Legalizing Marijuana Essays (1031 words) - Entheogens, Cannabis

Legalizing Marijuana Davis 7 Legalizing Marijuana Marijuana is the name for the drug that comes from the leaves and flowers of the Indian hemp plant, Cannabis sativa. It is a tobacco-like substance produced by drying the leaves and flowery top of the cannabis plant. Marijuana is usually smoked as a cigarette called a joint or in a pipe or bong. Recently, it has appeared in cigars called blunts which are longer. This drug is a mild hallucinogen, meaning that it distorts sensory perceptions. The intoxicating part of the plant lies mostly in its strong-smelling, sticky, golden resin. This is given off by the hemp flowers, especially those of the female plant. The resin protects the plant from heat and helps it stay moist during its reproductive cycle. Many users describe two phases of marijuana intoxication: initial stimulation, giddiness, and euphoria, followed by sedation and pleasant tranquillity. Mood changes can often accompany altered perceptions of time and space and one's bodily dimension. The hemp plant can be found growing as a weed or as a cultivated plant throughout the world, in many soils and climates, with the more potent varieties produced in dry, hot, upland, climates (Berger 1). All forms of marijuana are mind-altering. They all contain THC, the main active chemical in marijuana. THC was first identified in the mid-1960s. Its chemical structure is complex and unique, making it unlike that of any other psychoactive drug. There are also four hundred other chemicals in the marijuana plant besides THC, but they do not cause the same effect. For this reason, marijuana is, by far, the most frequently used illegal drug. Though its use in the United States is primarily for the pleasure effect of the drug, it has been used as an intoxicant in various parts of the world for centuries. Marijuana is known as a Schedule I drug which means it is one of the most tightly controlled drugs (McCormick 94). Only few countries around the world have legalized marijuana, but those that have, have seen good results. Marijuana has many benefits and is used for various reasons other than the reaction from the drug, and therefore it should be legalized. The first existence of marijuana was first described in print in a Chinese book of medicine in the second century B.C.E. and was used in China as an anesthetic five thousand years ago (Freeman 58). Its earliest use was recommended as a painkiller during operations. Known in Central Asia as early as 3000 BC, marijuana was used as a folk medicine. The practice of smoking it was brought to Brazil by black slaves from Africa. After spreading throughout Mexico, it was brought to the United States by Mexican laborers. In the 1800s, it was popular with black field hands in the South and in the hashish houses that often took the place of opium dens. Many people knew that they would profit from marijuana in America and they imported the drug any way possible. Marijuana was smuggled across the Mexican border in a variety of ways including inside the gasoline tanks of motor vehicles (Bugliosi 13). During the 1920s and 1930s, marijuana rose in popularity, especially among jazz musicians, most of whom were black. The effects of marijuana back then, were believed to turn men into social deviants capable of crazed, even homicidal behavior. The violence of which they were capable had more to do with white racist imaginings than with facts. Nonetheless, marijuana was outlawed in 1937. These beliefs played a part in the passage of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, which tried to control the use of marijuana. The Marijuana Tax Act made the use or sale of marijuana without a tax stamp a federal offense. The law also included stiffer penalties for marijuana use. Over the next decade, drug penalties got even tougher. Most of the marijuana that is smoked in the United States is grown in the United States. Most wild United States cannabis is considered inferior to the Jamaican, Colombian, and Mexican varieties that range much higher in percent THC potency. This drug accounts for many arrests every year and costs each state millions. More recently, many marijuana growers have taken their illegal crop indoors. It is now frequently grown in basements, attics, and outbuildings under lights with timed fertilizer and sprinkler systems. Growers generally try to get the highest THC in order to produce the greatest possible effect, which would result in more sales and profit. Few marijuana growers are