Buddah.

I'll never understand why pot is illegal. At the base of my misunderstanding is how as a collective body, our country can proclaim a certain living thing as unworthy of life. Because pot is a living thing, and above all, a native species, how can the government say that it no longer has the right to grow and flourish in its native habitat.

Tears for pot, made illegal in the 1930s, as a direct result of propaganda films (which are now cult classics) such as Reefer Madness. Uncontent with the boringocity that prohibition (which may have been repealed by then) and the PCA had unleashed by banning liquor and cool movies, the "moral majority" of America banned a weed. A fun, fantastic, and extremely useful in industrial production...weed.

I don't understand why, WHY they banned pot? Were people too happy and mellow? Maybe it was because due to the dustbowl, there simply wasn't enough food to feed 150 million extra-hungry mouths?

Well, I, for one, wish that America would pull the stick out of its collective ass, and let one of America's proud species, equal to the mighty Sequoia and Sycamore trees, equal to the bald eagle, flourish once more on its native habitat. Hell, even cockroaches, while I don't like them AT ALL, still have the legal right to live in their native habitat. Who out there will tell me that cannabis whose only fault may be stupidifying those who use it voluntarily, and causing them cancer, is a worse creature than horrible cockroaches, which infest our walls involuntarily, spread disease, and eat our food, are not a worse menace than pot? May I be the first to introduce a bill in Congress, labeling all cockroaches as illegal, and instituting a program to eradicate cockroaches from North America? Cuz I'm SO THERE.

Pot has been responsible for some amazing music, some amazing snack creations, some fantastic movies and literature, and awesome clothing and interior decoration schemes. In fact, might I suggest that its benefits in creative expression, FAR OUTWEIGH any ills that cannabis creates?

No one forces anyone to use pot, and while people are on pot, they are not irrational, violent, or destructive. Those who voluntarily smoke a bowl do so realizing that they probably aren't going to get around to re-alphabetizing their CD collection immediately, and that they may forget the word for "spoon" briefly the next day. Still, the benefits that these people reap from small inconveniences keep them coming back for more - to be able to shut off that outer layer of the mind, constantly yammering about credit card payments and the fact that you haven't put oil in your car for 5,000 miles, to be able to listen to a piece of music and hear rhythms and musical layers that they had never heard before, to be able to really, really appreciate the flavor complexity of a French fry, slathered with Frosty, to be able to access memories with heightened clarity and detail, uncovering events not thought of in twenty years and to experience emotions on an entirely different level than ordinarily possible.

Though apathy and forgetfulness be trademarks of rampant marijuana use, I daresay the numbers of people that toke and drive are vastly lower than the numbers of people that drink and drive. Stoners are not compelled to go anywhere or do anything, because the beanbag chair and the lava lamp are more interesting and captivating than any possible activity could be outside -- and even if they did drive, their maximum speed would not exceed 30 miles per hour, and they would be the most cautious drivers on the face of the earth.

It floors me - the government could be making billions of dollars regulating marijuana, taxing it etc; instead it spends millions of dollars a year stomping out marijuana, and prosecuting those that use and sell it. It's a shame that the marijuana lobby in the 1930s was not as strong as the tobacco lobby has always been. Hell, that's probably a huge reason that marijuana is illegal; because it poses a threat to the Tobacco Lobby's product.

Well, I think it's a stinking shame. Even if marijuana was not legalized for the general public, it should have a medicinal use to help terminally ill patients deal with the final stages of their lives; to improve their appetites, calm their minds, and rid their bodies of pain. (I'm starting to think I sound like some sort of Victorian-era medicinal poster myself... Doctor Harrigan's Pure Remedy Tonic - Rids the body of catatopsy! Cures Dysorexy! Reverses decreptitude, and eases Nervous prostration! Fixes Scrivener's Palsy and dries Scrumpox!) Yet, our country would rather inject us with morphine and control our feeding with tubes and injunctions, than allow us to eat a brownie, or a pill, or smoke a pipe full of a common carcinogenic-when-smoked weed (and by the way, if the patient is terminally ill, who really cares about the long-term health effects of taking a bong rip?)

I don't know. It just seems fucked up. Poor, exiled weed. Perhaps someday you'll be able to grow wild in the Appalachian mountains and in clumps of the heartland like you used 'ta.