LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA WILL MAKE THE WORLD SAFER

Alcohol is the most popular recreational drug in the world and the
most dangerous with 100,000 people dying annually in America from the
direct health effects of drinking.

Alcohol use is also associated with half of all violent crime
including vehicular homicide.

Marijuana is the second most popular recreational drug on our planet
and the safest. No one has ever died from the effects of smoking weed.
No statistics are available for marijuana-related violence because it
almost never occurs.

Almost 1 million United States citizens are arrested every year for
smoking cannabis and many Americans are serving life sentences for
growing this popular weed. The only real risk associated with smoking
pot is getting arrested.

The women's temperance movement of the late 19th century led to the
prohibition of alcohol in 1920 with the passage of the 18th Amendment.

Alcohol prohibition quickly escalated into catastrophic violence as
bootleggers battled ruthlessly for shares of the black market created
by the new law. Alcohol abuse and deaths increased for young and old
alike as government completely lost control of every aspect of the
market.

Debate raged for years before Americans agreed that the cure was worse
than the disease and the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th in 1933. The
temperance movement faded.

Meanwhile, marijuana was quietly being enjoyed by Mexican-Americans
and African-Americans until media mogul Randolph Hearst and the
original drug czar Harry Anslinger demonized the innocuous plant with
a ridiculous (See "Reefer Madness"), racist nationwide media blitz
which would have been comical except - it worked. Marijuana was
outlawed in 1937.

Tricky Dick Nixon takes credit for ratcheting up the drug war in 1968.
He especially hated pot-smoking, war-protesting college students.
Nixon elevated cannabis to a Schedule 1 drug with heroin and LSD, more
dangerous than Schedule 2 drugs Oxycontin and crystal meth.

It was deja vu.

Our government used its global power to force other nations to fall in
line with our drug policy. The result is extreme violence in our
poorest neighborhoods, more citizens in American jails than any
country in the world and failed states in supply nations of Latin
America, particularly Mexico. We learned nothing from
prohibition.

Finally, in 1996 the Marijuana Policy Project rises to the challenge
of saving Americans from ourselves with a new and ingenious tack;
promote the legalization of medical marijuana for the terminally ill,
expand to chronically ill and finally to all adults.

In 14 years, 14 states and Washington D.C. have passed medical
marijuana laws, Massachusetts decriminalized small amounts, dozens of
countries including Mexico and Russia have legalized or refused to
prosecute personal use and this November California will likely become
the first state to allow more than one recreational drug in 73 years.

The fundamental questions we must ask are: Should politicians dictate
what we eat, drink or smoke?

Should we go to jail for making unhealthy choices?

Who owns our bodies, the state or ourselves.

The answers are coming soon and I think I'm going to like them. The
whole world will be a safer place.