Okay, let's get one thing straight before I go any further: I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "pot-head". In fact, I've never taken a toke in my life ... nor have I experimented with any other substances, not even alcohol ... hell, the only alcohol I've ever ingested has been in the form of cough syrup. Nevertheless, I'm a firm proponent for the legalization of marijuana. Why, you ask? There are a few reasons.
It's virtually harmless. Think about the laundry list of potential side-effects associated with all those prescription drugs that somehow manage to get FDA approval and are constantly advertised on television ... dry mouth, bowel cramps, watery eyes, constipation, headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, drowsiness, disorientation, heart attack, stroke ... the side-effects are often worse than the condition you're taking the drug for in the first place!! What does weed do? It gives you the munchies, makes you giggle at everything, and if used too much, it makes you dim-witted. Even compared to the consequences of chain-smoking and alcoholism, that's a freakin' walk in the park.
It'd help out the cops. There's hardly any police department in this country that isn't overworked and understaffed, so they'd probably welcome the opportunity to ignore the petty marijuana sale and distribution offenses and even the larger pot busts, and have more time to go after the far more harmful drugs like meth, cocaine, and heroin ... not to mention having more resources to fight violent offenses and property crimes. And if you think that's something, wait till you see how the ripple-effect of the decriminalization of marijuana would ease the stress on prison crowding and court dockets!
It'd stimulate the economy. If marijuana were legalized, it would give the government the opportunity to regulate its sale, which would in all probability mean taxing it ... which would bring in a much-needed (depending on who you ask) revenue stream for the federal government. Not to mention that legalizing its manufacture, distribution, and marketing would provide a new industry for the country, meaning the creation of jobs, which we need now more than ever.
It's one of the best medicines around. Marijuana has been clinically proven to relieve chronic pain and to stimulate the appetite. There are a lot of people out there suffering from diseases and disorders that inflict constant pain, and that also suppress the appetite, making people susceptible to malnutrition and starvation. Only a fraction of those people live in jurisdictions that allow for medical marijuana, and just a fraction of
those have the means to obtain licenses for it. And then there are the countless college students who just want to let loose every once in awhile and relax ... weed takes pretty good care of that, too, and with negligible ill effects, I might add.
On top of all that is one of the most obvious reasons for legalizing it, one that makes an almost embarrassing amount of sense.
Marijuana is a naturally occurring plant. It's not altered with cancer-causing and addiction-inducing artificial chemicals like tobacco is ... it's just dried and then it's ready for use ... which is one big reason why it's comparatively harmless when used responsibly and judiciously. When you sit there and think about all these complex pharmaceutical chemicals cooked up in laboratories, innocuously packaged under names that sound like planets that the "Star Trek" characters beam down to, and how they're perfectly legal, whereas something that grows naturally in the ground is outlawed and called "dangerous", it kind-of makes you wonder ...
What are some of those FDA people smoking?!?
