I choose to read a article called "The Question of the Legality of Marijuana". I found this article on Teen Ink, the writer did not leave his/her name. The thesis sentence of this article is "It is possible to legalize marijuana and put an end to the negative stigma associated with it." Located in the first paragraph, last sentence. After reading the first paragraph I was intrigued because it seemed evident that the writer did her research and was very opinionated about the subject.
This ten paragraph opinion piece was well put together and all paragraphs relate closely to the thesis. It was evident that she researched the subject because she had quotes such as " As former president George Washington once said: “Make the most of the hemp seed. Sow it everywhere"'. Also the writer had lots of statistics relating closely to the thesis like "With this new system in place [legalization of marijuana], the government could let go of the 57% of federal prison inmates that are imprisoned on marijuana-related charges (U.S. DOJ, BJS, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2000), 88% of which were arrested on simple possession charges. Once they’re set free, the taxes Americans are paying to keep them housed and comfortable (23,000 USD per inmate according to S.R. Donziger, 1996) could be used for education, which is currently at only 8,000 per child. (D.A. Olsen, May 4, 2000) ".
The writer did briefly mention that marijuana is a gateway drug and that could be why it is illegal, in the third last paragraph. I feel it could of been discussed further but I think her mind was made up already. She did not convince me that it should be legalized no. Mainly because she didn't consider the reprocutions of things she said. Like the statistics above say, if all inmates arrested on charges involving marijuana there would be people that thought that it was okay to disobey what the government said and make there own laws back out on the street. Also I'm sure a lot of criminals in jail on charges of possession of marijuana if you look back through there record they most likely have numerous other charges on there plate, like Distribution Of A Dangerous Drug, and Violation of Probation. These people chose to disobey the laws of marijuana so what are they going to do when its legal, find another way to "give it to the man" do something that remains illegal, Distribute harder drugs maybe? She didn't thing everything thought completely I do not believe.
In the end I did like the article just because I'm a teenager and for majority of teenagers the legalization of marijuana would be a wonderful thing, make sneaking behind your parents a lot easier wouldn't it but I just don't think that its that easy. The writer did do a great job writing her opinion piece even if her and my opinion are a little different, I think that she probably spent a lot of time researching and writing this piece because there were few if any grammatical errors.
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