(Pot) Prohibition: What are the Costs?

My biggest concern in the War on Drugs is cannabis prohibition's effects on society, on crime, and on our children. The third category is especially important, as our children truly are the future of our nation, and they are being subjected to an underground black market that endangers them on multiple fronts. As a matter of fact, all of us are facing various consequences because of pot prohibition, and they cannot be ignored.

(Successful) People Who Have Smoked Pot

Do you ever hear about how marijuana will make you lazy, unmotivated, and will degrade both your personal and professional lives? The federal government wants you to believe this is true, because if you do, then their war on drugs becomes much easier to fight. But what is interesting is that several people exist in our society who smoke cannabis and lead successful lives, and many of them are common celebrities we see in the news all the time. Here's a list of well known men and women, most of whom smoke pot every day, that were successful in their professional careers.

The Reasons Marinol (Doesn't) Work

Dronabinol (which is sold under the name Marinol) is a cannabinoid prescribed to treat nausea and vomiting induced by chemotherapy and to treat appetite loss in AIDS patients who have developed wasting syndrome. Unfortunately for them, this FDA-approved drug is actually a counterfeit, and the side effects from the drug may be worse than the symptoms it is meant to treat.

The (Actual) Truth about Schedule I

Thanks to programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), the general public is mostly uneducated concerning the actual nature of cannabis. Elementary school children are subjected to a program that emphasizes the evils of marijuana and its harmful effects, rather than given a fair and balanced presentation of the facts; unfortunately, it leaves generations of children in the dark when it comes to cannabis and the truth about its effectiveness as a natural, superior, non-addictive medicine.

Wanna Do Some (Legal) Drugs?

Society tends to favorably view legal drugs; after all, you're not breaking the law when you take them, and are therefore acting morally and safely, in stark contrast to those who use illegal drugs such as marijuana, who act immorally and irresponsibly. Just image this conversation between two parents who just found out their son smokes marijuana. The mother is shocked and hysterical. The father, on the other hand, is calm and collected.

The (Civil) War on Drugs

Richard Nixon first coined the term "war on drugs" on June 17, 1971. This was his response to the a report issued by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, known as the Shafer Report, which said that marijuana was essentially a harmless drug with little to no addictive potential. The culture war on marijuana had already begun several decades earlier in 1937, but had been a much smaller conflict up to that point; Nixon made it an all out war.