Legalization of Marijuana Legalization of marijuana has been an issue for a long time. Marijuana was first brought up as an issue in 1915. It had since then became a much bigger issue in the 1960's and is now being considered for medical purposes in the 1990's. Some of the issue's faced can be described as: Legalization for medical purposes and legalization for insufficient reasons (i.e.: smoking it just for own joys ). ( Brownell, 71 ). As a classroom exercise in an upward division university course in abnormal psychology, an instructor began assessing students attitudes toward marijuana