Should it be legalized? Soon we will know.

[DdC]

Should it be legalized? Soon we will know. by DR. JAMES L. GODDARD
Life magazine Oct 31, 1969. 25-35

Man has used marijuana both socially and medicinally for several thousands of years and yet today there is little scientific knowledge of its dangers or merits. In spite of our lack of knowledge, an estimated 12 million Americans have used the drug in recent years. Now we are in a near crisis caused by ignorance and the blanket of misinformation which governmental agencies have used to cover their ineptitudes.
continued...erowid

Frank Defends Proposal To Decriminalize Marijuana By The Associated Press
CN Source: Associated Press March 23, 2008 Boston, MA

Rep. Barney Frank is defending a bill he plans to file this week decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, saying the federal law unfairly targets those using medical marijuana in California. Frank, who filed a bill to decriminalize marijuana as a member of the Massachusetts Legislature in the 1970s, said the decision whether to make possession of the drug illegal should be left up to the states.

Rep. Frank Defends Proposal To Decriminalize MJ



Calling B.S. on The Idea of 'Marijuana Addiction' By Paul Armentano
CN Source: AlterNet March 22, 2008 USA

The U.S. government believes that America is going to pot -- literally.

Earlier this month, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse announced plans to spend $4 million to establish the nation's first-ever "Center on Cannabis Addiction," which will be based in La Jolla, Calif. The goal of the center, according to NIDA's press release, is to "develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction."

Major political research studies



Richard Nixon's Missing Tapes

Shafer Commission (US federal government, 1973 DWR
Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective,
National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse.

Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding

"Marijuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

Marijuana: What science has to say by Elizabeth Finkel
Issue 10 of Cosmos, August 2006

"The bottom line is that marijuana never quite qualified as such, so they started making distinctions. Nobody ever liked the 'psychological dependence' idea, as it was meaningless and [people] started applying it to running and love and everything else. Rumour has it that the whole thing was all about getting marijuana users diagnosed as dependent."

But addiction is characterised not just by a craving for more or increased physiological tolerance to exposure, but also by withdrawal symptoms. "People were still trying to find marijuana withdrawal after 4,000 years of use."