I decided to do my paper on the drug policy, to be more specific the policy in which it talks about marijuana legalization. Over the past decade we have seen a big growth in the marijuana reform. In the United States, the more recent polls have been proven to show more than half of the United States population is in favor of legalizing marijuana.         I came across an article from the Drug Policy website and in the article in stated that the Drug Policy Alliance argues that marijuana should be completely removed from the criminal justice system. They believe the criminal justice system should manage marijuana like they manage alcohol and other tobacco products. The Drug Policy Alliance is talking to many state representatives including New York and New Jersey to legalize marijuana.         While researching about marijuana legalization I came upon one of many articles that argues that marijuana should not be legalized. The Heritage Foundation likes to believe that that marijuana is an addictive and a gateway drug to much harder drugs like cocaine, heroin, and many others.         There are many arguments you can make on if marijuana should be legalized or if marijuana should not be legalized. The truth of the matter is it goes straight to the cold hard facts and getting those facts to the people and letting the individual states vote on if marijuana should be legalized in their state or not. Now on a federal level it is another story. While medical marijuana is legalized in 44 states, marijuana is still under federal law. The government regulates drugs only through the Controlled Substance Act. in that act, it does not recognize any difference between recreational use and medical use of marijuana.         With marijuana being under federal law, the government sees and treats marijuana no different than any other controlled substances like heroin and cocaine. The government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, with marijuana being a Schedule 1 drug it is seen as highly addictive and has no meaning whatsoever for medical use. In 2005 the United States Supreme Court stated that the federal government “has the constitutional authority to prohibit marijuana for all purposes. Thus, federal law enforcement officials may prosecute medical marijuana patients….”         Let’s look at the pros and cons to having marijuana being legalized. Let’s look at the pros first, it will bring in less money to organized crime. If marijuana was to be legalized people would not be going to drug dealers looking to buy marijuana because they can either grow it themselves or just go to a store and by a gram legally. With marijuana being legalized there will be less organized crime mostly due to the fact a lot of groups get most of their profit from selling marijuana. Another pro would be breakthroughs and many other benefits to cancer. Medical marijuana helps cancer patients with pain, it helps them get through the horrible process this world has been cursed with just a bit easier. Also, another pro we can add is economic growth. With marijuana being legalized, the economy can grow exponentially, this theory has been proven to be correct too. In 2016, Colorado’s economy had seen a major boost with marijuana being legalized in their state. Marijuana had been proven to show a $2.4 Billion increase in Colorado.         Also, with marijuana being legalized, it has been proven to show it can generate tens of thousands of jobs alone. In Colorado, there are over 18,000 full time jobs. With there being more jobs, this creates less people unemployed and could potentially help people get off the streets and into warm, comfortable living homes with food on their tables to eat.           Now let’s look at the cons of legalizing marijuana, marijuana can alter your perception. When it comes to perception alcohol and marijuana are similar. They both affect your vision and your ability to walk, talk and think. We all have seen first-hand what the altering of perception can do, for example drunk driving, while it being legal people still find a way to still do it. Driving under the influence is never safe, you can crash into another car, injure yourself and other person. Also, while driving under the influence you can risk hitting another human being and seriously injuring them or even killing them. Another con could be risking a lot of people getting addicted to marijuana. While the addiction to marijuana is still up in the air with scientists, there are many cases that have shown that marijuana can be addictive. People who smoke weed can easily get use to the love of being high and that can be very dangerous. When you are high your whole mind is thinking differently, you are more relaxed, less stressed out, and you are less aware of your surroundings. This can be dangerous while you are working, driving, pregnant, studying, etc.         As you can see there are many pros and cons to the legalization of marijuana. While it is the state’s decision to legalize weed or not, there is still that boundary between state and federal. Massachusetts is one of the latest state to legalize marijuana, they have proven to show there are a lot of gains to legalizing marijuana and a lot of losses to legalizing marijuana too. Both Mayor Marty Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker are opposed to Question 4 (the legalization of marijuana), and with marijuana being legalized in Massachusetts a lot of people believe the Mayor and the Governor have lost respect and authority to some of their people.         Now if we are criminalizing all of marijuana and have a prohibition of marijuana, we could see an uproar. If we have another prohibition like we did in the 1920s with alcohol we could potentially see the same outcome they had in the 20s. There would be bootlegging of marijuana, underground parties specifically to smoke and eat edibles, etc.We could also potentially see a decrease in security risks if we legalize marijuana. If we were to legalize marijuana we could see fewer and fewer people trying to smuggle weed from different countries. We could see less security risks in airports, less TSA officers being screamed at for patting people down legally, etc.Concluding, the legalization of marijuana in the Drug Policy is not very comprehensive. But to add to that there are many facts that you can argue to whether or not to legalize marijuana. The Drug Policy is very specific when it comes to legalizing marijuana and we see that argument about the legalization of marijuana almost every day.