Opinion

Student on the Street: Legalization of recreational marijuana

On Oct. 17, Canada legalized marijuana. It is now legal to have up to 30 grams of marijuana on your person, for recreational or medical use. Canada is the second country to legalize the drug after Uruguay, and after just four days the retail stores were almost out of it, according to Fortune.com. Students at Tech gave their opinion on whether or not the United States should do the same.

All photos by Michaela Crawford.

“I feel like it being legalized opens it up to companies to manufacture and sell which I think in the long run is a bad thing because I can think you can look back and use history as a teacher and tobacco is legalized – look at all the harmful things that were put in tobacco. It itself may not be seen as a bad thing, by a lot of people in today's society, but I feel like any good thing can be made a bad thing, especially by corporate institutions.”   Riley Beaty, political science major.

“I feel like it being legalized opens it up to companies to manufacture and sell which I think in the long run is a bad thing because I can think you can look back and use history as a teacher and tobacco is legalized – look at all the harmful things that were put in tobacco. It itself may not be seen as a bad thing, by a lot of people in today's society, but I feel like any good thing can be made a bad thing, especially by corporate institutions.”  Zachary Williams, political science major.

“I think it would be good to see how Canada handles it and then we can base our future off of that decision and see how they handle it, cause I can see it being positive.”  Natalie Hughes, housing and design graduate.

“I think yes. However, it needs to be more controlled, like if you’re gonna make it legal then you pull out like controls on it. So for example like, there has to be a certain requirement for like where you need to be when you use it, so it’s like, like don’t use recreationally outside or like you know in your household or stuff like, use it in your household away from doors and stuff like that. It needs to be like a lot stricter, but there is a lot of medical uses for it so I think it needs to be legalized, but it needs to be made safer for everybody.”  Manny Gumban, chemical engineering major.

“I personally think they should, for medical but also recreational because I work in a nursing home and I’ve seen people suffer and that medical marijuana helped them, so I think it would be a great idea to legalize that.”  Sandy Willson, sociology major.

"Yes, I don't know why, 'cause marijuana's fun.  Yes, because it has a lot of health benefits and stuff, like it helps cancer patients, right, that's a thing?  It's FDA approved, and yeah its fun."  Kelley Lockmiller, marine biology major