Hemp is currently ILLEGAL to grow in the US.  It is however LEGAL to purchase goods made from Hemp.  This means that all the Hemp products Americans use, is grown in a country other than the US.  All because this plant LOOKS like a federally scheduled drug.
210214
The first legislation written about it in America was that every landowner was required to grow it because it is so invaluable. Yes, we should grow it. You literally need to smoke several pounds of it in a short period of time in order to get even the smallest buzz. It's wonderful in making rope, paper, the oil is wonderful for skin and it can help reduce deforestation.
143484
Marijuana has been used for centuries in many religious practices, it is only in modern times it has been outlawed. I think Rastafarians are still allowed to use it for religious purposes though.
571253
It's banned in the US.. but if you go to a large city to the Chinatown section, you may find it being sold by street vendors.  Alternatively, take a vacation to Hong Kong and buy it legally in the herb stores.
316234
I think I would be for arresting anyone that tries to grow their own. Rather there needs to be a control over how much people are allowed to smoke. \n\nThe reason I say that is because there are severe addictions, mental problems, and a few other health problems that marijuana can cause if you are able to smoke too much of it on a regular basis. \n\nBut as far as a minor causual use gotton from strictly controlled sources, that is another issue entirely. That approach could easily reduce the current severe abuse of marijuana where outright legalization or outlawing can't. Therefore reducing the problems that come from severe abuse. \n\nAlso legalizing marijuana would remove the bars from Industrial Hemp. We are the only country that doesn't have Indutrial Hemp production. \n\nIndustrial hemp could replace wood in paper product production and be a tool in reducing the amount of forests that are cut down. \n\nIt's most common use is clothing and textiles. We could generate thousands of jobs in this area alone. \n\nSo yes, legalization could be helpful.
489306
Same situation as in California.  Its legal to prescribe it, but its illegal to have it.  Its the federal law that stopping progress, the state levels are changing their view of it.  It just leaves wide open how much federal government is actually affecting the state.
197812
well i think you know what it is and are probably trying to grow it from the way you are talking. marijuana seeds dont fly out of birds. any dumbass knows what mj looks like just from the leaf, yeah you can get in trouble for cultivation, not that much if you only have one plant and claim you dont know what it is. they wont believe you anyway. you wont get caught, if the cops find out then your friends really arent your friends.
10350
because way back in the day, cotton plantations (among others) realised they would face some very serious competition if your government allowed hemp (the male variation of the marijuana plant) to be grown, seeing as its cheaper, more durable and just plain better than cotton. They lobbied the government hard and as they provided huge donations to both political parties got their way. Since then there has been lots of ill-informed religious right spackwads to keep it illegal free of charge.
554751
The question of the marijuana laws has been addressed by numerous major government commissions over the years. In order to understand why it is illegal, I recommend you read the short history of the marijuana laws at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm \n\nSee also "Why marijuana was outlawed" at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mj_outlawed.htm\n\nIn short, it was outlawed for two major reasons. In the southwestern states it was outlawed because of racial prejudice against Mexican immigrants. In the northeastern states it was outlawed because of the fear that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana -- exactly the opposite of the modern "gateway" myth.\n\nEvery major government commission report on the laws in the last 100 years has concluded that the marijuana laws were the result of ignorance and nonsense. They all found that there was no justification for making marijuana illegal and that the prohibition laws do more harm than good. You can find summaries of their conclusions, with links to the full text of the studies, at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/studies.htm
559532
yes i have :]\nmarijuana is the most commonly uses illegal substance in the United States. it is used by many people, most of which aren't your stereotypical "druggie", with no life agead of them. Many of them hapen to be very successful, good people. Think about it almost if not every person who reads this paper will know (even if they don't realize it) at least one if not several regular users of marijuana. Its often made out to be much more harmful htan it really is, unfortunatly not every one realizes this. \n\nWhat many people don't realize is marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Yet it's the one of the three that gets a bad rap and is illegal. Marijuana isn't even physicaly addicting. You certanly don't see meetings for marijuana like you do with alcohol and AA. Unfortunatly due to American culture the less harmful of the three is illegal.