbled economy.

While I feel this article touched on some good points I feel it could
have elaborated on a few others that would have produced stronger
support, and less opposition. For example the author proposes it as a
healthier alternative, but does not produce any facts to back it up.
A simple Google search would produce statistics from the Journal of
the American Medical Association that show alcohol deaths a year at
85,000 and tobacco deaths at a whopping 450,000. Marijuana however,
produces zero recorded deaths a year, and will continue to. This
would have been a tremendous asset to the argument, seeing as tobacco
and alcohol are legal, while marijuana remains illegal.

I agree with the author on how marijuana legalization could cut
costs, and produce more tax revenue for our country and the downward
sloping economy. The author however could have incorporated how
exactly this would help to decrease costs by stating that a large
number of people in jail for issues concerning marijuana are there
for simple possession. This would further back up the authors
argument that money is being wasted for containing people who are not
even in the business of selling the drug. They are just people trying
to express their inalienable rights as members of a free country.

The author also could have given examples of how prohibition fails
more times than not. For example alcohol prohibition which failed
miserably had the same implications. People continued their use and
the government was spending valuable money trying to prohibit it,
instead of returning it to its previously profitable state. The
government seemed to learn their lesson on this issue, why not for
marijuana as well? I mean alcohol serves really no use other than the
enjoyment of consumption by individuals. The author could have taken
this angle and then came back with the multiple purposes that
marijuana has other than enjoyment of consumption.

I feel the author would have had a better chance at using finances as
a support for the legalization of marijuana, not the reasoning behind
legalization. There are too many other reasons to legalize the drug
than just finances. A few examples the author could have used would
be marijuana's medicinal purposes, or even its textile use in the form of hemp.

Matthew Parish