Blog Post #3 "All about the source!"

On this semesters writing assignment for english we are supposed to pick one topic for a varitety of papers. When choosing a topic I wanted to pick something interesting, but also pick something I would enjoy talking about and something that currently is a topic of disucssion in America. I decided to go with the topic of "Legalizing Marijuana," which is VERY broad. At first, I wanted to write about "Immigration," but I felt that since I have wrote about this specific topic in the past, as a researcher it wouldn't allow me to gain more knowledge, but instead it would make me repeat my self yet again. I have thought of numerous angles I could use to make a valid point when writing about this topic, but a simple question that really go me in the right direction is/was...

How does the legalization of marijuana effect or benefit the United States?

Some of the sub-categories I want to reasearch, that directly envolve or deal with this issue are the following:
-Youth Usage
-Comparisson to Alcohol and Tobacco
-Decriminalization
-Medical Usage
-Morality
-Ties with Mexican Drug Trafficking
-Revenue Increaser
-Environmental Factors
-Legalization in Colorado & Washington
-Overall General Research on Marijuana and long-term effects.

All in all, I want to gain as much information on the legalization of marijuana to build my own opinion on how the drug can either benefit or badly effect America, as its own country. After building a valid argument I can give to other people I hope to be able to use each sub-category above to make my research valid.

As far as sources go all the categories listed above will be used to find valid sources.