\n\nThe most common reason why marijuana can be harmful is that people can often come across laced marijuana without realizing it. Marijuana can easily be mixed with other more harmful drugs with out the buyer realizing it, until they have already used it. This is a dangerous thing that causes many people to do more harmful, hard core drugs without realizing it. If it were to be legalized the government could provide guide lines, like it does with alchol  to insure that people knew what they were putting into their bodies.\n\nMarijuana actually has many helpful benefits toward diseases / sicknesses. Marijuana can reduce nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by AIDS. It can Reduce interlobular pressure, which alleviates the pain and slowing and sometimes even stopping the progress of glaucoma. Common side effects of chemotherapy are nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting, all of which marijuana would help. It can limit muscle pain and relieve tremor nad unsteadiness of gait for multiple sclerosis patients. Marijuana can help prevent epileptic seizures in some patients. It can also alleviate chronic, often debilitating pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries. Each one of these applications have been deemed legitimate by at least one United States court, legislature, and/or government agency.\n\nDue to these reasons and many others many people are going to jail/prison on a daily basis due to simply smoking a little pot These aren't dangerous criminals that would kill or rape someone. Many of them are teachers, lawyers and respected members of their communities. But yet we still pay thousands of dollars of tax payers money to lock up non dangerous "criminals" yearly even though most aren't going to stop after they get out of jail. Don't you think the money spent here is a waste? Couldn't it be going to more useful things such as hospitals, disease research, or better schools? These are the things that would benifit the people of this country. Certanily you would rather benefit the people more than throwing a non violent pot head in jail who was only trying to smoke a joint and relax after a long days work in jail. There is up to forty million regular (note thats just the regular not occasional users) drug users in the United states. If we were to throw all of them in jail it would cost $500,000 per million people, plus the cost and space of building many more prisons. Couldm't that money be spent on building hospitals? There's already about 1.5 million people tax payers are paying to keep in jail over drugs. From 1990 to 2003, nearly 5.9 million people had been arrested for smoking marijuana. Thats a greater number than the entire population of Alaska, Delaware, The District of Columbia, Montania, North and South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. This country simply can't afford to put 40 million more in jail.\n\nMarijuana should be legalized. It has many uses such as helping sick patients. People are going to smoke it no matter what the government sais, and with out govenment guidel
581984
Our US constitution and Dec of Independ are written on hemp cloth, so our country used to cultivate it too. One President, think it was Jefferson, wanted to make it a law that every land owner grow some hemp. It would solve a lot of problems if it was legal and no you can't get high from it.
527083
Hemp is cannabis grown specifically for industrial use and thus contains very low levels of cannabinoids (THC). The use of hemp dates back many thousands of years. Properly grown hemp has virtually no psychoactive (intoxicating) effects when consumed. With a relatively short growth cycle of 120 days, hemp is an efficient and economical crop for farmers to grow. \nThe THC levels in industrial hemp are so low that no one could get high from smoking it. Moreover, hemp contains a relatively high percentage of another cannabinoid, CBD, that actually blocks the marijuana high. Hemp, it turns out, is not only not marijuana; it could be called "antimarijuana." \n\nHemp. Has there ever been a plant so fraught with confusion and controversy? The word itself carries a confusing history. "Hemp" was for medieval Europeans a generic term used to describe any fiber [1]. With European expansion, fiber plants encountered during exploration were commonly called "hemp." Thus we have a bewildering variety of plants that carry the name hemp: Manila hemp (abacá, Musa textilis), sisal hemp (Agave sisalana), Mauritius hemp (Furcraea gigantea), New Zealand hemp (Phormium tenax), Sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea), Indian hemp (jute, Corchorus capsularis or C. clitorus), Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum), bow-string hemp (Sansevieria cylindrica) [2]. \n\n\nThis botanical confusion was compounded by the introduction of a new word to describe hemp-marihuana (now commonly written "marijuana"). The word was first coined in the 1890s, but was adopted by the Bureau of Narcotics in the 1930s to describe all forms of Cannabis and to this day U.S. drug enforcement agencies continue to call the plant marijuana without regard to botanical distinctions. Indeed, a recent conference held in Jefferson City, Missouri and sponsored by Drug Watch International and the Drug Enforcement Administration was entitled, "Marijuana: Myths, Concerns, Facts"-yet much of the discussion concerned industrial hemp and the legal products made from it.
579945
Yes it's a violation of US federal law to transport cannabis seeds into the US.
