Why Marijuana Should Be Legal

Far from being a crippling addictive lure, marijuana is actually""one of the most benign substances known to man,"" according to this fact-filled and impassioned pro-pot manifesto originally published in 1996. The authors, marijuana-law reform activists, detail weed's many medicinal uses in the treatment of diseases like AIDS, glaucoma and cancer, examine the wonders of industrial hemp, and tout legalized marijuana as a potential economic boon and a lucrative tax-cow. The real problem, they argue, is the criminalization of marijuana, which has wasted untold billions, trampled our Constitutional liberties and thrown millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens into jail even as it has fueled crime by taking marijuana out of the legal marketplace and putting it in the hands of criminal syndicates. They blame this policy of prohibition on an unholy alliance of panicky parents, pharmaceutical and liquor companies eager to maintain their monopoly on medicinal and mind-altering substances, and the law-enforcement and prison industries that thrive on the war against pot. The authors amass a wealth of statistics and carefully reasoned arguments to support their controversial view and conclude with a helpful list of marijuana-law reform organizations and a quixotic exhortation to tokers to take vigorous action on behalf of legalization. This book is a compelling challenge to the prohibitionist orthodoxy.