The current reasons our government gives for marijuana’s illegalization include:

1) Marijuana is a deadly drug. According to the Federal Bureau of Mortality and NIDA,” There have been NO deaths from the use of marijuana.” And according to the DEA’s administrative law judge, Francis Young: “Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects, but marijuana is not such a substance. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinary high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death. There is no record in the extensive medical-literature describing a proven, documented cannabis–induced fatality. In practical terms marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.”

2) Marijuana is a dangerous drug. We are told that one marijuana cigarette is equal to five tobacco cigarettes, and that there are more carcinogens in cannabis than in tobacco. Yet where are the pot smokers suffering from cancer of the lungs, throat and mouth? Where are the cannabis patients with emphysema and heart disease? According to the World Health Organization, someone dies from tobacco use every 10 seconds, while no one has ever died from marijuana use in the entire history of mankind! Also, in contrast to tobacco, cannabis smoke is the best natural expectorant; it effectively opens the airways of the lungs, and was even used as a treatment for asthma for hundreds of years.
Meanwhile, some of the same politicians that are demanding harsher marijuana penalties are standing up for Americans’ “right to choose” to grow and smoke tobacco. What about the marijuana smoker's "right to choose" a nonpoisonous substance?

3) Marijuana causes amotivational syndrome. Nearly every legitimate governmental study conducted throughout the world has concluded that there is no relationship between marijuana use and amotivational syndrome. There is simply no scientific evidence to prove that it even exists! Throughout American history some of our most productive citizens, in every facet of society, have consumed cannabis, from the presidents to the slaves. Aug.7, 1765: "-began to separate the male from the female hemp at Do- rather too late.” (George Washington) “Old persons reported seeing the colored field hands break up and load their pipes with dried flowering tops of the plants and smoke them.” (Dr. J.D. Reichard, Kentucky 1943). In the diamond mines of Africa, the mineworkers are allowed “cannabis” breaks because it has been proven that marijuana use increases productivity.

4) Marijuana causes short-term memory loss and brain deterioration. “No objective evidence has been demonstrated that even very heavy, long–term hashish use causes organic brain damage.” (U.S. National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse) “Marijuana is not detrimental to the user’s health. Even when used over long periods of time, it does not appear to cause physical or psychological impairment.” (Mayor LaGuardia’s Committee on Marijuana; New York, NY)

5) Today's marijuana is different than yesterday's pot. Statistics from NORML and the DEA prove that the THC content in modern cannabis has only increased by 3 to 5 percent -- and not the 20 to 40 percent that the government proclaims. In fact, at the turn of the 20th century, there were legal hashish parlors in every major city of the country and at International Expositions and World Fairs. This hashish was a far more potent form of cannabis than even the most potent sinsemilla of today, and even this was only half as potent as the Cannabis Extract that was a readily prescribed drug -- even to the young -- during those days.

6) Marijuana is a gateway drug. No matter how safe marijuana may be found to be, it will forever remain in many people's minds the most insidious drug because of this one accusation. In reality, marijuana has been recognized -- by the U.S. Government and the world medical society -- as a treatment for hard drug addictions and alcoholism, and has been successfully used as such! (U.S. National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse)

The 1999 ONDCP report, Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, states: “The study notes that because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users do not begin their drug use with marijuana; they begin with alcohol and nicotine -- and usually when they are too young to do so legally. The study asserts that progression to other drugs arises not from pharmacological properties of marijuana itself but because marijuana serves as a gateway to the world of illegal drugs.”

So then, it’s not marijuana working in the brain, causing the user to crave crack or heroin (the lie the U.S. government has been claiming for decades). It’s because cannabis’ illegality causes its users to come in contact with people who could be associated with harder drugs. (Experimentation with other drugs is a personal choice and not due to marijuana’s power over the user.) Thus, if marijuana weren’t illegal (like buying beer or cigarettes), then marijuana users would be less likely to be exposed to other drugs. This makes marijuana, as a gateway drug, solely the government’s responsibility!

Also, if marijuana isn’t the first illicit drug consumed, but alcohol and tobacco are, why aren’t these drugs outlawed as the “gateway” drugs? They have a high potential for abuse, and have no currently accepted medical use in America. They are deadly, dangerous, and, according to this report, are the real “gateway” drugs.
The reason alcohol and tobacco aren’t illegal is that our government has secretively protected these poisons. The definitions in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 states, “The term ‘controlled substance’ means a drug or other substance, or immediate precursor, included in the schedules of the Act. The term does not include distilled spirits, wine, malted beverages, or tobacco.” The alcohol and tobacco industries are also the biggest financial contributors to the war against marijuana (PDFA reports).

