Marijuana.  Why is it illegal?  Is it because it kills so many hundreds of thousands of people every year?  No, it cant be that, it’s nontoxic.  It’s main chemical component, tetrahydrocannabinol, cannot cause death via overdosage.  Infact, there hasn’t been a single reported cause of death that was due to the result of marijuana.  None, nada, 0, zip.  On the other hand, approximately 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning, and more than 400,000 deaths annually are attributed to smoking tobacco, yet these are both legal drugs.  One of these things is not like the other, can you guess what it is?  There are also no addictive compounds in marijuana.  Short term side effects may include pain relief, increase in appetite, protection against malignant tumors, getting people high… sounds like a couple of those things could potentially be medically relevant.  Long term side effects include… oh wait, there are none.  Marijuana is very helpful in relieving the pain that many terminally ill patients deal with, particularly in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy who are constantly nauseous and have lost their appetite.  Smoking anything is bad for your lungs, although marijuana smoke is considerably less harmful than that of tobacco, but who says you have to smoke marijuana?  You can also vaporize it, meaning you only inhale the non-harmful vapors of the plant, and since THC is fat-soluble you can also bake it into a wide variety of foods and drinks including but not limited to brownies, cookies, lollipops, and tea.



The sad thing is that the absolute worst thing that can possibly happen to a marijuana user… is getting caught.  The physical and psychological torture that the user and their families go through during the legal process and time in jail does infinitely worse damage than had the user just been allowed to enjoy the plant.  These non-violent people are being thrown behind bars where they risk being shanked and raped by problematic and violent prisoners on a daily basis.

On the industrial side, hemp produces a higher yield-per-acre than cotton, and requires very few pesticides.  It’s growing cycle is only 100 days long, and it leaves the surrounding soil nearly weed-free for the next crop season.  Hemp is STRONG too, some of the hemp shirts found in ancient Egyptian times are barely worn out at all.  Sick of wearing holes through your socks?  Hemp socks may be the last pair you ever buy.  Legalizing the production of industrial hemp would create a billion dollar industry right here in the US, providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans.  And no, you cant get high off of industrial hemp, yet it’s still illegal.  The reason why marijuana initially became illegal was mostly in part of one man’s attempt to rise to power by taking advantage of the white man’s racial fears:  Harry J. Anslinger, who held office as the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition before being appointed as the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics.  Don't believe me?  Here’s a few very "colorful" quotes from the man himself!!!



Another common problem in our society is that many people disapprove of the usage of marijuana because either 1) they used it and became dependant upon it because they’re naturally susceptible to substance abuse, so because they went to rehab or had problems with it, they believe it’s not right and should be banned for everyone or 2) someone knows someone else who used pot, and they ended up dropping out of school or getting fired or being kicked out of their house, and they assume that marijuana makes people lazy (cue the derogatory term “pothead”) when in reality, the truth is that that individual has always been lazy and it was bound to happen eventually while the truth is that most marijuana users are very prominent members of society and rank from the dropouts who live in their parents basement all the way up to the President of the United States or 3) they’ve been brainwashed to believe whatever they’ve been told their entire life and thus believe that marijuana is a drug in the harmful sense (like cocaine, heroin, etc) when in reality, tetrahydrocannabinol should be treated more along the lines of drugs like the caffeine that’s in your colas and coffees.





There’s something seriously wrong with the fact that the US considers marijuana to be a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it’s “considered to be potentially addictive with no current medical use”.  This puts marijuana in the same category as heroin.  Hell, cocaine is a Schedule II drug, that's definately not safer than marijuana!  Even former DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young said that "marijuana did not meet the legal criteria of a Schedule I prohibited drug and should be reclassified", describing marijuana as "...one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."  Many will think that marijuana is a drug in the sense that the human body wasn’t built to ingest the tetrahydrocannabinol chemical that exists within the plant, but if that were the case then why do our brains have cannabinoid receptors designed specifically for the usage of this chemical?  Marijuana is a natural plant that grows on it’s own without the need to add extra chemicals in order to make the drug work.

Why do taxpayers here in the US pay $10 billion annually for the prohibition of marijuana ALONE?  Why are more than 872,000 individuals arrested for non-violent possession and distribution of this innocent herb?  That’s a far higher number than the total number of arrests for murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault combined.  Shouldn’t our tax dollars be focused on getting rid of harmful drugs that destroy lives and create violent crime?

Let’s take a brief trip over to our friends over in Amsterdam, where marijuana is practically legal.  Anyone over the age of 18 can legally purchase marijuana there in coffeeshops.  With this abundance of legal marijuana floating around, it’s sure to fall into the hands of kids, right?  Actually, the rate of teenage pot users is half of that of here in the US.  Wait, that doesn’t make sense... surely this isn’t right.  There’s more.  Even their hard-drug usage rates as well as overall crime rates are lower, including violent crimerates, all of these things are lower than they are in the US.  The US has the toughest anti-marijuana laws in the world, yet we STILL have the most drug-users in the world.  We’re the ones who are growing and importing all the marijuana that we smoke, we aren’t exporting it.

Plain and simple, marijuana should be taxed and regulated.  The D.A.R.E. anti-drug programs that my generation grew up with have undeniably FAILED, the war on drugs in America has FAILED, and too much of OUR tax dollars are being wasted every year putting non-violent users behind bars and ruining the lives of them, their families, and their friends.  Let businesses grow it in an environment that can be monitored and controlled by the FDA, creating jobs and boosting the economy in the process.  Just take a look at what happened when alcohol was prohibited.  During those 13 years, violent and non-violent crimes skyrocketed, alcohol use skyrocketed, and death skyrocketed.  You could never be certain what someone put into that moonshine that you were drinking.  When the prohibition was repealed, crimerates dropped immediately and significantly.  By creating a prohibition, it’s inevitable that a black market will be created for that substance, and doing this only subsidizes the gangsters who are eager to make tons and tons of money out of it.



Prohibition doesn’t work, America has more pot users than ever, and there is nothing that can stop us.  Now more than ever, the nation’s marijuana users are pressing and fighting the issue.  It’s silly to fight so hard against something so harmless when all of the money that is spent trying to uphold the prohibition of marijuana is being wasted.  Let’s regulate it, tax it, put an age limit on it, attempt to undo the damage that we’ve done so far and make life better for everyone.

And while the world is still young, I can still hope for and imagine the day in which humankind rises above the social limitations of race, gender, religion, language, and sexual preferences;  that we may stand up and see what lies beyond the horizons of the stars and below the deepest crevices of the oceans in a world that is no longer plagued by war, hatred, arrogance, and ignorance.