Why is marijuana taboo in our society?
Why is the government and society so against it?
No I don’t smoke, but I have, and I will agree that if it is abused like anything else then it can become a problem. However, smoking marijuana gives you the ability to see the world differently and make you more in-tune with your surroundings.
Some people will argue that how you feel when your “high” isn’t real or imaginary, however I would argue that theory. In my opinion it is a drug whether legal or illegal, therefore it is bound to affect your body in someway, like any other drug.
I’m not advocating for it’s use, because I do know what marijuana abuse can do to your mental health and your life. But overall I don’t see much wrong with it and I’m talking about mentally and psychologically not so much the smoking health affects.
It stems from the mid 20th century propaganda that associated marijuana with beatniks, communists and minorities. It was used as a tool to discredit the rise of these groups but moralists and right wing hatemongers. The image of marijuana isn’t helped by the minority of chronic users that accomplish very little. It is somewhat addictive and harmful, but nothing compared to alcohol. Addiction to both drugs is more genetic than due to inherent properties of the drugs.
Marijuana wasn’t the sole focus of the right wing, they actually got alcohol banned but were traditionally used by European peoples. While marijuana was seen as a strange Asian drug like Opium. As marijuana becomes more common in the western world, it is gaining social acceptability and will probably soon be forced into legalization.
The National Cancer Institute recently ruled that marijuana has medical use. That means that the schedule 1 status probably will not hold in a court of law as long as a federal agency acknowledges the medical uses.