Marijuana Legalization
Marijuana Legalization
Renee Jacques, associate viral content editor of the Huffington Post states, “A Gallup poll released on Tuesday (2013) reveals that for the first time in history, Americans are more in favor of legalizing marijuana than criminalizing it. Now, 58 percent of Americans are in favor allowing the plant to be legal.” (Jacques 2013) However, marijuana legalization has shown to not be a as simple process as some would have believed. The public alone can not seem to come to a final agreement on whether marijuana legalization would be a positive action or whether it would have only bad implications. Marijuana in recent times has had its fair share of people who despise the drug, that only can see it hurting adolescents development, our ability to think, and our society as a whole. The main issue apart from legalization is the stigma that is attached to it. This stigma directly affects the opinions and biases certain people possess for the drug and inevitably lead to the hold of the final decision for the future of marijuana legalization. Popular or scholarly/academic articles focusing on marijuana legalization pertain to different audiences by their use of rhetoric, language and culture.
Popular articles encompassing the issues of marijuana legalization generically come from people who prefer a quick read with information that will be beneficial to them. Popular articles usually have a culture that is relatable to their audience. Because of this, these types of articles can be related to much easier by the audience than someone who is arguing an in depth point like an academic or scholarly article. Popular articles tend to transmit more notable points and facts rather than digging deep into the smaller details. For example, an article by DrugPolicy.org states, “Legalizing and regulating marijuana will bring one of the nation's largest cash crops under the rule of law. This will create jobs and economic opportunities in the formal economy instead of the illicit market.” (DrugPolicy.org 2016) This point, along with many others throughout the article, shows a popular source’s depths of explanation; simple and clear. For most people who read popular articles, this explanation would be sufficient for what they are looking for. Popular articles also have the freedom to provide this brief overview of information which is another reason why popular articles voice is preferable over academic.
Scholarly articles dig deeper into the facts and statistics to better their argument and solidify the opinion or fact they are trying to puruse. Scholarly articles pertain to a more educated community. Readers who are trying to form a strong opinion or find more trustworthy information aim for scholarly articles. Scholarly articles are sometimes hard to find or attain, which is a reason why someone may stray away from using information such as this. Scholarly articles also go very in depth and require more time to read. The voice in a scholarly article explains very deeply what is being said and because of this scholarly works require more time to be invested compared to a simple popular source. Academic articles however, are the most likely to be accurate, which attracts an audience who is looking for consistent facts and data.
The purpose of popular articles such as “Why marijuana should be legal for adults” by David Nathan (2013) seem to want to convince the reader on what thought process is most logical. For example this popular article by Nathan (2013) shows a quote by the author in which he challenges the logic of disagreeing with marijuana legalization. Nathan (2013) declares, “Forget the antiquated dogma and judge pot prohibition on its own merits. If you still believe that cannabis should be illegal, then you must logically support the criminalization of alcohol and tobacco, with vigorous prosecution and even imprisonment of producers and consumers. Does that sound ridiculous? Then you must conclude that the only rational approach to cannabis is to legalize, regulate and tax it.” In popular articles one view is usually the focus throughout the entire article. If a popular articles opinion is for the legalization for marijuana the writer tends to only include facts or statistics that suggest the drug has positive effects, such as the medical purposes, or the relaxation the drug can provide. The articles that declared marijuana should be legal did not provide much information on the negative effects or reasons for the drug not already being legal. If the articles did provide an instance where a negative effect was present, the writer simply stated or argued that negatives weren't actually as bad as first perceived and shouldn't hold back the legalization of the drug.
The popular orientated audiences who read these specific articles have the tendency to already be for or against the opinion