Why is marijuana illegal?
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It's a long story! Around 100 years ago we went through a period in the US where narcotic drugs were restricted and made illegal or tightly controlled, things like heroin, opium, morphine. Before about 1910 you could walk into any drugstore and buy these drugs, and they were used for everything from headaches to painful periods, they were even in medicine given to babies to make them go to sleep!
Marijuana was not used much in the US in those days but it was seen as a drug used mostly by blacks and hispanics--in fact both the government and the press started calling it 'marijuana' to make it sound more foreign. The govt. lied and said it was a 'narcotic', that it was addictive and caused great harm to the body. The drug companies were starting to get rich and powerful (as they are today) and they wanted it banned because they couldn't make any money with it, also the companies making alcoholic beverages wanted it banned.
William Randolph Hearst, who was the richest man in the world at the time, owned several newspapers. He owned his own forests for growing trees to make paper. Hemp can produce 8 times as much paper per acre as trees, so Hearst wanted it banned.
Anyway, from the 1920s on, pot became the target of moral crusaders. There were some very funny (unintentionally funny) movies made in the 30s like 'Reefer Madness' and 'Marijuana--Weed with Roots in Hell' that showed innocent teenagers smoking pot and then going on rampages of murder and rape and death. These films repeated the old lie that pot was physically addictive, led to harder drugs, and destroyed the body.
Finally you have the War on Drugs. This was started by President Nixon in the 70s. I think the real purpose of it was just to give police more power over people. Before the War on Drugs, police couldn't knock down a door, they had to wait until someone answered the door. They couldn't arrest someone without 'probably cause' or even stop a person on the street and question him or even ask for identification without a good reason. In a way President Bush's War on Terror is just a continuation of the War on Drugs, allowing cops to arrest people and hold them indefinitely without charges, 'render them to foreign countries where they can be tortured, etc. The PATRIOT Act is just an end-run around constitutional rights, and the War on Drugs was the beginning.
it makes u do stupid things like halluciate
because people abuse it.
because people do not look at the benefits of pot, they only believe the lies that the government tells about it. i am tokin up right now.
Hemp is a far better plant fiber to use as rope than cotton as it is far more durable and rot resistant.
Hemp was in direct competition with the powerful cotton growing industry, hence way back in days of yore, the growing and selling of it was outlawed.
Only later were it's powerful properties to strike users instantly stupid and unable to do proper research discovered.
first of all, it's hard to abuse marijuana. If that were the case, alcohol would be illegal also. It's absolutely ridiculous that it is illegal, medicinally or socially. Compare it to alcohol. Who smokes pot and gets violent? The ONLY reason it is illegal is because it would be too hard fo the government to control. It would put a lot of drug companies out of business. It would hurt the tobacco and alcohol industry. Pot is a natural multi-purpose herb. It's so sad that the government can't figure that out.
The short answer is Mexicans.
Most illegal drugs in the United States became illegal to target minority populations. Opium is illegal because the government targeted the Chinese once they were finished building our railroads. "Crack" carries heavier penalties than "Coke" because stereotypically inner-city black people use crack whereas middle and upper class white Americans use Coke.
And marijuana is illegal as an attack on Mexican people who were stereotyped as the singular importer/manufacturer of the drug.
There are various other reasons marijuana is illegal as well, such as the government's inability to control private growers and distributers if it were legal, thereby not being able to tax it effectively.
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