Why is marijuana still prohibited?

Every one of the above answers is so wrong that they range from slightly silly to absolutely absurd. You will note that no one can give you references to support what they say.

Marijuana was outlawed for two major reasons. The first was because "All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy." The second was the fear that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana -- exactly the opposite of the modern "gateway" myth.

The modern explanation for the laws is the "gateway" myth -- the idea that marijuana leads to harder drugs. However, this argument is so patently ridiculous that even top government officials are coming to admit that it has no basis in fact.

You can find references for the above at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/mj_outlawe... and

http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.ht... and

http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/gateway_my...

There are two major reasons why it remains illegal, even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.

1) Cannabis prohibition has become a big business with both government agencies and numbers of commercial companies that depend on it. Examples are drug testing firms, companies that make toys for cops, prison building, etc.

2) It is driven by people who are really zealots and don't want to know the truth. For them, it is closer to religious belief than anything rational. If you point them to the major research they will flatly refuse to read it. Then they will tell you that whatever researched you have referenced is biased -- even though they can't even name the titles or tell you the first thing about what it says.

In 1973, President Nixon's US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse completed the largest study of the drug laws ever done. They said that the real drug problem was not the drugs. The real drug problem, they said, was the ignorance of the people who had never bothered to read the most basic research.

You can find the full text of Nixon's commission, plus the full text of most of the other government commissions over the last 100 years at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer under Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy.

As you can see above, nobody here has read any of the most basic research.

What you don't seem to understand is that the effects of marijuana are 20 times more potent then cigarettes. Smoking one joint a day is equal to smoking 5 packs of cigarettes a day. They cause cancer much faster and far worse then smoking and drinking do. It kills off irreplaceable brain cells. Despite what some people seem to think, there are ALWAYS accidents caused by people that have been smoking pot. Generally those people care charged with DUI's instead of DWI.

Yes, under very controlled circumstances, marijuana has some medical uses. As does cocaine. That doesn't mean it can be trusted in the hands of EVERYONE. Too many people will abuse it.

Wine has been proved to have medicinal purposes, whiskey can be used as an oral numbing agent. Doesn't mean that any of them are good for you in excess. That's the problem. Too many people will abuse marijuana, as they do alcohol and cigarettes, if it's made legal. Believe it or not when pot was legal a million years ago, there was a higher incidence of "drug related" crimes.

Despite what people seem to think, marijuana is not a harmless substance. The fact of the matter is, it's just more common them most other drugs and people are uneducated about it.

Ihatehippies - Not nescessarily true. I would MUCH rather go to work Moday with a pot hangover than an alcohol induced one.

I think it has to do with the money the local governments make from all the fines aquired from busted potheads. Although, they could tax it the same way they do cigarettes; even put an age restriction on it. I'm sure not all lawmakers are raping their pages...lol

My sisters and I was just talking about that the other day. You hear all the time drunk drivers killing innocent people in car accidents, but you never hear any car accidents where the person was high. Marijuana has been proven to help people is some cases and alcohol has not. Our courts waste alot of time worrying about this illegal substance when there are people doing alot worse things.

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Marijuana was made illegal in 1935 because it was being

abused. Prior to 1935 it was available in any drug store for

medicinal purposes ( it does have medicinal purposes).

Abuse is still the reason why it is illegal.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and have a nice day.

Thank you very much, while you're up!!!!

So far, drug use still gives someone the label of "them". We like to have a "them" to dislike and fight against. Should marijuana become mainstream and/or legal, we could no longer pin crimes on those pot smoking juveniles. We couldn't say it was "them", but would have to consider pot smokers as part of "us". I would rather make alcohol a "them" and narrow our definition of "us" than add more miscreants to "us".

Savvy?

Because the government has not figured out a way to tax it effectively and reliably. Once they do, they will treat it like alcohol and tobacco.

pot leads to cocaine ,heroine and stuff like that .Or so they say.Governments are going all out to suppress tobacco use . It would'nt make sense to bring in pot to replace it.

Because you can get wasted Sunday night and still go to work Monday morning (with a hangover, but you can get around that)

However, if you get stoned on Sunday night, you will be too lazy to get ANYTHING done then next day.

Weed isn't harmless. I was in a fraternity filled with potheads for four years, and I don't think I ever saw one of them do anything productive, EVER!

However, we had alcoholics who were not the spotlight of society, but at least they could get stuff done if they really wanted to. They didn't just sit on their sofa all day eating cheetoes and watching MTV.