Marijuana has spawned its share of monsters; none, more fearsome than those who uphold existing criminal codes against the utility of a single plant bearing twin blessings: industrial hemp and cannabis. The former, a seed and plant stalk, may revolutionize how clothing and textiles are manufactured and sold for profit while sustaining the world's ever-fragile ecosystems. The medicinal and social capabilities of the latter may ameliorate illness and quell tendencies for violence among those choosing to partake. If sanctions against cannabis are upheld, Earth and all its life-supporting systems are the ultimate victims, losing out on optimal ecological health to conservative arbiters who blindly disregard the plant's untapped potential …show more content…
Consumption of cannabis can foster individual wellness and social concord, or "keeping the peace". By reasonable assumption, the nutritional value of protein-rich hempseeds could alleviate much of the world's extreme hunger. Experiments in California underscore the promise of hemp as vehicular fuel, a utility capable of severing the link between motorist dependency on oil and conventional modes of transportation. A dwindling yet vocal minority of modern day prohibitionists dismisses the possibilities of health and harmony, simply insisting that what is already illegal should remain so. Ideologues of yesteryear have entranced and indoctrinated a new generation of monsters in their likeness who continue to dictate what can and should not be smoked, eaten, worn, grown within the natural elements, cultivated as a crop, redistributed to agricultural and horticultural ecosystems, sold and purchased as a product, administered as medicine, or used as …show more content…
Whenever an element is relegated to interior quarters, resources such as groundwater and electricity are expended in far greater quantities. The organic quality of what once may have been harvested naturally is now compromised, as is the case with genetic engineering, an experiment in altering the chemical composition of a plant. For a prohibited product and its handlers, exposure to law enforcement presents risk of reprimand and censure; in some jurisdictions in Asia and the Middle East, possession of a controlled substance even in a miniscule quantity may entail a prolonged prison stay and in some cases, a death sentence. Cannabis and its cultivation, sales, and consumption have been reduced, if not repressed to the underground, where criminals operate with varying degrees of organization. For seller and buyer alike, the primary measure of success is determined neither in terms of profitability nor sustainability, but in how effectively both parties manage to evade the authorities. In the United States alone, over twenty-million arrests for marijuana crimes have taken place since 1937, coinciding with the onset of the second world war. The Green Prohibition began a mere four years after the ban on alcohol was lifted so that thousands of unemployed Americans could return to work at distilleries and breweries amidst the Great