Why Marijuana Should Be Legalized

Introduction
When the nation was founded, hemp was a regular crop that the Founding Fathers all harvested. Cannabis was literally part of the fabric of the American Way: hemp was used for a variety of functions, from tea to textiles. As Robert Deitch notes, “we know colonial Americans were aware of the medicinal properties of cannabis. It was one of the few medicines they had, and they used it as commonly as we use aspirin today” (25). If cannabis was good enough for the first Americans, surely it stands some much warranted consideration—particularly in the light of the recent opioid epidemic that has claimed the lives of so many young in today’s day and age (Nelson, Juurlink, Perrone). People looking for a little relief are chasing after dangerous drugs that can kill. Marijuana, however, has never really been associated with overdosing and death. Just as the early Americans found, cannabis has the ability to take away the pain and give a little peace of mind—and for that reason, legalizing weed is something all good Americans should support.
Famous Presidents Smoked It
According to Deitch, many of America’s first U.S. presidents smoked weed and valued cannabis for its calming and pain-killing effects. This list of presidents includes Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Taylor, Pierce and even Lincoln (Deitch). Marijuana was just accepted as natural and no one questioned its usage. It was the perfect crop as it had so many different uses. It was perfectly legal to farm and grow and use however one wanted. If the Founding Fathers were able to harvest weed, smoke it and still lay the foundations for the greatest country in the world, maybe weed really is not all that bad after all?
So why is marijuana still considered a schedule 1 narcotic along with heroin and other hard drugs that can seriously destroy lives? The fact is simply this: Big Pharma wanted to ban the competition and the Plastics Industry wanted to outlaw hemp so it could get into the textiles business. Marijuana and hemp have been outlawed in the U.S. because America is a business and in this country, the businesses that get their people into the U.S. government are the ones who succeed. Numerous states had banned marijuana in the early 1900s and FDR finally did away with it at the federal level in 1937 (Revell). It was argued then as now that marijuana was a gateway drug that could lead to the use of harder substances. However, there was never really any merit to that claim. To get to the bottom of the claim that marijuana was a gateway drug, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia “commissioned a study on marijuana use in the city. The research rebutted the notions put forward [at the time], finding that its use didn’t contribute to the use of harder drugs or a factor in causing crimes or juvenile delinquency” (Revell). In other words, the mayor who had an international airport named after him in New York City conducted a study on marijuana and found that it was not the killer that opponents were making it out to be. Yet the government still went ahead and banned it.
History is on the Side of Weed
Nonetheless, in spite of what Americans in the 20th century did, history is on the side of weed. Cannabis was a common plant in the Neolithic Age and could be found everywhere from Northern Europe to China, as Elizabeth Barber has shown. Additionally, Russo notes that it was very likely one of the first plants to ever be cultivated by human societies—probably because of its wide range of uses. So consider that: why would a government in today’s world outlaw a naturally occurring crop that has so many great uses? The only possible reason can be that the great natural crop was cutting into the bottom line of companies like DuPont and the pharmaceutical companies that wanted to push opioids onto the general public.
Weed actually fell out of favor in the U.S. after the Civil War when the Industrial Revolution kicked into high gear and introduced new methods of making products out of petroleum (Deitch, 2003). Plastic became the new good that American businesses wanted to sell all over the world. To get their product to market, however, they had to kill the naturally occurring product that people could grow legally: they had to get rid of marijuana and hemp.