These "dangers" of marijuana, as claimed by the U.S. government, are nothing more than manufactured lies designed: 1) to demonize this plant in the minds of those who are ignorant to its effects, 2) to continue its prohibition in every form -- industrial, medical, scientific and personal -- at any cost, and 3) to guarantee the protection of the petro-chemical, timber, paper and pharmaceutical industries (among others), who would stand to lose billions of dollars if cannabis were a legal crop in America.

DuPont and Co., during the mid-1800s, intensely studied the entire cannabis hemp plant. By the 1920s, they owned the patents for nearly every synthetic resource that cannabis supplied naturally (synthetic fibers, paints and varnishes, plastics, and even medicines). Suddenly articles about a “new” violence-causing drug, marihuana, began filling the nations’ newspapers. With the discovery of Nylon, the world’s strongest synthetic fiber, secret plans were made for hemp’s prohibition. Congressional leaders were assured that new synthetic supplies could replace the “insignificant” ones about to be taxed out of existence. With the testimony of one man -- Harry Anslinger, director of the FBN and nephew of Andrew Mellon, a former secretary of the U.S. Treasury, large interest holder in Gulf Oil, and the owner of Mellon Bank (one of only two of DuPont and Co.'s financial backers)-- the entire hemp industry -- agricultural, industrial and medical -- was outlawed on the grounds that “marihuana is the most violence causing drug known to man.” This testimony wasn’t based on scientific or medical fact, but on scare tactics, racial prejudice and lies. This same year, 1937, DuPont and Co. patented Nylon and the process for making paper from wood!

In 1938, the U.S. government passed the Pure Drug Act, allowing for single compound drugs only -- and forever banning marijuana as a medicine.

Ten years later, Anslinger advised Congress to continue hemp’s prohibition based on the complete opposite reason for which it was outlawed originally, “The Russians could use marihuana to turn our young into pacifists who wouldn’t fight for our country.”

In the ’60s, with increased public awareness of marijuana, health concerns became the theme for its illegalization. But no psychological or physiological health concerns had been scientifically or medically proven. So the “unknown dangers” of long-term use were the new reason for marijuana’s illegalization, even though the U.S. government had been studying the plant and its users since 1937, at least 25 to 35 years: “Scientifically, more is known about marijuana’s effects than many other botanical substances used by man.” (1972 report of the U.S. National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse) Coincidentally, from the 1960s through today, a DuPont has been a major advisor to the government on marijuana policy. (Robert DuPont, former Nixon drug czar and federal appeals court spokesman and former marijuana smoker.)

Decades later, failed research and fruitless experiments on pot’s negative effects have left the marijuana propaganda filled with phrases like, “marijuana may,” “marijuana could,” “marijuana has the possibility of,” and “marijuana’s unknown dangers” to justify cannabis’ current Schedule I status. (What about the unknown dangers of any and everything?) Meanwhile, DuPont and Co. continues to earn multi-billion dollar annual sales from its synthetic marijuana patents (for fibers, finishes and medicines).

Marijuana is called a weed, in spite of it being a complex agricultural crop. It is said to be a poisonous drug, in spite of its being a healing medicine. It is said to destroy the mind, in spite of its use by some of the wisest people in history for its enhancement of their thought and creative processes. Marijuana has even been called the Devil’s weed (with all the evil this term conjures in the minds of some) in spite of the Bible’s proclamation. “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth.’ And God saw every thing that He had made and behold it was very good.” (Gen. 1:29,31)

The lessons of prohibition’s failures are permanently etched in history. Why are we blindly ignoring them? This time is no different. The laws against cannabis are destroying far more lives than marijuana ever could, even if marijuana were everything that the U.S. government says it is.

End this war on cannabis and its users! Reintroduce the hemp industry, and give the people a natural alternative to the chemical once again. Allow cannabis’ cultivation, sale and taxation as all agricultural products are allowed. Regulate its usage, and reasonably punish any violators, as we have successfully done with alcohol. Grant our physicians the right to once again prescribe cannabis to those patients who can truly benefit from its use. And release the prisoners of war that have committed no crime except the use or growth of a God-given plant. How can nature be against the law?

The U.S. government has tried to erase all but the negative history of marijuana from our books and halls of knowledge. To replace the truth about cannabis with the lie that marijuana is nothing but a poisonous drug. According to the U.S. government, anything else “sends a dangerous message to our children.”

I say that if telling the truth about cannabis to our children sends them a wrong message, then this alone proves that the message the U.S government is sending our children – and the rest of the world -- is a lie, plain and simple!

And based upon the original lie of the 30's, and that alone, marijuana should, once again, be a legal medical, industrial and recreational product. And all new accusations against it should be proven in a court of law, and weighed against the same evidence concerning alcohol, nicotine and caffeine to determine marijuana's illegalization!

END THE LIE!
END MARIJUANA PROHIBITION!

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