Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

In modern society marijuana has always been considered a sort of taboo subject in the United States due mainly to the fact that it is illegal. Many people don’t realize however that considering the history of our country, marijuana has only been illegal for a relatively short time span. Several of our founding fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, grew marijuana for hemp (the material derived from the plant) regularly and there is even speculation Washington smoked the plant occasionally. Back in those days marijuana did not have the sinister reputation it has today but instead was a vital part of colonial life, with the hemp material having a number of uses including rope, clothing, and paper (West, 1998). It wasn’t until the early 20th century that the public opinion regarding marijuana began to shift and restrictive laws were put in place that would eventually lead to illegalization.

The legalization of marijuana has been a debated subject in America since the 1970's. The pro-marijuana society in America has made claims as to how marijuana can help cure or lessen the effect of some diseases and that by legalizing the drug; the use of pot will actually decline. The fact of the matter is that marijuana is a drug that can be placed into a similar category as cocaine or heroine. Like these other drugs, pot (marijuana) smoking carries with it serious side effects that can effect the user forever, and sometimes-even cause death. Marijuana was first cultivated in America during the colonial time period and was used as a fiber for rope and even clothing. The plant was not used for its psychoactive properties until 1910,

“Each year the world loses up to 58 thousand square miles of forest for paper, construction materials, firewood, and agriculture (Deforestation).” Yet a much more sustainable crop that has been cultivated for thousands of years can greatly remedy this issue. Hemp, the cousin of the marijuana plant; banned back in 1937 through the “Marihuana Tax Act” which made possetion of hemp and marihuana as well as transfer, illegal. However, as of 2015, congress has passed “The Industrial Hemp Farming Act”, and now it is up to the individual states on what to do next. People are still unsure about hemp due to the similarities to its cousin. However, I know that hemp is the key to save the world’s forests because it is a much more sustainable source of paper, clothing, and construction materieals.

Marijuana was in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942 and was prescribed to patients for various conditions including labor pains, nausea and rheumatism. During the 1850’s up to the 1930’s it was a very popular intoxicant. A movement conducted in the 1930’s by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics (presently the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) fought to make marijuana appear to be an Addicting and powerful substance that would lead

In 1937, Hearst teamed up with Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, to spark a nation-wide smear campaign against Cannabis known widely as “Reefer Madness”. Cannabis was never really referred to as “marijuana” because marijuana is a type of wild mexican tobacco, a completely different plant. Hearst and Anslinger added a mexican name to Cannabis to make it’s image as a mexican product more easily hated by the American public. This campaign depicted african-americans and mexican immigrants as beasts who, when and after smoking marijuana, would seek to rape white women. The campaign claimed to congress that marijuana caused insanity, violence, and death. The inaccurate claims were based on no scientific research or studies

In ** Hemp was banned In the states. Marijuanas none physcoactive cousin was banned for a simple reason. It's easier and cheaper to use as paper. A fact that William Randolph Hurst hated. The newspaper tycoon could've replaced his traditional printing press. Instead he made up a bunch of lies. That ultimately outlawed cannabis and hurt society

Central Idea: Due to the war on drugs, hemp production is severely limited; however, with the proper legalization and regulation of this plant the U.S. economy would prosper due to job creation and the environment would benefit by the amount of tress saved.

Mexican-Americans. One of the “differences” seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing “preparations of hemp, or loco weed (Guither, 2013) Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolf Hearst greatly aided the widespread criminalization of marijuana. Anslinger saw the opportunity for success that the Bureau of Narcotics (now the DEA) could provide him. He could find the problem and the solution to drug addiction.

Do any of you know the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana? Would you like to? The purpose of this speech is to explain the differences in marijuana and industrial hemp, and to show the need to reform the present hemp laws in the United States in order to make hemp available for industrial purposes. The hemp plant shows its unique versatility by having many uses in industry and hemp has many distinct benefits over its counterpart in industry today. The usage of hemp would result in cleaner and more efficient industry. I will first discuss the differences between hemp and marijuana to avoid confusion, and then state the many ways that industrial hemp can help our economy such as; the use for fiber, the use in foods, and

On October 1, 1937, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was enacted and it prohibited all forms of cannabis sativa. Although the bill was targeted towards the banning of marijuana and both forms of cannabis on separate ends of the sativa spectrum, there was no specification on which form was directed for the ban. Thus both were prohibited from being grown in the United States of America. In November of 2016, marijuana officially became legal to grow in all fifty states, yet industrial hemp is still currently legal to be grown in 13 states within the USA.  Hemp is largely exported to the US from other countries. It is imperative that hemp becomes legal to be grown around the entire country, for hemp will help retain the USA’s revenue by using hemp grown in America, has can be used for many different purposes such as clothing or food for example, has the potential to reduce American citizen’s carbon footprint as a substitute for paper and gasoline, and has no major threat to the industrialization of hemp in factories.

The history of marijuana in the United States government date back to the origins of the United States government itself. During the 16th century, the mass production of hemp was encouraged by the British government for its fibrous content, which was used for making fabric, ropes, cords, and other items (“Marijuana Timeline” 2014). By 1619, the Virginia assembly passed legislation requiring each household in the colony to cultivate hemp, praising its variety of beneficial uses. Even after the American Revolution, hemp continued to be a large part of the American economy. By mid-19th century, hemp was the third-largest crop in the United States, only exceeded by cotton and tobacco. As technology was developed, however, the need for

As the issue of legalizing marijuana remains complicated and highly controversial, a lesser-known yet increasingly significant side effect continues to transpire in the background: the suppression of its incredibly useful and diverse distant cousin, industrial hemp. Both marijuana and hemp have a long history in the United States. Unfortunately, because both plants are from the cannabis species, hemp was pigeonholed into a “dangerous drug” classification along with marijuana, representing the beginning of the end for hemp as a major agricultural asset to the United States. Industrial hemp contains no psychotropic qualities that create a “high” like marijuana. Considering that hemp’s

One of the early colonists who grew hemp [ marijuana ] was George Washington. In his diary entry of August 7, 1765, Washington noted: ?begin to separate the Male from the Female hemp at Do- rather too late.? And two days later: ?Abt. 6 o?clock put some Hemp in river to rot-.? And in September of that year, our gentleman farmer chronicled: ?Began to pull Seed Hemp - but not sufficiently ripe.? (Sloman 21)

William Randolph Hearst began a smear campaign against hemp in the 1920s and 1930s. Through the use of ‘yellow journalism’ Hearst manufactured a new threat to America in a campaign to have hemp outlawed. “For example, a story of a car accident in which a “marijuana cigarette” was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol-related car accidents (which outnumbered marijuana-connected accidents by more than 10,000 to 1) made only the back pages.” (Herer Chap 4) “From 1910 to 1920, Hearst’s newspapers would claim that the majority of incidents in which blacks were said to have raped white women, could be traced directly to cocaine. This continued for 10 years until

Throughout American history our country has come to rely on many different natural resources. With technology and the population increasing, the number of fossil fuel reserves and natural forests are going down. What America needs is a renewable source of fuels and fibers that will meet the growing needs of the future, but will not damage our environment. One of the most promising sources of fiber, fuel, and natural oil is hemp. Hemp, also known as Cannabis Sativa L, has been used in our country since the early 17th century (Schreiber 160). Although hemp is considered an illegal drug, many people forget that it is a part of our country’s history. Despite its negative connotations, hemp has the potential to revolutionize the paper,