to reschedule marijuana so it can be prescribed. Because of this patients have a choice: they may remain law-abiding citizens and suffer, or they can risk arrest and ostracism in order to get their medicine. Today sick people sit in jail because our government refuses to admit the usefulness of hemp as a medicine. New ballot measures have been passed, such as Proposition 215 in California, which allow doctors and patients to make the decision whether or not to use marijuana as medicine, and protect them from state prosecution. However, the federal government has vowed to prosecute patients who grow or use marijuana for medicine under the new law To illustrate the seriousness the Federal Government attaches to this substance, here are some interesting statistics:Average Length of United States Federal Sentences Assault: 3.2 years Manslaughter: 3.5 years Sex Offenses: 5.8 years Drug Offenses: 6.5 years Drug offenders currently make up 62 percent of the federal inmate population, up from 22 percent in 1980,. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1991, p.532 Even with this incontrovertible evidence about the nature of cannabis, which has been proven time and time again, we are still mired in the “Reefer Madness” mindset started by self-interested parties in the first half of the century. (Some of this notoriety about hemp has been rumored to be initiated by William Randolph Hearst, who feared that paper made from hemp, cheaper and superior in quality, would lessen the value of his vast pulp wood holdings).On January 1, 1932, the newly established Bureau of Narcotics, a unit in the Treasury Department, took over from the Alcohol Unit of the department the enforcement of the federal anti-opiate and anti-cocaine laws; and former Assistant of Prohibition Commissioner Henry J. Anslinger took over as Commissioner of Narcotics. Commissioner Anslinger had no jurisdiction over marijuana, but his interest in it was intense. Throu...
