General Purpose: To persuade
Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that recreational marijuana should be legalized in all the states in the United States.
Thesis: Having recreational marijuana illegal only makes people want to smoke it more ergo legalizing it will benefit the United States in so many ways such as boosting the economy, decreasing teen usage, safety and much more.
I. The Attention Step
A. Attention: Please, close your eyes and play this scenario in your mind. You have a child, his name is Pablo, in a room full of candy and you sit him on a table and give them a plate of vegetables, you tell them that they have to eat all their vegetables and can’t have candy because candy is bad for them and that it’s not healthy. You then step out of the room and Pablo is all alone. Now, what do you think he will do? Do you think hell finish his plate of vegetables? No, he takes the advantage of you being gone and eats all the candy he can.
B. Significance: In the analogy, the candy is the cannabis also known as recreational marijuana. The fact that the United States has made recreational marijuana an illicit drug it gives people more of an urge to do it. Just like when you don't give candy to a kid they want it more. But its not all about legalizing it to make people not have the urgency to do it as much but legalizing it will also boost the Unites States economy. There are so many advantages to legalizing recreational marijuana.
C. Relevance: When someone is not given something they often want it more, therefore giving someone what they want often confuses them and they often want what they cannot have so they may not want it as much.
D. Credibility: In the United States so many people have tried marijuana besides the fact that it has been classified as an illicit drug. Every year over 600,000 Americans go to jail for obtaining marijuana. There is more support for marijuana today then there was in 1969 by over 52%. As of now, there are nine states that have legalized marijuana as well as DC.
E. Thesis: Marijuana is not as bad as people think it is, although it is a gateway drug, it is better then tobacco and alcohol, yet those are legal and marijuana is still illegal.
F. Preview: Imagine legalizing marijuana, it would lead to less people going to jail, a boost in the economy, and so much more.
II. The Need Step
A. First Main Point: What is marijuana and how it came to be.
a. “Pot, weed, ganja, mary jane, muggles, mooter, bambalacha, iggle-smokes” are all different ways in which people refer to marijuana. Katy Stienmetz in “Why there are so many different names for weed”. Before making the assertion that marijuana should be legalized I would like to clarify what is marijuana and how it came to be. The scientific term for marijuana is “cannabis” and it has three species also known as stains which are cannabis indica, cannabis sativa, and cannabis ruderalis which is not well known. People often mistake marijana with hemp, however, they are both cannabis plants but marijuana has more intense levels of THC which is delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol and that is a major “psychoactive ingredient” which why people get high according to Jonathan Caulkins in his book Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.” However, marijuana all stated in China, they used it as medication and it soon came to the United States alone with the settlers of Jamestown they began growing hemp and it was one of the largest crops. Drugs were not much of a problem back then but, marijuana was not used for smoking purposes up until the 1900s during the Mexican Revolution where the Mexicans introduced the Americans to smoking marijuana.
B. Second Point: How it came to become illegal since it was once a ponce a time legal in the United States.
a. In 1931 according to Martin Lee in his book Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana- Medical, Recreational and Scientific he states a commissioner, Harry Anslinger was the one who pushed to make marijuana an illicit drug stating that it was a drug for minorities and he used many racial stereotypes about Hispanics, blacks and other racial groups stating that they use it for sexual desires and their “satanic music.” Which then led to 1937 and the Marihuana Tax Act which made it extremely difficult to buy or sell marijuana dur to the huge amount of tax and without a tax stamp it was illegal to sell it. It was officially made illegal in 1970 by President Nixon when he signed a bill under federal law.
C. Third Point: Why it should be legal.
a. To begin why I think it should be legal it that it is a plant that does not harm anyone and it not addictive. The mere act of smoking marijuana is not addictive, you cannot get addicted to smoking marijuana, you can get addicted to the feeling but not the plant itself.
b. Marijuana is categorized as a Schedule I drug stating that it is part of the most restrictive groups of drugs, not even cocaine and heroin are part of that category. Which clearly asserts that there is a much greater issue with marijuana. Colorado and Washington are the first states to make marijuana legal for adults over 21 years of age. Ever since then many that have never tried marijuana and tried it since have realized that it is not as bad as the federal law makes it seem and it is definitely not a gateway drug to other drugs.
c. It helps with the economy in the sense that it begins a decrease in the black market, it starts jobs and increases the possibility of new businesses and decrease the crime rate.
D. Conclusion: In conclusion, I would just like to say that I think marijuana should be legal because it will benefit the United States and together if we take a stand I think that we can slowly end this War on Drugs which puts so many people’s lives at risk. It will stop the black market on marijuana and it is not a dangerous drug. A few states have already legalized it and they have no problem ergo other states should begin doing the same.