Should Marijuana be legal? Most definitely.
Is marijuana a gateway drug? Nope. The most recent statistics say that marijuana is not a gateway drug. It is simply the drug most readily available to open minded peoples. Sure, 60 some odd percent of the people who have tried harder drugs tried marijuana first. Is that reason to criminilize the "drug" and give it a special name? (Analogy: nearly 100% of the people killed in motercycle wrecks rode bicycles a child...do we outlaw bicycles?)
Marijuana was criminalized in the late 1930's on a bunch of unsubstantiated propaganda and remains illegal as a schedule one drug (insinuating the drug has no known medical use). Outside the U.S., however, there have been several hundred studies recently proving that marijuana not only provides relief to glaucoma (relieving ocular pressure by nearly 25% in most cases), nausea, severe pain, swelling of arthritis, but also (by a 600% margin over the only known treatment) slows the rapid deteriorization of the brain due to parkinsons disease, and stimulates apetite (munchies anyone?) in cancer and aids patients. Most of these are recent findings, and sadly the politics surrounding marijuana are lightyears ahead of the science...making the effort to undo all of the governments lies in this subject a tough effort to say the least (Watergate, Monica...anyone?)
Here are a few more facts noone considers: the government also spends 2 billion dollars a year to "educate" people on the dangers of smoking the herb. 2,000,000,000$$ of our tax money. Not to mention that the American public pays for the 55% of 173,059 federal inmates in prison for non-violent drug charges through our taxes. That is just federal prisons folks, not state or county.
"The Marijuana Laws," as they are apply named, also help violate up to nine of the first ten ammendments to our constitution (otherwise known as the bill of rights). Most notibly 1,2,4,6,8, and 10.
1. Freedom of religion-unless you happen to be a rastafarian.
2. right to bear arms-unless you like smokin herb (then your a fellon just for owning both)
4. unreasonable search and seizure-unless a government official can smell anything that resembles marijuana, or substances frequently used to cover the smell of marijuana.
6.trial by an impartial jury-unless your illness is best treated by marijuana, because we all know that marijuana has no known medicaluses.
8. No excessive bail, fines, cruel, or unusual punishment-unless you are a nonviolent herb toker.
10. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people-unless the state wishes to legalize marijuana for medical treatment or research thereof.
I dont have time to cite all the sources I got this information from. This is the culmination of a question I asked myself back in middle school days (10 years ago). You wouldnt have time to read every single detail I know about mary jane, so I listed the important points. The National Orginazation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws holds the answers to most of the questions any of you would ask : www.norml.org.
Thanks for your time, and toke up ^.^