by Sharon Early

Created on: January 17, 2011

Should marijuana be legalized or not?

Should America finally remove the blinders and stop with the rhetoric and misinformation surrounding cannabis, its usage, and its users? In recent history since the 1950' and 60's marijuana and her users have been vilified. Marijuana was criminalized by most countries in the early 1900's, it has been classed as a hallucinogen and the establishment has campaigned to keep from ruining our lives and the lives of our children. However marijuana is reported to be the most widely used drug of all time. Cannabis use has been with us since the earliest origins of man.

According to the reference article in the Wikipedia

There is evidence that cannabis was used for medicinal, ceremonial, and religious ceremonies as far back as 3000 BC. Cannabis is also known to have been used by the ancient Hindus and Nihang Sikhs of India and Nepal thousands of years ago. Cannabis was also known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered it through the Aryans and it was used for some religious ceremonies by both the Assyrians and the Aryans. The Aryans also introduced cannabis to the Scythians and Thracians/Dacians whose shamans burned cannabis flowers for the purpose of inducing a trance state. Members of the cult of Dionysus, the god of wine, believed to have originated in Thrace which is now Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece, are also believed to have used cannabis smoke. In 2003 a leather basket filled with cannabis leaf fragments and seeds was found next to a mummified shaman who was believed to be 2500-2800 years old, in the northwestern Xinjang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. As a fiber cannabis plant usage dates all the way back to over 10,000 years or more in Taiwan. 1Wikipedia 2011

Demonize it as much as you like, with such an unbroken stream of usage for medicinal purposes, religious rites, and for recreational drug use, it is unlikely that all of humanity is going to turn its back on the cannabis plant and walk away now just because people who claim never to have used it say that it is bad. Millions of recreational users can attest to the fact that marijuana usage in many cases is less bad than the consumption of alcohol. There are more driving related deaths to be laid at the door of perfectly legal consumption of alcohol and even cell phone texting than can be laid on the use of marijuana.

Slowly the powers that be have begun to decriminalize the usage of marijuana. That they require a prescription from a doctor testifying to the users

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