agkardash Author

I agree with Chomsky’s ideas on why marijuana is illegal, but tobacco is legal. It is easy to deem something illegal without sheer numbers of individuals, especially those with money, who will fight for it. He brought up that a lot of money is to be made from tobacco from fertilizer companies, pesticide companies, and others. If tobacco were to be proposed to be deemed illegal, there would be many multi-million dollar companies backing up the idea of keeping it legal, and as we have learned in this class, money is power and often makes ethics overseen.

While marijuana sales could be taxed, there isn’t a lot of money to be made on it, as Chomsky stated, it can be grown in anyone’s back yard on a small scale. With that being said, if marijuana were to be legalized there is a possibility that it could grown into a large industry such as tobacco. As a chemistry major, I hear a lot about how the jobs in labs for marijuana companies are booming right now. There is a high need for lab techs and those trained to do the analysis on the plants. If marijuana were not be legalized, I believe that there would be an increase in jobs in the industry as well as an increase in the quality of the marijuana. Chomsky did state that there has been no overdoses of marijuana, while that is true, marijuana can be laced with other drugs, or various products can be sold with too much potency.

Many pros and cons of tobacco and marijuana’s legality are available, but I believe most of the concerns addressed are economic issues and not ethical issues, when safety should be a higher priority.