Why do people want to legalize marijuana?

• I just dont get it. I mean i know people want people to have the choices, but its so bad for your health and all that. Nice answers please ;)

• Answer:

  There are a number of reasons. First off, hemp is the one exception to the rule that every medicine is also a poison. Nobody's ever found a lethal dose and there don't seem to be any serious long term health effects. It's certainly less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. There was a study in the 60's that concluded that marijuana use breaks chromosomes, but that report has since been discredited and the author lost his medical license in the '90's for falsifying test results at his fertility clinic and other unethical practices. It can cause lung damage, but not nearly as much as cigarettes. So, the health claims are a non-starter. Second, Drug Laws kill a lot more people than drugs do. I'm not just referring to the premature deaths of cancer and AIDS patients from the ban on Medical Marijuana. Hemp isn't a cure, but it does help cancer and AIDS patients tolerate their chemotherapy regimens and hold down food. More than half of all street crime, and most violent crime is Drug Law related. It's estimated that rationalized drug laws that focused primarily on drugs as a medical problem would virtually eliminate Drug Law related crime and enable the shift of limited Public Safety resources to suppressing other forms of crime. Every day in America, women are beaten to death by abusive spouses against whom they have filed charges because prosecutors can't get a timely court date. Evey day in America, violent criminals are released early from prison because Drug Offenders are hogging the prison space. And Drug Laws are the biggest single source of Police corruption--which is why the National Association of Police Chiefs favors reform and the National Association of Police Sargeants, the guys who collect the bribes, is against it. And Drug Laws have traditionally been the wedge used to undermine the Bill of Rights. Ask anyone who lived in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia about State Terrorism and they'll say, "The knock on the door in the middle of the night." In 1969, the US Supreme Court ruled that Narcs don't even have to knock. And there don't a day go by that Narcs aren't before some court or some Legislature asking for Extraordinary Powers based on their inability to conduct their activities in a lawful manner. Economics is also a major factor, especially when the Recession is so close to becoming a second Great Depression. States and Counties want the Tax Revenue that legalization of Marijuana would provide. The Feds could use the additional Income and Business taxes from making America's biggest cash crop legal. And hemp has numerous Industrial and Agricultural applications that could spur Economic Growth. Most of the quality control issues, (strength, contamination, etc.,) go away when there's regulation. Early State Marijuana Laws and the Federal Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 sprang from two sources, Racism and Corporate Special Pleading. The Southwestern States passed Marijuana Laws and even coined the name as an attack on Mexican Americans. ("Hemp! Destroyer of Youth!" just didn't have the right ring to it.) And advocates were pretty up front about it. On the Business side, a device was patented in 1935 that made it simple and cheap to separate hemp fibers. This would have made hemp commercially competitive with the less durable flax and linen fibers and a cheaper source of paper pulp than timber. The new synthetic fibers would have been blown completely out of the marketplace. So the Special Interests backed the ban. Finally, Marijuana Laws, like all Drug Laws don't solve the problem. Marijuana use has increased dramatically in the 72 years since it was banned. And it's easy to see why. Attack a product with lies so blatant that they are easily seen through, provide hundreds of millions of dollars of free advertising and celebrity endorsements, protect it from Regulation, Litigation and Labor Unions, have Government fix artificially high prices and limit Competition and that product will flourish. Yet this is exactly the way the Government treats Marijuana. Drugs are serious problem and that problem needs to be addressed. But the way we've been doing it has only made the problem worse and exacerbated other problems. We need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that CAN work. And legalizing Marijuana is a good first step in that Reform. Anything that destroys support for the current model is good for America in the long run.