Cannabis-hemp is a natural substance which has been grown for 
thousands of years for many different purposes.  Only in recent decades has 
it become illegal in the United States of America (Pluff, 1996).  Cannabis-
hemp is more commonly referred to as marijuana.  It is often smoked for its 
pleasure giving effects of euphoria.  This however, is not its only use.  
Lately, marijuana laws have been a very common and heated topic on the 
news.  Much of this new debate and interest was sparked by a recent vote.  
In November of 1996, California voters decided to allow patients to use 
marijuana for medical purposes, however, the doctors who prescribe it risk 
having the national government revoke their licenses.  While many people do 
believe that marijuana should remain illegal, most of them are basing their 
opinions around faulty research and facts.  There really is no legitimate 
reason for cannabis-hemp to be unlawful, and it should be relegalized.
     Hemp was originally made illegal not because it was some harmful 
drug.  In fact, until recently, the public was totally unaware of the real 
reasons.  Before 1883, nearly ninety percent of the world’s paper supply was 
manufactured of hemp based fiber.  In the early 1930’s, the US Department of 
Agriculture proposed making paper from hemp based fiber, but production had 
to be put on hold until someone invented a machine that would separate hemp 
pulp from the fiber cheaply.  During this time, Dupont Chemicals, Hearst 
Paper and Timber, and a number of other large companies developed a way to 
make whiter paper out of trees (Miller, 1996).  In 1936, a very short time 
after tree paper patents had gone through, and production had started, the 
hemp “decorticating” machine was invented.  This machine created a way to 
separate the hurds from the rest of the marijuana plant very cheaply.  The 
tree paper companies invested huge sums of money into making cannabis-hemp 
illegal, so that they wouldn’t lose money.  This was the first “Reefer 
Madness Movement”.  The only part of this whole occurrence that the public 
new about, until lately, was the “killer weed with roots in hell”, and 
similar adds.  (Pluff, 1996)
     The fiber and pulp from the cannabis plant can be used to make 
paper.  Eighty percent of the stalk of the plant is hurds, which is the part 
used in the paper.  One acre of cannabis-hemp, would be equivalent to four 
acres of old growth forest.  In order to make paper of tree pulp, it must be 
soaked in a powerful acid to break down the lignin.  This acid the 
contaminates our environment.  Tree paper is also whitened with bleach, 
another pollutant.  Hemp contains no lignin, and whitens much easier.  Hemp 
paper also lasts much longer.  It does not harden, crack, or crumble with 
age, and it was used to write the US Declaration of Independence, and the US 
Constitution.  (Pluff, 1996)
     Marijuana has had a long history of use as a medicine.  It was used 
in ancient China in the year 3000 BCE  (Berger, 1994).  In Thailand, It is 
used in official medical reports to treat migraines.  The drug THC is the 
key element in marijuana and far as medicinal purposes are concerned.  THC 
is found only in marijuana.  More and more people are turning to chemother-
apy as a treatment for AIDS and cancer.  One of the side effects of this 
treatment is called “wasting syndrome”.  With this syndrome, the affected 
person loses vast amounts of weight due to uncontrollable nausea.  THC in 
marijuana can reduce the nausea suffered much more drastically than with any 
other medicine.  (Buckley, 1993)  Marijuana is also the only know drug that 
can be used for this without gross side effects.  (LaFave, 1996).  In 1988, 
Kenny and Barbara Jenks began AZT treatment for AIDS.  This treatment causes 
wasting syndrome.  Within one month Barbara had lost 40 pounds (one third of 
her body weight) because of the syndrome.  With the use of marijuana ciga-
rettes, her nausea disappeared.  (Yates, 1995).  Cannabis is also useful in 
treating muscle spasms, or spasticity (LaFave, 1996).  Spasms and spasticity 
are caused by stroke, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis.  It can also 
be caused by spinal cord damage from athletics, automobile accidents, 
violence, and combat.  Over one million Americans experience this, and yet 
there is not a single, legal drug that works to any degree for this 
problem.  Surgery as well, can not help people suffering from this.
     Cannabis can be used to make many different products.  The first 
pair of Levi’s jeans was made out of hemp.  Even today, you can find some 
imported shoes made of hemp.  It by far the most comfortable, safest for the 
environment, and economic material available.  It is softer than wool and 
cotton, and it is warmer than cotton.  Cannabis-hemp much less land than 
cotton plants do, and need no fertilizer.  Cotton on the other had, need 
huge amounts of fertilizer to grow well, especially in the American temper-
ate climate.  Over one half of all pesticides used are used on cotton 
plants.  Hemp is also much cheaper than cotton.  It does not take as much 
money to grow the plants in the first place, and more of the plant can be 
used, thus earning the farmer more money.  In today’s economy, most farmers 
are barely breaking even.  With the introduction of marijuana as a cash 
crop, the almost nonexistent family farm will again flourish.  (Pluff, 1996).
     In the forward of the US Department of Agriculture’s 1992 Yearbook 
of Agriculture, it states that: “It is important for America to lead in the 
research and development of alternative uses for agricultural products.”  
