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The Case for the Legalization of Marijuana
In 1937 the Marijuana Tax Act was passed, making marijuana taxable and therefore controllable by the government. The penalties for marijuana possession and use have gotten more stringent over time with the passage of the Boggs Act and the Narcotic Control Act during the fifties. The Boggs Act established uniform penalties and mandatory minimum sentencing and the Narcotics Control Act increased the penalties and fines for the possession and sale of illegal narcotics, (including marijuana). In 1970, the Controlled Substance Act classified marijuana and by association, hemp, as a Schedule I drug, (along with heroin and LSD) "Schedule I drugs are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision" (DEA para 3). Although the United States government paints marijuana as an evil, insidious, gateway drug that is undermining the very fabric of our society, if people were to know the truth about the lies that started the drug wars, the health benefits of marijuana, the costs associated with the eradication of this innocuous weed, and the versatility of marijuana's cousin, hemp, they would put an end to this so-called War on Drugs.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 labeled marijuana a drug of maximum danger and no redeeming value. This classification was immediately challenged by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, (NORML), but the government simply refused to discuss it. In 1986 the DEA finally decided to hold the public hearings that the U.S. Court of Appeals had ordered seven years earlier, and the resulting parade of doctors, patients, professors, and lawmen left a two-year court record that is the most thorough review of the evidence in our time. In 1988, twelve years after the case first hit the docket, the DEA's administrative judge stunned the agency by ruling for the plaintiffs: "Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. . . . One must reasonably conclude that there is accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise, on the record, would be arbitrary, and capricious" (Baum 85). The DEA chose to just ignore this ruling and continue on, business as usual.
One way that the government attempts to control marijuana in this country is by being the

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