So, to put it bluntly, the main reason marijuana should be legal is because there was no true cause for it ever to be made illegal. Why the burden of proof should be placed on making a substance legal is ridiculous and follows backwards logic. If the same process were applied to everything else, our courts would be tied up with people attempting to prove contact sports are worth the injuries (Gerber, 2004). Unfortunately, marijuana has fallen prey to faulty bureaucracy. Fortunately, there is still an infinite list of reasons as to why marijuana should become legal.
Discussion
On the industrial side of things, Hemp is useful for the manufacture of over 200,000 products. In fact, the USA is the only industrialized nation that does not embrace industrial hemp (Long, 2006). Every part of the hemp plant can be taken advantage of; the stalks for the production of fabrics, ropes, papers and insulation. The seeds and seed oil for inks, fuels, solvents, cosmetics and various edible uses due to its high nutritional value. Hemp makes a much higher yield per acre than do widespread alternates such as cotton fabric and needs few pesticides. In supplement, hemp has a mean growing cycle of only 100 days and leaves the dirt virtually weed-free for the next planting (Robert, 2003).
As for the medical benefits, the possibilities seem just as endless. The active ingredient in marijuana, delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has been clinically proven to aid in the appetite deprivation associated with AIDS wasting syndrome, the nausea associated with chemo-therapy, and the pain and swelling of the eyes associated with glaucoma. Those being the three main currently accepted uses, marijuana has been recognized to help treat numerous other ailments such as migraines, pain from multiple sclerosis, menstrual cramps, depression, phantom limb pain and epileptic seizures to name ...