[420 Girl]

Alcohol is the most popular recreational drug in the world and the most dangerous with 100,000 people dying annually in America from the direct health effects of drinking.

Alcohol use is also associated with half of all violent crime including vehicular homicide.

Marijuana is the second most popular recreational drug on our planet and the safest. No one has ever died from the effects of smoking weed. No statistics are available for marijuana-related violence because it almost never occurs.

Almost 1 million United States citizens are arrested every year for smoking cannabis and many Americans are serving life sentences for growing this popular weed. The only real risk associated with smoking pot is getting arrested.

The women's temperance movement of the late 19th century led to the prohibition of alcohol in 1920 with the passage of the 18th Amendment.

Alcohol prohibition quickly escalated into catastrophic violence as bootleggers battled ruthlessly for shares of the black market created by the new law. Alcohol abuse and deaths increased for young and old alike as government completely lost control of every aspect of the market.

Debate raged for years before Americans agreed that the cure was worse than the disease and the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933. The temperance movement faded.

Meanwhile, marijuana was quietly being enjoyed by Mexican-Americans and African-Americans until media mogul Randolph Hearst and the original drug czar Harry Anslinger demonized the innocuous plant with a ridiculous (See "Reefer Madness"), racist nationwide media blitz which would have been comical except - it worked. Marijuana was outlawed in 1937.

Tricky Dick Nixon takes credit for ratcheting up the drug war in 1968. He especially hated pot-smoking, war-protesting college students. Nixon elevated cannabis to a Schedule 1 drug with ****** and ***, more dangerous than Schedule 2 drugs Oxycontin and crystal meth.

It was deja vu.

Our government used its global power to force other nations to fall in line with our drug policy. The result is extreme violence in our poorest neighborhoods, more citizens in American jails than any country in the world and failed states in supply nations of Latin America, particularly Mexico. We learned nothing from prohibition.

Finally, in 1996 the Marijuana Policy Project rises to the challenge of saving Americans from ourselves with a new and ingenious tack; promote the legalization of medical marijuana for the terminally ill, expand to chronically ill and finally to all adults.

In 14 years, 14 states and Washington D.C. have passed medical marijuana laws, Massachusetts decriminalized small amounts, dozens of countries including Mexico and Russia have legalized or refused to prosecute personal use and this November California will likely become the first state to allow more than one recreational drug in 73 years.

The fundamental questions we must ask are: Should politicians dictate what we eat, drink or smoke?

Should we go to jail for making unhealthy choices?

Who owns our bodies, the state or ourselves.

The answers are coming soon and I think I'm going to like them. The whole world will be a safer place.


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: The News Press
Author: Kim Hawk
Contact: The News Press
Copyright: 2010 The News Press
Website: Legalization of marijuana will make the world safer

* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article


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