Marijuana
	Marijuana is a big topic these days.  Many people want to make sure that
marijuana stays illegal.  Yet they do not know all the facts about marijuana.  They just
think that marijuana is bad.  I believe that marijuana should be made legal.
	First of all, marijuana refers to the dried leaves and flowers of the cannabis plant,
which contain the narcotic chemical THC at various potencies.  It is smoked or eaten to
produce the feeling of being "high".  Marijuana has been used for thousands of years for
medical, social, relaxation, and religious reasons.  Several of our presidents are believed to
have smoked it.  Those presidents include Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many others. 
John F. Kennedy smoked it to relieve his back pain.  Also, many of America's great
leaders were hemp farmers.  This includes good ol' George Washington.  Archeologists
believe that cannabis was possibly the first plant farmed by humans.
	Many people think that marijuana is addictive, but this is false.  Marijuana is less
habit forming than either sugar or chocolate.  When users take marijuana, it doesn't lead to
violence-related crimes.  Most users commit crime because they want to get marijuana, but
this problem can be easily solved if the government would legalize marijuana again. 
When you take marijuana, it doesn't make you violent, in fact it leads to non-violence.
	There has never been a case that a person died from smoking marijuana.  THC is
one of the few chemicals that has no known toxic amount.  This is amazing, since
tobacco(which is legal) has 340,000 plus deaths in a typical year, compared to marijuana,
which has 0 deaths.
	The government states that over 20 million Americans still smoke marijuana.  You
can say that marijuana affects your health, but marijuana is less dangerous than tobacco
and people smoke less of it at a time.  Or you can eat the plant instead of smoking it,
which can lower health risks by a lot.  Another way to reduce health risks is by reducing
smoking amounts.  There is no proof that marijuana causes health problems that can lead
to death or sexual programs, but like alcohol, it is not recommended for children or
teenagers to use.  This is simply because children and teenagers are in the process of
growing up, and it would not be a good idea to smoke anything or drink alcohol.
	Cannabis is a medical herb that has literally hundreds of proven, valuable
therapeutic uses.  For example, you can use marijuana for stress reduction, asthma, cancer
therapy, and much more.  Marijuana is not just for getting "high", but a valuable medical
medicine.
	Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who made totally false statistics and studies, was very biased
and unscientific.  He was even fired by the National Institute of Health and the NIH told
the public his studies were meaningless.  For one experiment, he suffocated a monkey for
5 minutes at a time, using way more smoke than the average marijuana user inhales in an
entire lifetime.  The other studies were lacking controls and produced results which cannot
be replicated or independently verified.
	The same plant, known as hemp, has about 50,000 non-drug commercial uses. 
This includes paper, textiles, fuels, food, and sealants; but these uses were also banned by
laws.
	Government should re-legalize marijuana and tax it.  People are going to smuggle
it anyway, so why not make a lot of money to try to repay the United States' debt by
taxing marijuana?  The re-legalizing of marijuana might even be a way to lower crime and
violence in America.