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Why is Cannabis, or Marijuana illegal?

Marijuana was legal until the 1930′s. The FBI helped promote legislation to ban Marijuana because it was publicly associated with Mexican Immigrants. By making consumption illegal, it was a way to deport Mexicans who were found in possession. The reason Marijuana is illegal is primarily discriminatory rather than having any legitimate concerns for the people’s general welfare. A close look at the historical record will warrant this reason well.

So what do you guys think? Weird huh?

As far as the “War on Drugs” is concerned, Dr. Ron Paul explains his position well – in which I believe matches up with the libertarian position, here:

http://www.ontheissues.org/tx/ron_paul_drugs.htm

I feel the Status Quo’s “War on Drugs” is an out-dated, redundant, cliche used to answer no question and solve no problem. Who is fighting us on the legalization of marijuana?

1) Federal Government (Since they will loose billions in federal funding on the war on drugs and lobbyist kick backs)
2) Private Prisons (They operate 264 Prisons in the US. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world 7.2M behind bars. China is 2nd with 1.5M and 4 TIMES the population of the U.S. 50% are non violent offenses with about 20% for marijuana) How many Billions will be lost to prisons if its legalized?
3) Big Pharma (If marijuana became legal people could actually grow their own medicine! How would big Pharma profit off of that? Research would flourish and prove marijuana has amazing medical benefits.
4) Alcohol and Tobacco Industries (Would loose billions in profits)

There are incredible benefits we already know with limited research regarding cannabis, however the Food and Drug Administration states that marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States”. Even though there are still patients in the FEDERAL “Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program” that receive medical marijuana grown from the University of Mississippi to this day. The George H. W. Bush administration closed the program down in 1991 to new applicants. The bottom line is if big corporations cannot patent it or profit from it, whatever it is. It will be suppressed with the BILLIONS of dollars Corporate lobbyist use to get their way in this country and protect their profits. From foreign oil to Marijuana THIS ALL BOILS DOWN TO MONEY, IT ALWAYS HAS AND IT ALWAYS WILL. Join the solution that’s best for our countrymen’s health on not for corporate profit protection. http://www.Norml.org. However, NORML wants to make it legal and put it in the govt’s hands, so that they will be able to tax it and make money off it like booze. It is natural, they shouldn’t be able to make a monopoly off it for taxes, because we all know that they will prob be some kind of fines or laws about self cultivation. So now after it has been illegal for all this time it would be ok to take it from the governments hands, the same people that enacted the DEA to enforce the Civil War in America? Just make it legal for all use and grow and enjoy, keep it simple and easy, no govt. intervention on everything.

As far as the progression of legalizing marijuana, recent news reports its there. A unanimous California Supreme Court on Thursday, January 21, 2010, struck down a law that sought to impose limits on the amount of marijuana a medical patient can legally possess. You can read the full article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/21/AR2010012102690.html

Ron Paul has a great rant when he says:

“Up until 1937 there wasn’t even a law against marijuana and at that time they just passed a law to tax it. So we’ve had an experience in this country where we didn’t have all these laws, but it was regulated by the states. Alcohol is legalized by the federal government but it is regulated by state laws. So I’m thinking more of an approach like that. But what upsets me so much is when the state tries to exert its authority over marijuana, like in California they will pass a law and say that sick people can use it. So people who are dying with AIDs or cancer are getting benefits from marijuana and then the federal government comes in and says, “We don’t care about the state law”, and they just overrun and they put people into prison for this. We have now over 500,000 people in prison that never committed a violent crime for drug use, and there are mandatory jail sentences under these conditions. This makes no sense, it’s so expensive and it hasn’t achieved anything.”

All in all, the federal government simply has no constitutional authority to prohibit individuals from consuming any substances. That’s all that needs to be said. I would not want to see it enforced at the state level either. Communities should decide such matters locally, without any interference from the federal agencies. In cases in which there is no violent behavior, it should be dealt with as a medical or pychological problem, not a criminal case requiring punishment.

In Liberty,

Jonathan Raof