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Sidney Richardson
Professor Elizabeth Samamra
English 111-805
22 March 2017
The Benefits of Legal Marijuana
When hearing “Legalize Marijuana,” does a positive or negative image come to
mind? How about all of the environmentally friendly uses of hemp, or maybe lowly street
thugs? Some people picture suffering family members with schizophrenia, glaucoma, or
even pain from another surgery? What about the thousands of non-dangerous prisoners
eating up tax money, stuck in our prisons? These are all problems with a simple solution.
Legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana is something that could help our
country benefit in many different ways. The unlimited environmental and medical uses of
this plant could one day, revolutionize medicine and industry.
What few people know is that hemp has been used industrially in the United
States since the 1600’s. Medically it’s been around the world for thousands of years, but
most notably, “Cannabis was included in the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP)—a
standard guide to medications—from 1854 until 1941” (Bearman). Cannabis was seen to
have medical value as recently as 1940, but then suddenly as a dangerous street drug.
Cannabis is far from a dangerous street drug; it is a lifesaving medicine. For instance,
common side effects of prescription pain medicines include: nausea, constipation,
irritability, drowsiness, and fatigue. Marijuana can cause drowsiness, but it will alleviate
pain for almost four hours. This alternative sounds better than those disgusting opiates!
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The first major laws instituted against the use of marijuana were after the alcohol
prohibition of the 1920’s. This is a time when intoxicating substances were seen as
dangerous to the general public. However, it was noticed that making alcohol illegal did
not stop its consumption; rather, prohibition created an entire institution of organized
crime. Organized crime waves abounded, and being illegal operations, the government
could not tax them. Subsequently, the government was not profiting from this activity. It
did not take long before this caused the 18th amendment on alcohol prohibition to be
repealed.
Marijuana was made illegal due to a lack of general knowledge. This ignorance
can be attributed to one U.S. propaganda expert and wood pulp investor. Harry Jacob
Anslinger was the “Commissioner of Prohibition from 1929 to 1930, and later the
