This is a massive 10-page research paper I did on marijuana called Cash Trumps Freedom. I suggest reading it as an RTF document, so click here. Otherwise, here it is, unfortunately poorly formatted. I’ll work on fixing that.

Cash Trumps Freedom
Introduction
The American people suffer from the negative effects of a government who cares more about personal wealth than telling the truth, offering freedom to its people, and even more than a promising economy for its nation. There is a very large ploy by an organized group of thousands of law and government officials who would like to continue pocketing the profits of the drug war, and does so by telling terrible lies about the drug Cannabis sativa. Recreational use of Cannabis sativa, or marijuana, is a freedom which humans have enjoyed for millennia, and a medicinal miracle closely protected by people who prefer profit to health.

Health and Well-Being
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Government, and the drug companies would have you believe that Marijuana is a toxic substance. “…getting a huge number of carcinogens from the marijuana plant…”, “People that… smoke marijuana… are exposed to… toxic substances” (Davis). In elementary school, hours upon hours are dedicated to telling students not to ‘do’ marijuana. In junior high and high school, the same is often true, depending on your location and environment. Although this is often buried with ‘health’ lessons, there really is no conclusive evidence that marijuana causes health problems.
It is commonly taught that marijuana is addictive; and therefore it is harmful to your social health. “…marijuana has addictive properties”, “Both animal and human studies show physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms from marijuana…”, “…10% to 14% of users will become heavily dependent” (”Brown.edu”). The validity of these statements must be questioned. Antidepressants and other legal drugs produce withdrawal symptoms, while in the vast majority of marijuana users, none occur. Caffeine is known to be physically addictive, while marijuana is only psychologically addictive. Most any substance (chocolate, for example) could be considered psychologically addictive. More importantly, alcohol and tobacco, both widely known and accepted as addictive, are perfectly legal. Addiction shouldn’t have any impact on legality, only upon requirements for packaging such as the surgeon general’s warning printed on every pack of tobacco cigarettes.
“Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose” (”NORML FAQ”). “The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat than alcohol or tobacco” (”The Lancet”).
There is no shortage of organizations which contend that marijuana is extremely harmful to one’s health. Among these: “Smoking a marijuana cigarette deposits about three to five times more tar into the lungs than one filtered tobacco cigarette.” (Tandy), “Marijuana has 50 percent more tar than tobacco and contains more than 400 chemicals” (”Drug Free America). About.com’s Karen P. Tandy and Drug Free America both fail to cite any source for their information here, but the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (”NSDUH”) says that in 2002, the average American tobacco smoker smoked roughly 12 cigarettes per day. Without mentioning specific statistics, three to four joints per day is “a tremendous amount compared to the typical consumption of most non-medical pot smokers” (”CannabisMD”). Since marijuana cigarettes generally weigh less than tobacco cigarettes, it is safe to say that even if DFAF’s statement is true, marijuana still comes out far less harmful than tobacco to the average user.
One of the biggest health warnings of marijuana is its corrolation with lung caner. Donald Tashkin, pulmonologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, has studied marijuana for the past 31 years. Recently, Tashkin lead an experement to associate use of marijuana with lung cancer (”American Thoracic Society”). “This is the largest case-control study ever done,” boasted Tashkin (”Washington Post”). The results were, “against our expectations” (”Washington Post”) that “[there is] no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect” (”Washington Post”).
Because marijuana is so often pulled into the category of illegal drugs, another major concern is overdosage. There is no scientific basis to this. The LD50 (lethal dose for 50% of rats tested) of inhaled marijuana is 42 mg/kg of body weight (Merck Index), “the equivelent of a 165 lb inhaling all the THC in 21 one-gram cigarettes of high-potency (15% THC) cannabis buds at once, assuming no THC was lost through burning or exhalation” (”Wikipedia Cannabis (drug)”). In short, a fatal overdose of marijuana would require 21 large, unusually potent joints to be consumed within a period of one minute. This is physically impossible except, theoretically, through intravenous administration. It would require a smaller mass of water than cannabis to reach fatal levels of consumption.
“Hashish dealers will use filler to mix with the marijuana plant resin to extend their profits” (”Drug Free America”), “Marijuana dealers will sometimes lace their drug with a highly addictive drug like crack or pcp to get their users to come back” (”Drug Free America”). While this information is backed with no statistics, and is, in fact, false, it would only suggest that the legalization of marijuana would improve the situation. If marijuana were legalized and regulated, these problems would certainly not occur.
Few contest that marijuana has strong medicinal purposes, and the arguments against medicinal use focus on either questioning the motives of the proponents (”The bulk of the funds and the effort come not from small contributors, but from millionaires who are long-time supporters of the legalization movement” (”Drug Free America”)) or suggesting that the users would get addicted. However, it is indeed an excellent medicine to purposes such as pain relief, releif of nauzea, appetite stimulation, prevention of Alzheimer’s, and symptomatic relief of OCD, Tourette syndrome, epilepsy, migraine, and bipolar disorder (”Wikipedia Cannabis (drug)#Medical_use”).
The Netherlands adopted the policy that drug use is a public health issue, not a criminal matter, and that a distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs exists. Cannabis use among teens has since dropped to 5.2%, which is less than half of the United States’ 12.3% (”United Nations Statistics”). In Mexico, where marijuana laws are not enforced at all, that number was 1.3% in 1998.

