Why is Marijuana Illegal? | Examining the Health Aspects of Cannabis
Anthony Gucciardi
NaturalSociety
November 28, 2011
Countless studies have highlighted the industrial and medicinal uses of marijuana (cannabis), yet the federal government claims that it has ‘no accepted medical use’ and continues to classify it in the same category as heroin, MDMA, and PCP. Despite the ruling, the medial marijuana market is priced at around $1.7-billion — that’s almost as much as the explosive Viagra market, coming in at around $1.9 billion.
Why do so many individuals suffering from disease swear by marijuana if it has no real medical use? And furthermore, were the thousands of studies on the medicinal benefits of marijuana completely incorrect?
Studies have found marijuana use to be beneficial in treating multiple sclerosis, Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, brachial plexus neuropathies, insomnia, pain, memory disorders, anxiety disorders, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and many more conditions.
Marijuana Plant, Hemp, and Cannabinoids
Some cannabis activists actually state that certain properties of marijuana can act as a “cure-all” in the right forms. You may know that marijuana is usually quite high in THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the compound responsible for the psychoactive effect of cannabis. In contrast, it is also low in CBD (cannabidiol) content. Both THC and CBD are known as cannabinoids, however, which interacts with your body in a very unique way.
What you may not be familiar with is how CBD has been shown to block the effect of THC in the nervous system. This allows marijuana plants to exhibit the most psychoactive effects. Hemp, on the other hand, is high in CBD and low in THC. This is due to the fact that it is bred to maximize its fiber, seeds, and oil. Of course these key properties are what it is most commonly used for.
You see, hemp is a very powerful industrial substance, but it also has a number of health benefits. Interestingly enough, THC-free hemp is actually quite popular in protein drinks, green superfoods, and even clothing. This type of hemp has zero psychoative effects, yet it is still illegal to grow within the United States.
Two tablespoons of shelled hemp seeds contain about 11 grams of protein and 2 grams of unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids.
Cannabinoids are promoted as a health-promoting substance in the popular documentary “Run from the Cure” with Rick Simpson. The entire documentary is available free on Youtube:
The film speaks specifically on Hemp Oil, which Rick Simpson and his followers say can even cure cancer. Speaking on the subject of marijuana benefits, particularly in the form of Hemp Oil, Simpson states:
“I have been providing people with instructions on how to make Hemp Oil medicines for about 8 years. The results have been nothing short of amazing. Throughout man’s history hemp has always been known as the most medicinal plant in the world. Even with this knowledge hemp has always been used as a political and religious football.
Marijuana Made Illegal While Pharmaceuticals Kill More than Traffic Accidents
Research has shown marijuana to be beneficial to health, yet Marijuana has been classified as dangerous by the federal government, outlawed, and made illegal. Many pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, have gone unchecked despite causing more fatalities than traffic accidents. In fact, even slightly more than the recommended dose of Tylenol can kill you, while THC-free hemp will simply boost your immune system.
You do not have to smoke marijuana to enjoy its benefits. THC-free hemp, which comes without any mind-altering effects, is a great health superfood that is used by many. For the government to classify marijuana in the same category as heroin and PCP while allowing deadly pharmaceuticals to go unregulated shows how little they truly care about public health.
Explore More:
- Shocking: Marijuana Use May Positively Impact Lungs
- Medical Marijuana Becoming Blockbuster ‘Anti-Cancer’ Drug
- Cannabis Treatment Threatens Deadly Painkiller Industry
- You can be Fired for Using Medical Marijuana, Justices Rule
- 22 Million Americans Use Illegal Drugs
- Under Federal Threat, Wash. State Gov. Vetoes Medical Marijuana Dispensary Bill
Llegalize IT! I could cure my towns economic ills with the weed. As far as the LAW is concerned it’s a serious misallocation of wealth and resources. If I was a narc or DEA, I’d be too ashamed to admit it.
As a person who has recently been arrested for growing Marijuana, and soon to be facing court. I have been charged with sale and supply. What little money I had was taken from me, to prove that I was a dealer. It was for my own use. The reason I grew it was so I did not have to deal with dealers. My personal diaries were taken, along with my passport. I am writing this from Ireland, and would just like to add that with the spread of Globalism also came the spread of Fascism. The American led war on drugs arrived into my life.Smoking Marijuana did not detract from my life it aided me when I was suffering from severe sickness. The so-called ”war on weed” is in fact a war on humanity.
How can a Government make a plant illegal that is older than any Government ?…
I so too agree with you all the way….
Cannabis cured my cancer. This video is my story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtcY90UoPAo
Cannabis sativa & indica have a long world history as a
medicinal herb. Ancient Chinese emperor Shen-nung was the first to record the medical use in 2737 B. C.
Here in the Western world, after a century of behavior modification, control, and propaganda by the secret agenda groups, misunderstandings, misdirection, and disinformation about drug use has made it challenging and very difficult to have intelligent discussions about them.
Drugs that jack you up or dull your mind, the habituating drugs, are the ones the government and its pimps, the multinationals, want us to use. Neither wants us using the ones which will help us free our souls and our imaginations.
r u talking about befor crist
BigUP Cannabis!
BigUP JAH!
BigUp ALL!
this is a “meditation @ 4:20/BigUP!”
