LET'S ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE WAR ON DRUGS IS A FAILURE -- AND LEGALIZE
MARIJUANA

Everyone knows that the American drug war is a total
failure.

Having spent $1 trillion in the last 40 years, we now find that
marijuana is cheaper, more potent and readily available to anyone who
wants it. During the past 10 years, polls show that public school
students consistently say that marijuana is easier to get than
cigarettes or alcohol.

It is high time to end the insanity. Prohibition didn't work with
alcohol and it won't work with drugs either.

The drug war is all about greed, power and control. The government and
law enforcement lose more credibility every day that they maintain
their irrational, narrow-minded stance against legalization. We the
people need to stand up and speak out for full legalization of
marijuana and industrial hemp as soon as possible.

Marijuana should be legalized for several reasons. We need cannabis
hemp for medicine, food, fuel and fiber. Marijuana is good medicine
for many ailments and lately has been shown effective against cancer.

We should stand up for our rights. We should be allowed to light up a
joint for relaxation and recreation. It's no different from the
average Joe kicking back and having a couple of beers after a long
day's work. What we do in private is our own business, not Big Brother's.

No one has died from a marijuana overdose; it is not toxic to the
human body. Alcohol and tobacco are bad for you, and addictive too,
but they are legal. Think about how many people die each year because
of alcohol and tobacco abuse. Cannabis is no more addictive than coffee.

Ever wonder why marijuana is illegal? Greed, yellow journalism,
racism, outright lies and vicious, misleading propaganda were used by
William Randolph Hearst (newspaper publication, timber and paper
industry), the DuPonts (plastics made from oil), the Rockefellers (big
oil) and our government to get hemp banned in the first place. They
were afraid of the competition then and they still are.

The drug czar when the federal government declared war on marijuana in
1937, Harry Anslinger, used lies, racism and underhanded politics to
further the agenda of the rich and powerful. Every drug czar since
then has followed in Anslinger's footsteps. Nowadays, $18 billion is
wasted each year on marijuana prohibition. Our government forces
marijuana prohibition on other nations, causing hardship and increased
crime.

Want to talk about addiction? Our government is addicted to the
profits from the drug war. It is a sad fact that our own government no
longer has the best interests of the American people at heart.

The federal government's insistence that we must not grow hemp because
there is no way to discern industrial hemp from marijuana is absurd;
they have different growth habits and appearance. Inspectors in other
nations that do grow industrial hemp have no problem figuring out the
difference.

The powers that be who are pulling the strings that control our
federal government are doing everything they can to keep knowledge
about the benefits of marijuana and industrial hemp from you because
Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Lumber, Big Law Enforcement, Big Tobacco and
Big Alcohol realize that their cash cow (the lost drug war) is at stake.

Big Pharma knows marijuana is good medicine but doesn't want you to
have it unless they can control it; they're after the money. But they
can't patent a natural plant. Many medical organizations agree that
marijuana is good medicine for a wide variety of ailments.

Big Brother knows that legalization would put the power and the money
back in the hands of the people and they hate the very thought of
that. They are willing to be heavy-handed, to use blackmail and to lie
to the American public to keep marijuana from being legalized. All
those hundreds of thousands of men and women (many of them very young)
who have been incarcerated for cannabis should be released so that
they can resume their productive lives.

Within three or four years, we could be making enough alcohol from
hemp to allow us to almost completely quit using gasoline. Fuel prices
would go way down. Hemp oil is an excellent lubricant. That's why Big
Oil fears cannabis hemp mightily. It would cause them to lose their
stranglehold on us and nations of the world.

Hemp will grow anywhere, from deserts to mountains to rain forests. It
is much better for our environment than other crops such as cotton and
makes much better products. Small farmers would have a way to make a
better living. We could stop cutting down our old growth forests.

The huge amount of money being made by organized criminals will
suddenly be reduced significantly; crime would decrease; Mexico
finally would be allowed to legalize. The drug cartels in Mexico would
lose a huge portion of their business overnight.

Cannabis hemp is the world's premier renewable resource. Legalize it,
regulate it, tax it at a reasonable rate. Keep it illegal for minors,
just like alcohol. This new income would provide a much-needed boost
to our economy.

It is no longer a question of if cannabis will be legalized but when.
Recent CNN polls show that close to 95 percent of Americans are in
favor of legalizing medical marijuana and a Pew poll shows that 46
percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana and that
support is growing.

If you are not sure whether cannabis should be legalized, inform
yourself; study everything you can find out about it, then you will be
convinced that legalization is the right thing to do. God put this
herb on the earth for us to use. Let's use it wisely.