Persuasive Custom Speech on Legalization of Marijuana in California or Presentation

Persuasive Custom on Legalization of Marijuana in California - Speech or Presentation Example Today's marijuana users are not Otto the bus driver, smoking a joint while driving past imaginary purple elephants. They are not deadbeats hanging onto the fringe of society. They are average men and women, many of them diligent students, community business owners, and even civic leaders (NORML). Are these people criminals? No! They are simply good people caught on the bad side of a poorly-written, poorly-planned, and poorly-executed public policy. California is known as the cutting edge of social change. The state is already at the forefront of the drug legalization debate, having legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996 (Secretary of State). This means the state already has experience in the regulation and distribution of marijuana legally, and makes it the perfect testing ground for the legalization of recreational marijuana. Medical marijuana has been found to be more effective on a wider variety of symptoms and to be safer, with fewer side effects, than Marinol, an artificial cannaboid medication (Joy, Watson, & Benson, p 203). There has been no evidence that the legalization of medical marijuana in the state has increased recreational usage, and the passage of this law saved thousands of legitimate disease sufferers from being banded as criminals.