Money and Power
Drugs are defined as one of two things. Over-the-counter, “legal drugs”, are defined as articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. Illegal drugs are articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of a man or other animals. Merriam-Webster paraphrases: A substance recognized in an official pharmacopoeia or formulary, or a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body (”FDA.gov”).
These definitions can all be further paraphrased quite simply: A drug is anything which the FDA deems a drug. And another useful tidbit of information: drug companies, who have the sole right to petition the FDA, have no legal obligation, save for one: to attempt to raise the value of their stocks. Drug companies are publicly traded corporations which have one intent only: to make money. Not only do they have a desire to make money, they have a legal obligation under the Investment Company Act of 1940. If there were a substance which, when inhaled, would cause symptoms to disappear - in other words, a medicine that actually worked - they would lose money. Less people would need their drugs. Their stock would go down.
The drug companies have created products which cause your immediate symptoms to be temporarily subdued, but these drugs do nothing to the core sickness that caused the symptoms. Those products also have ingredients which cause the sickness to get worse, causing the users of the “legal drugs” to buy more of them. For example, Effexor XR can cause side effects such as nausea, dizziness, sleepiness, abnormal ejaculation, sweating, dry mouth, gas, abnormal vision, nervousness, insomnia, loss of appetite, constipation, confusion/agitation, tremor, yawning, and palpitation (”EffexorXR.com”). You can bet that they’ve got more drugs at the ready to sell you and supposedly ‘cure’ all of these side-effects. But each of those drugs will, in turn, have its own side effects. After taking the drug for so long in a futile attempt to cure their initial illness, many become addicted to the drug and purchase more of it simply for stimulation. The commercials say “may be habit-forming”, which means “this drug is addictive.” The drug companies are not so different from the tobacco industry in this way.
The taxpayers of America are having their money squandered on the drug war. There is disagreement about how much is poured into fighting a hopeless war against marijuana alone every year. One source says it is $10 billion (”NORML Personal Use > Introduction”), while another source claims $4 billion (”Taxpayer.net”). This is because “Federal figures show that total war on drugs spending cost federal taxpayers $11.9 billion in 2004, but this spending is not broken down among individual drugs” (”Taxpayer.net”). The amount is, however, in the billions.
This includes the imprisonment of 734,000+ individuals each year (”NORML FAQ”). All cases of rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault combined come to a number far less than this (”NORML Personal Use > Introduction”). “Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use” (President Jimmy Carter, 1977). “Despite spending billions of dollars over the years to enforce the prohibition of marijuana, use and perception of the drug are little different now than they were 30 years ago” (”Taxpayer.net”). Americans who oppose the use of marijuana should not be forced to pay for it in the form of taxes squandered on fighting it. This money is entering a black hole, where it cannot contribute to the economy, cannot benefit America in any way, and on top of all this cannot accomplish the cause it is for. It simply enters the pockets of law officials.
Few recognize what potential marijuana yields for the American economy. Drug companies might lose money initially, but the rest of America would thrive with the taxation of marijuana, the additional jobs including the farming of marijuana and the selling of marijuana, as well as the production of non-drug materials (fine paper, etc). Marijuana is estimated to produce $35.8 billion yearly in America alone, exceeding corn ($23 billion), soybeans ($17.6 billion), and hay ($12.2 billion) which are the top three legal cash crops (”LATimes: Pot is Called Biggest Cash Crop”).

The Gateway Drug
Probably the most common argument against marijuana is that it is a gateway to worse drugs. Rarely do any accurate statistics accompany this claim. The other side has this to say: “Statistically, for every 104 Americans who have tried marijuana, there is only one regular user of cocaine, and less than one user of heroin” (”NORML FAQ”).
That said, it is still more likely for someone to choose to do other illegal drugs after having done marijuana than otherwise. The common mistake is thinking that it is marijuana that causes this. The cause is actually the fact that marijuana is illegal and demonized even more than deserving drugs such as crack and heroin. People associate all of the drugs together, and after having done one drug it’s not such a big deal to move on to the next. If marijuana were legal, this would not be a problem since people would not group marijuana together with the terrible, life-wrecking drugs. “In the Netherlands, where the sale of marijuana is allowed to responsible adults age 18 or older, the use of marijuana by minors is five times less than what it is in the United States, according to the British Medical Journal.” (”CoolNurse”)
There are few instances of people using other drugs based on their experience with tobacco, for instance. Because it is not illegal and demonized, there is no additional risk of people jumping to a new, more dangerous drug. “[it is] marijuana prohibition — which forces users to associate with the illicit drug black market — rather than the use of marijuana itself, [which] often serves as a doorway to the world of hard drugs. The more users become integrated in an environment where, apart from cannabis, hard drugs can also be obtained, the greater the chances they will experiment with harder drugs.” (”NORML FAQ”).

Conclusion
Marijuana has excellent health benefits, does not damage society, is not addictive, has few adverse effects on one’s health, and is not the root cause of graduation to hard drugs. Many legal items, drugs and other consumables alike, inhibit your health more and/or are more addictive than marijuana. Drug companies, government officials, and law enforcers capitalize unfairly on marijuana’s illegality, and spread the lies about it so they can continue to do so. Legalization of marijuana could provide the U.S. with billions of dollars in revenue. Legalization would also minimize the amount of harm marijuana has on society in many ways. Most importantly, while some may argue that marijuana presents health risk associated with its use, this risk does not constitute the obstruction of our freedom in order to protect us from this possibility of danger. The freedom to smoke marijuana would take this country many steps closer to truly being the land of the free.

Works Cited
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