Drugs

It's funny that the FDA approves drugs with side effects that include death while marijuana remains illegal, and in federal cases can get you a life sentence without possibility of parole.

Cigarettes and alcohol are legal, yet they are connected with the leading causes of death in the United States (cancer, car accidents).

During WWII the US government encouraged midwestern farmers to grow 300,000 acres of marijuana for use in the production of hemp rope and to further stimulate the domestic economy, only to make it illegal once again after the war had been "won" (See Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness for a fuller exposition of this event in our nation's illustriously backward history).

As a result, marijuana now grows wild along the roadside throughout the midwest. They call it ditch weed, and it is usually not at all potent. But Schlosser suggests that ditch weed may be cross pollinating with more potent strains still being grown (illegally - for now) on farms in the region.

Is it really worth all of the effort to keep a plant illegal, especially when it has so many benefits beyond any possible medicinal use? Truly, it is reefer madness.