(Gettman, 1995)  Hemp meets all standards developed for being considered a 
source of fuel.  Through the process of hydrolysis a plant’s cellulose can 
be converted to ethyl alcohol, this is called ethanol.  Corn and municipal 
waste are both currently being researched as a source for this ethanol, how-
ever neither can come close to producing the eighty percent cellulose of 
hemp stalks.  This solution could solve the entire worlds energy supply 
problem.  By the year 2005, the price of this ethanol would be approximately 
$.67, much less than other power supplies.  (Gettman, 1995).  Elvy Musikka, 
a speaker at Western Michigan University said “Biofuels are biodegradable in 
the ground, why do we keep importing our fuel, when we could be making it in 
the US?  (Kemp, 1996).  It is believed that upwards of ninety percent of the 
worlds fuel could be produced in this manner (Miller, 1996).
     When using various other legal substances as a precedent, marijuana 
is a very safe substance.  In a 1986 article in the Pharmacological review, 
Leo Hollister of the Stanford University School of Medicine said that: 
“...compared with other licit (legal) social drugs, such as alcohol, tobac-
co, and caffeine, marijuana does not pose greater risks...”  (Coker, 1996)  
In fact cannabinoids in general are non-toxic, and lethal doses are impossi-
ble.  (Dewey, 1986)  According to a University of Michigan research paper, a 
regular marijuana smoker will smoke 2-4 marijuana cigarettes a day, whereas 
a typical tobacco user will smoke between 40 and 60 tobacco cigarettes in 
the same period of time.  (Norris, 1996)  The tobacco smoker is at a much 
greater risk than the marijuana smoker.  Alcohol was made illegal for a very 
brief period of time.  That was very shortly after, repealed.  An alcoholic 
will usually develop a tumor after a period of about 15 years.  For mari-
juana smokers it takes 30.  If alcohol is legal, than so should cannabis-
hemp.  (Vij, 1996)  People often use the fact that marijuana has over 1000 
naturally occurring chemicals in it as a reason that it should remain 
illegal.  While this statement is true, it is very misleading.  Coffee has 
over 900, of which 800 are suspected to be carcinogens (cancer causing), or 
otherwise dangerous.  Only 21 of those have been studied in depth, and 16 of 
the 21 are carcinogenous.  (D’Mello, 1996)  The legality or morality of coff-
ee is never brought up, so why is that of marijuana.  Marijuana is in fact a 
very safe substance.  No one has ever died of a marijuana overdose (D’Mello, 
1996).  The National Institute for Drug Abuse released a pamphlet called For 
Parents Only: What You Need to Know About Marijuana.  In it, it states that 
“...There is little evidence that the drug is physically addicting...  There 
is nothing in marijuana itself that causes people to use other drugs...  No 
definitive neurological study of humans has turned up evidence of marijuana-
related permanent brain damage...  There is no direct evidence that marijua-
na causes cancer in humans...”  This pamphlet is available through the gov-
ernment.  (Rosenthal & Kubby, 1996)
     Many of the most common arguments used against the re-legalization 
of marijuana are myths.  It is often stated that the marijuana grown today 
is much more potent than that of the past.  This is a result of bad data.  
These claims were based upon marijuana seized by police many decades ago.  
Poor preservation of the marijuana caused it to deteriorate, and decline in 
potency before the government actually did studies on it.  Independent stud-
ies from the time however, have shown it to be no more potent that the canna-
bis of today.  (D’Mello, 1996)
     It is often reported that marijuana is a gateway drug.  “There is 
nothing in marijuana itself that causes people to use other drugs” (National 
Institute for Drug Abuse).  In the Netherlands, marijuana was partially le-
galized in the 1970’s.  Before this time, the Netherlands’s drug use was at 
the same levels as the United States.  Since the partial legalization of 
cannabis, hard drug use (heroin, LSD, cocaine, etc...) has gone down sub-
stantially, while in the US it has risen in huge amounts.  If marijuana 
really were a gateway drug, hard drug use would have gone up, not down.  
This “negative gateway effect has also been observed in the US.  Studies 
from the 1970’s show a negative correlation between the use of marijuana, 
and the abuse of alcohol.  In 1993 the Rand corporation did a study of US 
states, such as Mississippi, that had somewhat “decriminalized” marijuana 
use.  In these states, hard drug use decreased.  (D’Mello, 1996)
     Many judges, over the years have approved of marijuana legaliza-
tion.  In 1988, 5,000 pages of information were given to Judge Francis 
Young, which said marijuana was the least dangerous drug, and useful for 
therapeutic reasons, and he approved.  In 1993 a case ruled that marijuana 
is not dangerous, and yet, the US government won’t relegalize it.  (Kemp, 
1996)  Judge Whitman Knapp said that “After 20 years on the bench, I have 
concluded that federal drug laws are a disaster.  It is time to get the gov-
ernment out of drug enforcement.”  (Miller, 1996)
     With all the information now available, it is fairly obvious what 
the answer to the question of whether or not marijuana should be relegalized 
is.  It can save many people from the suffering of diseases, it can solve 
upwards of 90% of the world’s energy problem, it can make our environment 
much cleaner, and it can make our earth healthier.  Cannabis is a natural 
substance, and, when looking at the information available about it, relegal-
ization is the natural choice for the people, for the US, and for the entire 
earth.
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Dewey, W. Cannabinoid Pharmacology. Pharmacological Reviews. 1986 Vol. 38, 
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