166665
It All Began With DuPont And His Textile Empire .. The Rest Is HISTORY\n\nHeres all kinds of mind-blowing long-suppressed facts about Humanity's best \nfriend "The Cannabis Plant". Hemp or Cannabis as it is scientifically referred to is the fastest growing \nbiomass source on Earth. Biomass is a cheap and efficient source of fuel. As a matter of fact, if we \nwere to farm only 6% of the country's available farmland with hemp we could meet all of the \ncountry's Industrial energy and transportation needs. Hemp is 26 times stronger than cotton and lasts \n10 times longer. We can produce 4 times as much paper from Hemp as we can from trees at one \nfourth the cost and 1/5 the pollution and it is 10 times stronger and lasts ten times longer. It is a fact \nthat Betsy Ross made our first flag "Old Glory" from Hemp fiber. Also, our Constitution and \nDeclaration of Independance were printed on Hemp paper. The soldiers clothes during the \nrevolutionary war were made from Hemp. The second most prescribed medicine in the United \nStates for 150 years for over 100 different medical illnesses was a Cannabis extract and it is alot \nstronger when taken in concentrated form. This means that all the children in America for 150 years \nwere brought up as DRUG USERS from birth. Or, it just means simply, that we had a better \nunderstanding of herbs and their medicinal usage 100 years ago than we do today. So who has \nREALLY lost their mind, people who smoke pot, or the "NORMALS" ?\nThe drug war is nothing more than an excuse to suppress consciousness and use the ignorant in our \nsociety to create laws for the New World Order to use to crack down on all of our rights !! According \nto a Feb. 1938 article in Popular Mechanics the invention of a new machine called the decorticator, \nwould once again put Hemp in the dominant position in the fiber and textiles industry over cotton by \nspeeding up the harvesting methods in use at the time. At this same time Dupont held a patent on a \nsynthetic compound used to break down wood pulp to make paper. To make paper from Hemp didn't \nrequire any chemicals. In order for Dupont to profit from these chemicals, they had to see to it that \nHemp was out-lawed. Andrew Mellon sat on the board of Dupont and Mellon's nephew was \nHarry Anslinger, the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics at the time. William Randolph Hearst \nowned many big newspapers and working together they whipped up a smear campaign of "Yellow \nJournalism" in America, spreading propaganda that the African-Americans and Mexicans were \nsmuggling in a new killer dope weed that would lure white women to fall prey to the seduction of the \n"Negro", while under the influence of Jazz music. Racism and fear were used to outlaw \nsomething that was used by every man, woman, and child in America. It wasn't until after the \nmarijuana tax act was passed that the American Medical Association realized that "marijuana", a \nslang term for hemp was in fact "Cannabis", our second most prescribed medicine. This is when \n"Reefer Madness" began. \n\nNO ONE HAS EVER DIED FROM USING CANNABIS / MARIJUANA !!!\n\nIt Has NOTHING To Do With The Pharmaceutical Effects\nIts All About Dollars And NO SENSE\n\nAnswer Yer Question???
59737
It doesn't cut the proffits of alcohol or tobacco, in fact most stoners I know dring and smoke more while stoned than they would otherwise... it's because of Dupont... they have a financial interest in keeping it illegal... if it were legal, it would cut into their proffits in the Nylon, Pharmacutecle, and Petrochemical industries...  Yes, Dupont deals in ALL of thoes industries, and Marijuana would compeete with ALL of them... Hemp is STRONGER than Nylon... Weed, would replace Marinol, and Hemp oil can be processed into fuel suitable for Gasoline engines...\n\nBush ownes stock in Both Dupont and the Oil Industry...
381582
The cotton industry used its power via lobbyists to pressure congress to make hemp/cannabis illegal. This was done years and years ago. \n\nAlso, you will notice that alcohol is enjoyed by the wealthy. Attend any high class function and the expensive liquor will be flowing! \n\nThat my friend is why Marijuana is illegal.
28427
"Making Marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake"\n-Bill Hicks\n\n\nit's only illegal because the government doesn't have the control over it like they do on every other substance that is legal.\nAlcohol is much worse for you than marijuana, yet it's legal. you do the math.\nIt has nothing to do with the harm that marijuana may have, yet that is what all the propaganda is based on.  Otherwise, how would you have propaganda being at all useful if it was just simply "the government cant control it, so don't use it". No, they want to lie and preach that it's actually harmful to you. That's the only way they get it to stay illegal, too many people think it's actually harmful so there's not enough to overturn the rule.\n\nIt's also not a matter of IF it can harm you at all. You can get harmed by anything taken beyond moderation. The fact is it has less harm than something that is legal. Therefore being nothing short of total hypocrisy and lies by the government.\n\nP.S.\nI'm not a pothead or a hippy, etc.. I don't use it and I never have. I know enough people and have seen enough information that I don't need to be a pothead to have a strong view on the matter.
590915
Mostly fear. And ignorance. \n\nThe medical community and people who decide what is legal and illegal still consider marijuana to be a gateway drug. They think it is  bad for you. \n\nWhile I agree with you about it should be legal, it isn't. \n\nYou can it taken off the list of illegal drugs and work to make it legal, but until it is legal, don't break the law and risk going to jail. Instead, work to get it made legal. \n\nIt is legal for medical use in Oregon and California and all over the west coast. \n\nWork to get it legalized.