Abolish the FDA
Vote RON PAUL 2012!
That fact that smoking cannabis is pleasurable makes it an appealing target to the puritanical element of American society who hate the thought of someone, somewhere having fun.
Cannabis is a gateway drug. A gateway to another reality. The powers that be do not want you to believe in anything except to work, pay taxes, and die. Marijuana opens up the gateways. Listen to binaural beats and smoke some ganja. aummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Why wouldn’t the medical companies repackage and sell all the benefit drugs made from Cannabis? That is the question as the profit potential is in the Trillions. Are they afraid of making money? There’s something they are not telling us. Could it be that is cures something they make money off off selling us? Like Cancer? And even if it did, were talking Trillions on profits. Why do they not want to make MORE MONEY? Tell us why?
because everyone would be able to grow their own medicine and therefore they would not profit. Unless they made it legal to manufacture for the pharma companies and illegal for individuals to grow and consume which would be hard to control
Marijuana will never be made legal because it is too versatile and useful, as well as easy to grow. If it were legal…how would the government, tax authorities, drug companies…I.e. The parties who benefit monetarily from it’s prohibition, they wouldn’t to insure that they got their cut. Drug companies make billions off of the US population! In their eyes, it’s better to keep a customer coming back. Keep them sick and provide “easement” for their symptoms but keep them sick. Soon the drug companies will be allowed to use marijuana to create all variety of drugs….it will, however…still be legal for everyone one else to grow and use the plant. The only “legal” marijuana will be the tightly controlled chemical analogs, synthetic creations and chemical derivatives…available at a premium price, with a doctors prescription. Weed will never be legal because there are many rich and powerful people who benefit from it’s prohibition
Long years ago, there used to be a character in the Lil’ Abner comic strip called the Shmoo. it naturally produced eggs, all manner of foodstuffs and if you looked at it hungerally, it would instantly turn into a ham. The Gov.. made the inhabitants get rid of them. Too useful.
Know this: we long ago lost our country and produced religious meddlers who tacked on the 19th amendment to the constitution (Prohibition), and the Bill of Rights has been thrown into the trash. And you one day expect ganja to be made legal? Too useful! Marijuana is the Shmoo of the botanical world.
“[...]hemp is a very powerful industrial substance, but it also has a number of health benefits.”
Those are the ONLY two reasons why hemp/canibus have been villified since the turn of the 20th century.
If medical canibus (everybody needs to stop using the intentionally demeaning name, “marijuana!”) were to become legally and readilly available, it would merely prepresent the “shoe in the door,” and there would no longer be ANY argument against the cultivation and use of industrial hemp. If that were to come to pass, the timber/wood pulp, cotton and petro-chemical industries would all implode virtually over night. Does anyone really think those very wealthy, very powerful people would ever allow that to happen, unless it benefited them personally somehow?
As the saying goes: “Those who assume positions of power and authority rarely relinquish them voluntarilly.”
The fact is, the PTB don’t give a rat’s arse about anybody getting high on canibus. That’s just the popular political line that’s used to help win elections and garner grant money from the pig trough we all pay into one way or another.
I’m somewhat astonished that the “real” reason canibus is illegal is still a topic of conjecture, or even discussion.
Sheesh – I meant to say “cannabis.”
Perhaps you were channeling Anibus, who I think would agree with you.
Egregious regulatory capture is what it is, plan and simple.
Vivek
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/the-plan/
And I of course meant to say plain. Freudian slips abound.
Vivek
Unfortunately for Americans, the unelected FDA is nothing more than a high powered drug lobby and YOU are worth more sick than healthy to them.
The pink ribbon scam is just that, a SCAM. There is no interest in curing anything, least of all cancer. If it were cured, the economy would collapse from that one breakthrough.
Free the Medicine Flower.
Genesis Chapter One verse 28 goes something like ” he gave to man every green thing and seed bearing fruit” is my rough memory. Science has made itself the trollop of empire in service of the medical society and its church approved cant. Profits are sought in order to further finance CONTROL which is needed in order to fatten up and dumb down the naive consumer. Dont be One of these. Medicine Flowers are prolific and beautiful unlike the tac squads and prisons that finance the “social” experiment war on drugs/prohibition. Thrive personally by learning to give and produce in the totally lawful realm of Cultivation. Be Blessed Ya.
Basically the federal government would be happy if everybody would just go die. They hate your guts and everything that makes you who you are. They are the sworn enemy of every right human being who strives for compassion, love, understanding, knowledge and growth.
It should be noted that hempseed oil, which is used in the protein drinks and readily available in the natural food store, is NOT the same as the hemp (or more correctly-cannabis) oil. The cannabis oil is derived from the flowers of high grade cannabis and for those who don’t have time to watch the video, is processed by boiling it down. The medical cannabis industry is devoting time to develop strains that are high in the CBDs, which are the most medically beneficial, and don’t induce the “high” as much. For those so anti-cannabis due to the pleasure of the high, what’s so bad about feeling good?
The hempseed oil, though in itself a healthful high protein oil, doesn’t have the same benefits as the cannabis oil. There are some who claim this oil has cured their cancers, and even Hepatitis C.
But the government has no problem with Pharma dosing you with drugs that can kill you, and poisoning the water with fluoride-but you can’t have cannabis as it might cut into the Pharma profits.