A Gallup poll released last month indicated that 58 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana.

To a reasonable person, it’s common sense.

Weed is the third most popular recreational drug in the United States, behind only alcohol and tobacco, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Not only does it lack many of the negative health effects of alcohol and tobacco, but marijuana also has a high medicinal value (cancer patients, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, etc.).

Once legalized and taxed, weed could also bring in high tax revenues for the government.

The government would also save money from not having to enforce laws against marijuana, along with all the money spent on prosecuting and keeping marijuana offenders in prison.

The United States, with just 5 percent of the world’s population, holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoner population, according to the American Civil Liberties Union’s website.

More than half of the country’s massive federal prison population is made up of drug offenders, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Nearly two thirds are nonviolent offenders with no prior history of violence.

According to CBS News, roughly half of all drug arrests are made on marijuana charges. The fact that American prisons are literally overflowing with people for this harmless drug just isn’t right. Legalizing it would be a very necessary, albeit moral, step toward fixing this.

So why is it even illegal? Weed was made illegal for many reasons, and none of them have anything to do with health or safety.

The plant that produces both marijuana and hemp is called cannabis.  Cannabis was used for thousands of years for food, clothing, paper and medicine. It first took a negative connotation less than a century ago.

This fall from grace can be traced back to two things: money and racism.

In the year 1935, hemp was poised to become a billion-dollar renewable energy crop. This was a problem for the country’s corporate powers, which had all their money riding on petroleum-based energy and production.

Their solution: categorize hemp and cannabis entirely as marijuana in the public eye. Throughout the 1930s, a national propaganda campaign was undertaken by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to demonize marijuana and use minority groups as the scapegoat.

According to a 1998 special report by Frontline, the recreational use of marijuana was first introduced to American culture by a large influx of Mexican immigrants after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The drug became associated with immigrants, which was used as a tool of fear and prejudice by the bureau in its campaign.

Frontline stated in its report: “This instigated a flurry of research which linked the use of marijuana with violence, crime and other socially deviant behaviors, primarily committed by “racially inferior” or “underclass communities.”

As part of the propaganda campaign, the government financed a movie titled “Reefer Madness” in 1936. It depicted four high school students who tried marijuana and spiraled out of control, committing suicide, homicide and rape.

As a result of the fear and misinformation induced by this propaganda, Congress passed The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, effectively criminalizing the use of marijuana in the United States.

Nearly a century later, the forces that made marijuana illegal are still at work.  Lobbying to make sure that the drug remains illegal are oil giants, the pharmaceutical industry and alcohol companies. Not to mention law enforcement, which risks losing a chunk of its funding if marijuana is legalized.

Last month’s Gallup poll is about more than just change in opinion. It signifies an opportunity to bring about lasting change, and take back a right that, like many others, has been wrongly taken away from us under false pretenses.

Nick Smith is a senior broadcast and digital journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at nxsmith@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @Nick_X_Smith.

 

Published on November 18, 2013 at 1:37 am