Take Marijuana out of Schedule One Classification Op-Ed
By Luisa Rangel
The biggest problem that America has with marijuana is that it is still considered a schedule one drug under the federal government which has significantly decreased the financial opportunities and medical advancements that could have been produced earlier.
The fact of the matter is that the benefits of marijuana were known even when the government was in the process of creating the restrictions and punishments for its use. There were articles released in the 1930s that proclaimed that hemp would be the new product that would replace wood in paper making due the invention of a decorticator; which effectively unravels and processes hemp fibers. This along with the hemp papers superior quality and ease of growing made it the natural successor to wood paper.
William Randolf Hearst was one of the biggest reasons that it was made illegal because for years he printed lies in his paper, in order to demonise marijuana with impunity because he also owned paper mills and if it took over the paper business it would deeply cut into his profits.
The fear that drove marijuana into a schedule was specifically propagated in order to keep a few powerful and greedy people in business despite the fact that the natural evolution of economic progress should have at least partially impacted them.
The benefits of marijuana’s pharmaceutical attributes of pain reduction and treatment of a manashery of ailments, from cancer to glaucoma, is well documented. Unfortunately thanks to it’s Schedule One designation the government has heavily handicapped not only themselves but private institutions as well when it comes to actually studying it in any large scale fashion. This is why it took so long for knowledge of its medical benefits to become mainstream.
This also means that the creation to solutions to huge humanitarian crises such as water pollution and dwindalling beaches have never been considered. Hemp plastic is biodegradable which could have fixed huge ecological catastrophes such as the pasific garbage patch which currently is bigger than the area of texas. They have even invented a form of hempcrete which could replace the use of regular concrete. It’s replacement would solve the problem of the world running out of critical beach and ocean floor sand.
This sand is integral in keeping oceanic biomes from drifting deeper into the ocean where there isn’t enough light for plants to survive. They use that sand instead of desert sand because desserts winds toss them around too much and make them too fine to be properly bonded with other ingredients to make concrete.
If we effectively lobby the government to put marijuana in the same category as alcohol we can more effectively study and experiment on this miraculous plant to see what possible boons could be gained. This could save lives and the environment in countless ways, on a more entrepreneurial note it could also raze thousands of people out of poverty by providing new jobs and it could make many obscenely rich.
