Marijuana comes from the hemp plant, which can readily be grown on fields across the nation and was cultivated heavily in colonial period. After 130 years of being legal, the potential problems of marijuana were brought into the public eye by Harry J. Anslingler, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and author of Marijuana: Assassin

Criminalizing the use, possession, manufacture, and distribution of drugs violates the principle that the criminal law may not be used to protect individuals from the consequences of their own autonomous choices or to impose upon those individuals a majoritarian conception of morality and responsibility.....Enforcement of laws criminalizing possession, use, manufacture of distribution of drugs engender violations of civil liberties. Because drug enforcement is aimed at behavior which is inherently difficult to detect and does not involve a complaining "victim," it necessarily relies on law enforcement techniques -- such as use of undercover operations, arbitrary or invasive testing procedures, random or dragnet seizures, and similar measures -- that raise serious civil liberties concerns. These enforcement techniques lead in practice to widespread violations of civil liberties guarantees, including those secured by the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments (ACLU 1).

It is the enforcement of the laws criminalizing the possession, use, manufacture, and distribution of marijuana that are causing the violent crime. This war on drugs is wasting the money, as well as the lives of American people. The widely recognized opinion maker William F. Buckley, Jr. writes:

These are just a few of the myths used various groups in order to keep marijuana illegal. Along with these myths come the false belief that crime will increase if marijuana is legalized. Allen St. Pierre, Assistant National Director of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML), says that legalization will wipe out the already 60-billion dollar black market by placing marijuana in the open market (NORML information pack 3).

The drug laws imprison a multitude of otherwise law abiding people, a disproportionate number of them who are poor or minorities, for non violent acts that are directed at no one but themselves (ACLU 1). Instead of eliminating drugs, the prohibition of them just fosters an illegal industry able to inflate prices. This is hauntingly familiar to the prohibition era of gangsters present when alcohol was illegal in the 1920’s. Because drugs are sold on the black market, they cause violence, deaths due to no quality regulation, and diseases from sharing illegal drug paraphernalia (ACLU 1).

Marijuana reappeared in the mid 1960's with the emergence of the "Hippie." Widespread objection to the use of marijuana remained because of the set of valued and lifestyles associated with it, but use appeared in colleges and among middle-class youths in the suburbs (Himmelstein 103). Marijuana became a symbol of a counter-culture, and youthful rebellion. As a consequence, marijuana use rose for the next ten years. Marijuana was becoming more accepted across the nation. As the users of Marijuana changed, the attitudes about the danger of Marijuana broke down. In 1970, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act reduced the classification of simple possession and non-profit distribution from felonies to misdemeanors (Himmelstein 104). This was a good start. However, President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs in 1973 and over the next 20 years, each succeeding president continued to escalate the drug war. This policy has obviously done nothing to stop the recreational use of drugs in this country, on the con

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