Prior to that happening, however, weed was everywhere—and it was not just the Americans in the modern era who used it. The British were quite enamored of marijuana—even at the very tops of society: “in Victorian times it was widely used for a variety of ailments, including muscle spasms, menstrual cramps, rheumatism, and the convulsions of tetanus, rabies and epilepsy; it was also used to promote uterine contractions in childbirth, and as a sedative to induce sleep. It is said to have been used by Queen Victoria against period pains: there is no actual proof of this at all, but Sir Robert Russell, for many years her personal physician, wrote extensively on cannabis, recommending it for use in dysmenorrhoea” (Parliament UK). In other words, if everyone from Lincoln to Queen Victoria was smoking weed, one really has to wonder why the average Joe today is looking at doing hard time if he is caught smoking it, growing it or trying to sell it. Something is seriously wrong with today’s world for that reason. Nonetheless, the medicinal characteristics of cannabis were recognized by the medical industry about the same time that Queen Victoria’s doctor was noting the great things that weed could do for one’s body and mind. Marijuana was included in The U.S. Pharmacopoeia, and from that point on until the second decade of the 20th century, cannabis as a medicinal drug could be purchased from drug stores and general stores in America without any problem. But once Prohibition hit, marijuana was banned along with alcohol—and both went underground to be purchased by American scofflaws who did not care what the law said.
Weed is Making a Comeback in a Big Way
Today, there is a resurgence of interest in the positive effects of marijuana and in the utility of hemp. Part of it is because the American public is finally learning that Big Pharma cannot be trusted—not after the opioid epidemic debacle and the willingness with which doctors were prescribing drugs like Oxycontin and getting people hooked on opioids that could truly mess up their lives. Nowadays people want natural remedies—not something designed in a lab.
And though cannabis is not really a “cure-all,” it has been found to be “an extraordinary non-toxic medication that relieves the pain and discomfort associated with a variety of common human ailments”—and its treatments over the centuries have targeted “dysmenorrheal, neuralgia, gout, epileptoid convulsions, senile insomnia, rheumatism, convulsions, mental depression, insanity, uterine hemorrhage, migraine headaches and asthma” (Deitch 210). The common methods of consumption were to brew hemp tea, eat it, or smoke it. Today, however, the CBD from hemp is extracted and sold in oil form and may be used in a number of different was to treat ailments of various kinds. One does not even have to smoke weed any longer to get the positive benefits from it. One can put the oil in a vape pen and enjoy it that way. It can be put into food, cookies, brownies or other edibles. There are a million and one different ways one can get the benefits of weed without having smoke or vape.
Numerous states have legalized weed about a century after they criminalized it. In the century that has passed, the nation has seen a lot of big changes. The culture in America has completely altered and though some may say it has gotten worse while others may say it has improved, one thing is certain: marijuana is still around and has not gone away. Hemp is coming back too. Hemp farming was recently legalized in Kentucky, which means people are going to be turning to hemp for building and making textiles once more. Weed is back and this time it is here to stay.
Conclusion
Weed should be legalized because it has so many great uses which have been recognized basically since man could cultivate plants. Weed was one of the first crops ever grown and it is still grown today by people who value its good qualities. Though it was allowed in the U.S. in the 20th century, the Founding Fathers grew it and smoked it. Queen Victoria used it for her ailments. People have always found weed to have a good impact on their lives. The only reason it was outlawed was because it was the main competition of the pharmaceutical industry and the industrial barons did not like that hemp basically meant their oil had one less utility. By getting hemp out of the way the oil barons were able to push petroleum on the market to fill the gap. In America it has always been about business—but nowadays Americans are more interested in what works and in what is best for them: and that is weed.



Works Cited
Barber, Elizabeth Jane Wayland. Prehistoric textiles: the development of cloth in the
Neolithic and Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean. Princeton University Press, 1991.
Deitch, Robert. Hemp: American history revisited: the plant with a divided history.
Algora Publishing, 2003.
Nelson, Lewis S., David N. Juurlink, and Jeanmarie Perrone. "Addressing the opioid
epidemic." Jama 314.14 (2015): 1453-1454.
Parliament UK. History of the use of cannabis. Parliament UK, 1998.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199798/ldselect/ldsctech/151/15103.htm
Revell, Eric. On This Date: FDR Made Marijuana Illegal 81 Years Ago. Countable,
2017. https://www.countable.us/articles/849-date-fdr-made-marijuana-illegal-81-years-ago
Russo, Ethan B. "History of cannabis and its preparations in saga, science, and
sobriquet." Chemistry & biodiversity 4.8 (2007): 1614-1648.