Just a Plant

When most people think of illegal drugs, usually the first things that come to mind are bad, dangerous, and addictive substances. True, most illegal drugs such as crack-cocaine, meth, and heroin are bad news, but what about marijuana? Marijuana is the dried leaves and bud of the cannabis plant. It is usually smoked, butcan also be cooked in baked goods and then ingested. The effects of marijuana give the user a somewhat euphoric or lazy feeling. This is due to theTetrahydrocannabinol or THC crystals visible on the bud. The amount of crystals on a plant determines the potency of the strain. Recently, a study was done to reveal the true dangers if marijuana on the human brain. The results show thatafter 13 years of marijuana smoking, no permanent damage was done. But marijuana isn’t just used for recreational purposes. Many people use marijuana as a remedy for pain. Marijuana was proven to be neither lethal nor addictive,which makes it a safer alternative to prescription painkillers. It is used commonly by cancer patients to treat the nausea caused by chemotherapy. In1995, marijuana was made legal for medical purposes in the state of California. However, the plant is still illegal under federal law. This means that the federal government has the right to overrule state laws and shut down the marijuana dispensaries in California. When the DEA steps in and raids a dispensary, they leave nothing behind, taking all the medicine, even thepatient records. After all this information, you may be asking yourself “why is marijuana illegal?” here are the facts; it was outlawed in 1937, starting with the state of Utah. The true reason for illegalization has been debated. Some believe that it was outlawed when agroup of Mormons came back from Mexico with the drug. Since the Mormon Church forbids things like cigarettes, alcohol, even coffee and tea, the Mormons outlawed marijuana in Utah, as might have been expected and soon other states caught on. Others believe that since hemp produces stronger fibers for making paper, and hempseed oil was the primary source of fuel in the early 1900s, it was made illegal as a result of paper and oil companies that feared the competition. Whatever the reason, our government continues to throw more and more people each day in prison, all because of a plant. In 2000 there were more than 730,000 marijuana related arrests in the United States. Former president Nixon even rejected the findings of a commission he himself set up, which found that marijuana wasn’t particularly harmful and should be legalized. Marijuana smoking can be traced back thousands of years. In fact, George Washington,Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin all grew cannabis. In a recent study, it is estimated that if marijuana was legalized and taxed it would create a $24,000,000 industry in the United States alone. This would mean more jobs and more money to spend on things like education and healthcare, which would result in a better economy. Alcohol and tobacco are drugs as well. Yearly deaths from tobacco: 440,000 (Centers for Disease Control) Yearly deaths from alcohol:85,000.(Journal of the American Medical Association) Yearly marijuana related deaths: 0. (U.S. Drug Abuse Warning Network) since it is a proven fact that marijuana is not particularly dangerous, why is it still considered a class