The Controversy:
Fact: The Men behind making Hemp illegal were racist, and used scary stories about minority uprising to have a law passed. They also used scare tactics such as the Reefer Madness movies. Even Scientists of that period found nothing to support these claims, and actually denounced them. There are also reports of government backed studies of weed smoking in panama that report marijuana smoking is harmless, and should not lead to legal action against soldiers using it.
Fact: They used the Mexican word Marijuana to make sure No One realized what was being effectivly outlawed was the Hemp Plant.
Fact: The original law was not even a drug law, but an outrageous tax law that made dealing with the plant impossible. This law was passed in under 2 minutes, and the decision was made based on the testimony of one man, Harry J. Anslinger. Who’s “evidence” was the propaganda of William Randolph Hearst, propaganda anslinger had actually created himself.
Fact: Two machines were created not long before Hemp was made nonviable through that law. These machines would have made it easy to harvest and utilize hemp in industrial applications.
Fact:Hemp provides four times as much pulp for paper making with at least four to seven times less pollution.
Fact:Hemp can be used to make plastic cheaper and less polluting than oil based.
Fact: Companies such as Dupont, who had just patented petroleum based plastic manufacturing techniques and new wood based paper manufacturing techniques, and Hearst’s own Hearst Paper Manufacturing along with all other tree based paper companies stood to lose anywhere from 80% of their business, to everything when Hemp took over. An article by Popular Mechanic is readily available to read online where-in hemp is highly praised.
Fact: DuPont’s chief financial backer was Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh.
Fact: Mellon, in his role as Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury, appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to be head of the newly reorganized Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD), a post he held for the next 31 years.
Fact: ALL of the myths surrounding weed smoking and it’s dangers were born from the lies of these men.
Conclusion: Weed was outlawed so rich men could get richer, and racists could do more to keep minorities down.

More Facts:
Average Deaths per year by Primary Cause
Tobacco    435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity    365,000
Alcohol    85,000
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs     32,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect     17,000
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin     7,600
Water/Drowning      3,842
Exposure to Smoke, Fire, Flames      3,377
Marijuana     0, There has never been a confirmed documented case of death by Marijuna use. The only case I could find involved a guy that smoked around 100 joints in one day, and from what I read, the smoke was more to blame than the drug carried in it.

People may think that the Drug War targets drug smugglers and ‘King Pins,’ in 2008, 49.8 percent (half) of the 1,702,537 total arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana — a total of 847,863. Of those, 754,224 people were arrested for marijuana possession alone.

Myths: Dangerous while Driving?
Common Belief is that driving high is as bad as driving drunk.
Truth: Studies have shown that even heavy weed smoking does not cause a great deal of imparment. Several have shown that Weed smokers are more careful while driving, due to a belief they are impaired, and over-compensation for it.

Myth: Gateway drug?
There is no evidence that weed leads to harder drugs. Except by being illegal, because it forces people into contact with dealers who often deal in harder drugs, and as with any sales personel, they will try to get you onto something that makes them more money, quicker. As for it being the first drug people use to get high, Alcohol is used first by the vast majority of people.

Myth: pot is waaaay stronger now?
Testing was originally performed on stale, imported weed. Later tests on domesticly grown, freash weed. 2+2=weed didnt get stronger, they just had bad a bad stash:)

Myth: Causes Brain Damage?
Studies done “back-in-the-day” were rarely very scientific, such as the study where they force “fed” monkeys pot smoke with gas masks, then determined it was the weed that caused brain damage, and death rather than suffocation, and smoke inhalation. Recent studies have found NO EVIDENCE of brain damage, and to the contrary have been shown to IMPROVE BRAIN FUNCTIONS! However heavy and prolonged use can interfere with short term memory, kinda like watching too much TV.

Myth: Weed is 16x worse than smoking Tobacco?
A mis-quoted study is to blame here. In fact recent studies have shown that smoking pot affects the lungs far less than tobacco. The two drugs also interact with the lungs in very different ways.

Myth: Marijuana has no medical value?
Marijuana has been shown to be effective in reducing the nausea induced by cancer chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in AIDS patients, and reducing intraocular (eyeball) pressure in people with glaucoma. There is also appreciable evidence that marijuana reduces muscle spasticity in patients with neurological disorders. Cannabis was used as a medicine for at least 10,000 years prior to it’s modern status.

Marijuana Lowers Inhibitions and can lead to Sex?
Maybe, but Peer-preasure, boy/girl friend pressure and Alcohol are more likely suspects. I would also like to point out that there are plenty of things in the cold/sinus section of any store that will have just as much of an affect.

Marijuana has no value out-side of recreational drug use?
And now to the real meat of this whole thing. Marijuana comes from a variety of the Hemp Plant, or Cannabis. Here are some of it’s many, many uses:
Paper, Food, Clothing, plastics, body care products, construction(can be used to create a form of concrete amongst other things), lifestock feed, lifestock bedding, highly nutritional so it could be used for the base in many supplements, medicine, fuels (Ford famously built a car with a body made of Hemp, designed to run on Hemp based fuel.). Some say it has over 25,000 uses.

Sources: Many, try doing a search on Jack Herer, Hemp Controversey, and Truth about Marijuana.