Oh the irony Apr 24, 2007 4:28PM PST

I got a 93 on this despite spelling "retarded" wrong. Read it or don't it's just there in lieu of nothing else to post. It's a satire on the hypocrisy of not decriminalizing marijuana. In America today, one of the greatest evils in our society is the abominable drug we call marijuana, or â??Mary Janeâ?? for short. Teens love it, dealers hand it out like candy, and the cancer-stricken whimper like infants about how they need this demon drug to soothe their pain even when studies by our own governmentâ??s Food and Drug Administration show that there is no hard evidence this drug helps to treat their diseases and in fact is quite harmful. Of course, as to assure that those reading understand I am not biased, I must admit that there have been studies showing the drug might actually help ease chemotherapy and pose no significant threat to the health of a person. Yet, how much credibility one can give the National Institute of Health is questionable seeing how this particular branch of U.S.â?? Department of Health and Human Services is not often heard of and therefore can probably not be trusted, but for those of you that do subscribe to such research may you not come crying to me as cancer patients die from the drug. However, I find it perfectly acceptable by my standards should they partake of more lawful substances such as alcohol and tobacco. Despite having absolutely no research proving or even speculation such drugs are anything but harmful, they are still good, legal, taxable products approved by our American government and have always been in Americaâ??s households; much unlike the unholy reefer. The excuse of needing marijuana to ease the pain of glaucoma and cancer is simply pathetic and inexcusable in our society. Furthermore, as it is an issue of legality in this country, I propose our police forces continue to crack down on the illegal use of marijuana. There are some that would tell you this is too trivial a matter and that time spent arresting those who use marijuana could be put to better use ensuring more dangerous criminals are kept off the streets. I say marijuana users are dangerous criminals, ones who may have impaired judgement and be more likely to kill someone, especially behind the wheel of a car. Some may raise protest against my position on the matter, being that drivers under the influence of alcohol have been far more prominent in causing harm to pedestrians. To them I remind that those drunks have been properly taxed by their government and have at the very least aided their economy in some way. I am also reminded by many that the nation of Canada has legalized weed and still has a far lower crime rate than that of the United States. I remind them that I am a full-blooded American descendant of Europe and do not wish to follow the actions of our retarted cousin to the north; and that if Canada were a person it would be a total wimp incapable of dating. A cold and lonely human being indeed. Of course, should marijuana become legal, the American government would be able to tax its sale, and my arguments for alcohol and tobacco may indeed become far more pitiful than those for marijuana. If the American public realized that it has time and time again been proven by such sources as The Lancet and United Kingdom government studies to be significantly less harmful and addictive than both alcohol and tobacco, perhaps it would cease to be such a controversial drug. We might also decriminalize the drug to save room in our prisons for rapists and murderers rather than feel so zealous as to jail those who obtain intoxication without the professional help of American salesmen. But as this is a hypothetical world of which I speak, we must face the inconvenient truth. We must accept that while tobacco smokers pollute the air and cause illnesses in those around them through second-hand smoke, alcoholics drink and drive and kill pedestrians, and Americans continue to reject a drug that might possibly have positive uses in the face of other drugs with absolutely no other purposes but potentially harmful and addictive intoxication, glaucoma and bone cancer patients will simply have to ease their pain some other way. And until this drug is as widely accepted as the cancerous tobacco and addictive alcohol of this country, I will gladly follow the laws of this nation and support these lawful drugs as the proud taxpaying American I am.