The Importance Of Drug Legalization In California

Some will say that legalizing this so-called drug will lead to negative repercussions, including higher crime rates, increased youth access to drugs or even increased traffic fatalities. Of course, when we look at the people who will abuse the new laws, we will see some irresponsible behavior, including purchasing marijuana for teenagers or driving while under the influence, but this is nothing that we haven’t seen with similar substances such as tobacco or alcohol. We do have law enforcement, and it is their job to protect us from those types of people, so we shouldn’t let these worries get in the way of such a needed change in California. Although these qualms about societal consequences that individuals may have upon the thought of legalization are …show more content…
For example, in 2010, California enacted a law decriminalizing marijuana and removing low-level pot offenses from the criminal justice system. With this, according to Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone, “…youth crime has plummeted by nearly 30 percent in California…[and] the rate of both high school dropouts and youth drug overdoses are down by 20 percent” (Dickinson). Through this instance, we can see that this necessary first step to legalization in California, had nothing but positive side effects, proving people wrong who have fears that marijuana being legal will push society into chaos. Another example of this same type, comes from one of our fellow states who has already legalized marijuana for recreational use. In 2014, Colorado put laws into place that made marijuana consumption and cultivation legal, and many people feared that with these new laws, crime rates would increase dramatically. In actuality, after legalization was implemented there, we saw a drop in