Green Heroine
This idea branched off in my other thread, Legalizing Prostitution. I hear about this debate at my school a lot, like the kids know what the hell their talking about, but some of their arguements make a lot of sense sometimes.
I did some research on it earlier, and I did some research on it, I found some infographics that made the idea of criminalizing it look insane, and here are some links:
- Infographic A
- Infographic B (Text a bit small, but headers are legible)
- Infographic C
Then I read (forgot the source) that little research has been done to prove that it promotes cancers and makes your brain liquid poop.
After doing all this research about it, why does America work towards jailing the users for it? and why is it only legal in some states in the U.S. only for medical use? Why can't it be recreational like alcohol and cigarettes? Of course there would be some regulations, like illegal to traffic it, and you can only buy it at dispensaries, or only allowed to own 2 or 3 plants for personal use..
Edit -
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Infographic D
Welcome to the madness that is the U.S. drug war. (And now the World's drug war seeing as how the U.S. convinced the U.N. to promote an anti-drug policy that pushed a social morality movement around the world.)
Go watch the documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High
It's posted on youtube (in one video long video, not the whole part 1 part 2 part 3 debacle).
HANDS DOWN most informative drug war documentary I've ever seen. And I've seen A LOT.
Basically, marijuana is illegal because in the early 20th century someone invented the threshing machine that easily separated the fibers on hemp (which you can't get high from) from the stalks. This brought hemp production back into business at an even higher rate (previously, slave labor was the only reasonable means of harvesting it and making a profit). From dynamite, to cellophane, to paper, to rope (hemp was re-legalized during WW2 so they could create rope for the ships, see the video Hemp for Victory) and on and on and on the advantages hemp had were practically endless.
The first market hemp began to dominate was that of paper manufacturing. Hemp paper lasted longer and was more durable than timber based paper and it also was much more cost effective and encouraged less deforestation.
Now, William Randolph Hurst, one of the richest American businessmen at the time realized that if he didn't do something to stop hemp FOR GOOD he would loose a huge amount of money he had invested in the timber industry.
Being a man of a higher education, wealth, and one who owned an empire of newspapers and magazines, he simply fed off of American racial prejudice. He wrote up a phony article saying that this new drug called marijuana (the only reason it was given that name was because it better related it to the Hispanic minority) that made men and women violently insane, was more addictive the heroine, and when smoked would (not exaggerating what they said here) cause african-americans to play devil's music (jazz) and use it to seduce innocent white women into having sex with them.
Also, phony stories began popping up in newspapers about how Mexican immigrants would smoke marijuana, becoming violent, and rape innocent white women. (The whole "innocent white women being raped by vile non-white minorities" story was really popular.)
Also you have to consider that at this time in American culture,
1) Virtually nobody knew anything about cannabis (marijuana) to begin with.
2) There was no internet, no real documented history that was widely available, and certainly no scientific tests done to confirm or deny the effects of this drug.
3) William Randolph Hurst owned a media empire. He could basically manipulate the news however he wanted if noone knew about cannabis to being with.
4) The majority of middle to upper class white families discriminated against minorities and would believe any spiteful story they were told about them.
Oh and FUN NEWS, Popular Mechanics magazine almost published
this article titled "NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP" about hemp. But by the time it would've been out, cannabis was illegal (1937) and the article could never be published.
Even today, the United States is the ONLY first world country that buys, sells, and uses hemp but does NOT grow it.