Nothing I haven’t told y’all before, but it’s nice to see the younger generation didn’t buy into the reefer madness. I’ve added links for you to learn more.
Supreme Court ruling overlooks facts about marijuana – by Isaac Ardoin – June 22, 2005
Since the 1970s, when scientists began studying the health effects of marijuana, a wide variety of medicinal uses have been discovered. Marijuana can be used to help patients suffering from AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and chronic pain. Marijuana can also help patients by providing relief from nausea and appetite loss, reducing pressure within the eye, reducing muscle spasms and general chronic pain.
Despite all of these benefits (many of which were discovered in government institutions), “grass” is still illegal under federal law because of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This was passed before the medicinal benefits were discovered, but it remains basically unchanged. The CSA created a list of drugs and other regulated substances, and then separated the list into five “Schedules.”
Schedule 1 drugs are considered the most dangerous and have no medical use. There are three main Schedule 1 drugs: LSD, heroin and marijuana. The categories continue down from there, with Schedule 5 containing the least dangerous drugs like cough medicine with codeine, or diarrhea medications with small amounts of opium. That seems fine at first, but look at the Schedule 2 drugs: cocaine, opium, morphine, PCP, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Is it reasonable to believe that marijuana is more dangerous than cocaine or PCP, or more addictive than morphine? According to our government it is.
So now, how can we get “Weed” to be assigned into an appropriate category? The most plausible way would be to pass a bill in Congress, but few politicians will support the idea for fear of appearing “soft on drugs.”
People have tried to get the Drug Enforcement Administration to reschedule marijuana many times, but every attempt has been shot down. The DEA doesn’t want marijuana to be rescheduled because it spends a lot of time and taxpayers’ money “fighting” the war on pot. If marijuana were legalized, even for medicinal use only, the DEA’s funding could be cut drastically, and it wouldn’t want that.
Other groups that have opposed legalizing marijuana are the [tobacco,] alcohol and liquor producers. The reasoning for this is pretty obvious: if “weed” became legal, alcohol sales would drop, which would be bad for the stockholders.
Now, according to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, “PDFA does not accept assistance from manufacturers of alcohol and/or tobacco products,” but they fail to add “since 1997.” Still, there’s plenty of alcohol and tobacco money finding its way to our lawmakers.
