As a high school student you see someone smoking marijuana almost every day. You see your classmates and people you admire on a daily basis. So you ask yourself: why is it banned? What makes it worse than tobacco or alcohol, both of which are legal? Why is there such a heated debate about the issue across the country, and why is marijuana legal in some places and illegal in others? What distinguishes it from other drugs and are there any benefits? I have always been very curious about marijuana and enjoy hearing sides of both topics. I think back to when I was younger, around eight years old or so, and only about 10 years later support for marijuana reform grew almost 20% more. Because 20% of the population decided it's time to end prohibition, what's the difference between then and now? This topic is not only intriguing to me, but to most people in the country it is one of the most important topics in the nation and I want to get to the bottom of it. According to MPP.org (Marijuana Policy Project) “In 2012, on average one person was arrested every 48 seconds for possession of marijuana.” These are 749,825 people arrested in 2012 alone (almost a million people!) Of these 749,825 people, 658,231 were arrested for possession alone. Did you know that housing an inmate costs almost $47,000 a year? So, if you were to house all 749,825 arrested in 2012 for just one year, the cost would be approximately $35,241,775,000 in taxpayer dollars. Imagine what we could do with the extra $35 billion. Of course, this is theoretical and not all 749,825 people were convicted and imprisoned, but it puts things into perspective. From 1991 to 2003, not only did marijuana arrests nearly triple, but the number of teenagers who tried marijuana... half of the document...uite 400 Washington, DC. 20002. Info@mpp.org.Scritto:• 58 Percent Support Marijuana Legalization, Poll Says - CBS News. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57608877/• Drug War Watch | Sense of the drug. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock• Legal history of cannabis in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States• Marijuana Policy Project - Home. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://MPP.org• Race and the War on Drugs | Racial discrimination in drug law enforcement | Drug Policy Alliance. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.drugpolicy.org/race-and-drug-war• The War on Drugs is a Trillion-Dollar Failure - CNN.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-drugs/