Legalization of Marijauna (MLA)
Illegal drug use is a major problem in the world today. Millions of dollars are spent every year to prevent the trafficking and distribution of these drugs. Virtually all drugs are smuggled into the United States concealed in false compartments, fuel tanks, seats, tires of private and commercial vehicles, pickup trucks, vans, mobile homes, and horse trailers. Large shipments usually are smuggled in tractor-trailer trucks in false compartments and among legitimate bulk shipments, such as agricultural products. The government has devised ways to cut down on drugs. Yet the drug crisis is greater today then ever. Marijuana is one the most widely used illegal drug. Over the past thirty years the government has demonized Marijuana. Marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed just like cigarettes. Marijuana, also spelled Marihuana comes from the Indian hemp plant, cannabis sativa. It is a crude tobacco like substance produced by drying the leaves and flowery top of the cannabis plant. It is put into pipes or formed into cigarettes (reefers or joints) for smoking. Recently, it has appeared in cigars called blunts. Lester Ginspoon writes, "The drug is a mild hallucinogen meaning that it distorts sensory perceptions. Marijuana is known by a variety of names including pot, tea, grass and weed " (112). Marijuana can also be added to foods and beverages. The intoxication part of the plant lies mostly in its strong-smelling, sticky, golden resin. The hemp flowers, especially those of the female plant, give this smell off (Ginspoon 214). Many users describe two phases of marijuana effect as initial stimulation, giddiness, and euphoria, followed by sedation and pleasant tranquility. Mood changes can often accompany altered perceptions of time and space of one's bodily dimension. Marijuana varies in potency, depending on where and how it is grown and prepared for use or stored. In the book Uses of Marijuana by Solomon Snyder it states: “Active ingredient, tetrahydrocanabinol (THC), is present in all part of both male and female plants but is most concentrated in the resin (the flowering tops of the female). The 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. This is the main reason marijuana is by far, the most frequently used illegal drug…” (186-187). Marijuana cultivation in the United States can trace its lineage some 400 years. For most of our nation's history, farmers grew marijuana, then know exclusively as hemp, for its fiber content. "Colonialists planted the first American hemp crop in 1611 near Jamestown, Virginia" (Snyder 241). Soon after King James I of Britain ordered settlers to engage in a wide scale farming of the plant. Most of the sails and ropes on colonial ships were made from hemp, as were many of the colonists’ bibles, clothing and maps." According to Jess Lord, "George Washington and Thomas Jefferson cultivated marijuana and advocated a hemp-based economy" (89).