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Should Marijuana Be Legalized

Should marijuana be legal?

This paper considers a few policies focusing on the legalization of marijuana. The legalization of marijuana would maximize our social welfare; granting the community civil liberties, reducing crime, decreasing the potency effect, preventing the spread of disease, saving the taxpayer money, and consequentially benefitting both individuals and the community as a whole. It further discusses an economic analysis for the legalization of cannabis including; general economic and law trade of cannabis, supply and demand with respect to their elasticities, public policies, punishment and deterrence, objections to current prohibition laws, and the advantages for legalization.
The main component of economic analysis is focused on social welfare. A crime should be punished to the extent that maximizes social welfare. Criminal law is more focused on people that cause intentional harm. Crime involving illegal drugs is considered a ‘victimless’ crime; so there is a dispute whether they should be chastised or not. The main economic goal of crime law, including the consumption and sale of illegal drugs, is to minimize the social cost to equal the sum of the harm it causes and the cost of preventing it.

General Economics and Law Trade of Cannabis
The act of trading marijuana for a sum of money is perceived as a criminal act. In fact, the exchange benefits both parties. The consumer values the drug more than the money, and the seller values the money more resulting in a positive trade sum gain. Even though some people in the society are not in favor of this, the voluntary trades enhance the welfare of all individuals engaged in the trades. As for the people that do not agree with these trades, their worry about this issue is not calculated in the social and economic welfare. This is because they can not illustrate their perception in this matter, since they are not engaged in the trade. Also, there is always at least one person in...