What is marijuana?  According to Harvard Medical Professor Lester Grinspoon,

it is a "miracle drug", one that prevents blindness, acts as an appetite stimulant for AIDS 

patients, and prevents muscle spasms in epileptics.  When speaking of the same plant, 

head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics for over thirty years, Harry J. Anslinger said 

that this "evil weed" led to killings, sex crimes and insanity.  How can two such highly 

respected experts have such night and day outlooks on the same thing?  While Anslinger 

presided as America's leading anti-drug official his McCarthyish hunt down of Marijuana 

users led to the downfall of many well respected Americans.  During the 1900's the 

United Stated has committed itself to and unprecedented war on marijuana that is costly,

unjustified and impossible to win.

	The topic of Marijuana is quite broad.  It encompasses history, legislation, and 

the benefits as well as the harms of the plant itself.

	Marijuana is the name of the plant known to botanists as Cannabis Sativa.

Other names for the plant exist throughout the world.  In Africa, Marijuana is known as 

"dagga", in China as "ma", in Northern Europe as "hemp" and in the United States as 

either "pot", "buds", "reefer", "weed" or the more direct, "smoke".  Marijuana goes back 

over five thousand years.  It is one of the oldest agricultural commodities not grown for 

food.  Hemp, first cultivated in China as early as 2800 B.C., soon stretched to central 

Asia where it spread like milkweed or thistle.  Marijuana soon began to crowd out 

neighboring grasses and reaching heights of three to twenty feet stretched over large 

plains.  Local people began to use the plant for its strong, durable fibers which they used 

for rope and to construct material similar to linen.  Early in the Christian Era, Marijuana 

reached the Mediterranean countries of Europe.  Its cultivation spread through the rest of 

Europe during the Middle ages.  Hemp's progression to Africa can easily be marked 

through the Middle East where it remains a major cash crop.  It is unknown how the plant 

found its way to the America's.  One of the most popular theories is that European 

explorers brought the seeds along with them.  The cultivation of Marijuana has been 

successful in almost every climate.  It is the unbounded growth of Marijuana that will later 

lead to its difficulty in legislation.  The Hemp plant has dozens of uses.  It can be made 

into canvas, paper, rope, twine, cable, yarn artificial sponges and clothing.  The seed of the 

plant can be made into Hempseed oil, paints, soaps, carnishes and birdseed.  For all of its 

usefulness it is the Hemp plant's leaves for which it has been condemned.  It is this part of 

the plant that yields the sticky yellow resin, rich with cannabinoids.  This resin contains 

more that sixty compounds unique to Marijuana.  The most prominent is delta-9-

tetrahydrocannibinol.  This substance otherwise known as delta-9-THC which causes 

Marijuana's psychoactive effects.  "The effects of Marijuana", according to Leo Hollister, 

former president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and current 

professor at the University of Texas "poses no greater risk that moderate consumption of 

Alcohol."  Harvard Professor Lester Grinspoon in his book, Marihuana, the Forbidden 

Medicine, claims that the drug has countless benefits, among which are: relief of nausea 

associated with chemotherapy, preventing blindness induced by glaucoma, serving as an 

appetite stimulant for AIDS patients, warding off asthma attacks and migraine headaches, 

relieving chronic pain and deduction of the muscle spasticity that accompanies multiple 

sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and paraplegia, the list continues.  Through the 1900's, 

specifically the 1970's, a number of studies were done on Pot which claimed that it kills 

brain cells, damages chromosomes, caused impotence in men and prompts men to grow 

breasts.  These conclusions, as stated by Eric Schlosser a writer for The Atlantic Monthly 

and authority on Marijuana, "...were based on faulty research."  However, there are real 

consequences to smoking Reefer.  One of these consequences is a psychological 

dependence in some users.  The compound delta-9-THC has a half-life of five days.  This 

means an occasional user can fail a drug test three days after smoking, a heavy user can 

fail for over a month.  There have been no immunosuppressive of reproductive effects 

linked to delta-9-THC.  Some studies have shown short-term memory deficiency, although 

reversible, in heavy smokers.  The biggest health concern with Pot smoke is its damage

to the respiratory system.  The risks run parallel with tobacco smoking.  According to 

Physician Donald P. Taskin, of the University of California, "A joint seems to deliver fo