On November 6 2012, an amendment was passed in Colorado that allowed cannabis to be taxed, regulated, and sold, similar to alcohol. On January 1st 2014, recreational marijuana was recreationally sold to an adult for the first time in history.

This event not only signifies a progression in personal freedoms, but also an important event in history and progression towards the federal legalization of the plant. As President Obama stated in a recent interview published by the New Yorker, it is “important for it to move forward” in Colorado and Washington, a state that has also passed an amendment similar to the amendment passed in Colorado. Seeing the success that the recreational legalization of marijuana had in Colorado, many states such as Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, and Georgia are moving towards the decriminalization or legalization of the plant, but this is not the answer. Marijuana needs to be legal on a federal level in order to make social and economic progress.

According to the Huffington Post, recreational sales of marijuana in Colorado exceeded $5,000,000 in the first week of it being legal. The implementation of the experiment in Colorado on a federal scale would produce even more massive results. According to Drugscience.org, marijuana, although illegal, was the top cash crop in the United States between 2003 and 2005, with an estimated profit of $35 billion. If cannabis were federally legalized, taxed and regulated, this amount would be significantly higher.

As of 2012, over 20 states in the United States have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes, and this has produced many positive results. Cancer.org says that medicinal marijuana relieves pain, controls nausea and vomiting and stimulates appetite in patients with cancer and AIDS. In many documented cases, hemp oil has been the main ingredient in decreasing and eliminating cancerous tumors, such as the fatal tumor that Michelle Aldrich had in January 2012. According to San Fransisco Weekly, Aldrich went to doctors to find out why her flu was getting worse only to discover that her chest pains were stage 3 lung cancer. Although doctors said that she was supposed to die, Aldrich began consuming pure hemp oil and smoking cannabis. By April 2012, her tumor’s size decreased by 50 percent. In another case, Montana toddler Cash Hyde was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 20 months and was put on a hemp oil treatment, which decreased the tumor’s size and relieved the toddler’s pain. After a few months of being forced off the treatment by state law, he died. Other countries, such as Spain and Germany, promote the use of medicinal cannabis to treat cancer inpatients.

As of right now, marijuana is classified by the Control Act of 1970 as a schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has no medicinal value and is classified in the same field as heroin. While many states have made or are working towards making the possession of marijuana as a civil offense rather than a criminal offense, other states, including Georgia, have harsh penalties for marijuana possession. According to NORML.org, a person charged with simple possession of marijuana can pay thousands of dollars in fines and possibly go to jail. These charges can drastically impact the lives of people of every social class. These charges can prohibit a hard-working student from getting into college, can cause an adult to lose a bill-paying job and cause someone who is unable to pay the excessive fines to serve maximum jail time. According to Drugscience.org,more than 36,000 Georgians in 2006 were a part of more than 870,000 marijuana arrests in the United States. The website estimates that it costs our state more than $325 million dollars in 2006 to address marijuana-related crimes.

It is difficult to imagine that a marijuana grower can get a longer prison sentence than a rapist, armed robber or murderer, but there are many instances in which this is the case. According to fija.org, more than 25 people have been sentenced to life in prison for either being involved in the marijuana growing and trade business or for refusing to plead guilty to crimes and testify against others. According to progressive.org, in 2002, Sasha Ambramsky, a father of three, was caught selling three half-pound bags of marijuana while carrying a gun for self-defense. Ambramsky was sentenced to 55 years in prison after refusing to plead guilty to carrying a firearm while distributing the marijuana. According to fullfact.org, the average convicted rapists gets a sentence of five years. Under the current law, growing marijuana plants can land you many years or  possibly life in prison.

Contrary to popular belief, recreational legalization would actually allow for a safer and more secure society.If states are to follow Colorado’s example in legalization, they also will likely follow Colorado’s regulations that arose with Amendment 64, such as limitations to the amount you can possess, where you can smoke it and how old you have to be to buy, possess or consume marijuana. According to the Denver Post, general police officers,security and police agents (at places like airports, schools and post offices) are expected to be more vigilantfor illicit marijuana use than ever before. Because of the recent recreational legalization, police officers in Colorado have more motivation to look for people driving under the influence of marijuana or using it illicitly. This will ultimately cause an increase in public safety and will decrease the use of marijuana by minors through the increased monitoring. The Denver Post also said that cities like Boulder have increased their citations for public use of marijuana and have restricted the use of it to private property, thus protecting the rights of people in Colorado who do not want to be around the plant or the plant’s smell.

Clinical studies by the Center for Disease Control show that Marijuana causes significantly less harm than cigarettes or alcohol, so why should it be illegal? It is a personal freedom that does not infringe on the rights of others like cigarettes and alcohol do. The World Health Organization reports that more than 6,000,000 people have died from tobacco use and 2,500,000 from alcohol abuse, while there has yet to be a recorded death caused by the consumption of marijuana. Alcohol has been proven to be more malignant and violence-inducing than marijuana. According to Center for Disease Control, alcohol is responsible for hundreds of overdoses every year compared to the zero overdoses on marijuana. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse also adds that 25-30 percent of violent crimes committed in the U.S are alcohol-related, while no marijuana-related violent crimes have been recorded. Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is not physically addicting nor is it a gateway drug. Many studies including a federal study by the Institute of Medicine showed that marijuana is less addictive than caffeine, and less than 10% of the volunteering people surveyed showed signs of physical addiction. A recent study at the Institute for Social Research showed that alcohol is the gateway drug to harder drugs, not Marijuana, because it is more socially acceptable and easier to obtain. Out of the 14,577 high school students polled from 120 random public schools, 72 percent reported that they have used alcohol compared to the 43 percent reporting marijuana use, and this same poll also concluded that seniors who had consumed alcohol were 13 times more likely to try cigarettes, 16 times more likely to try marijuana and other narcotics, and 13 times more likely to try cocaine.

Another popular misconception about Marijuana use is that it leads to a lack of motivation or intelligence, but Marijuana actually provides an enhanced sense of creativity, social skills and motivation. Mpp.org reports that some of the most influential, creative and successful people of our time have used or frequently use marijuana. These people include Bill Gates, LeBron James, Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt, Ted Turner, Michael Phelps, Morgan Freeman, Seth MacFarlane, Oliver Stone and President Barack Obama.

Marijuana use is virtually harmless. Using this should be a personal freedom and choice. If federally legalized, marijuana could provide tremendous industrial, medicinal and recreational benefits to America as a nation. Not only is marijuana a safer alternative to alcohol, but it is easier to control and causes no negative environmental impact compared to the negative impacts of alcohol use, such as excessive litter of broken bottles that pose a potential danger to animals and humans. When someone has suffered a stressful day, suffers from physical and mental aches and pains, or just wants to be more creative and calm, they should have the option to turn to marijuana as a substitute to other more harmful behavior. Currently in most of the United States that opportunity and freedom is legally denied because of a misconception of the properties of a plant that has been used worldwide for more than 10,000 years. Not only will America progress politically, economically and especially socially through the legalization of marijuana, but  legalization will provide a stepping stone for world-wide progress against international problems and will create a positive, lasting mark and reputation for the United States.