The Orbis

So there’s me. 19. Just a normal teenager soon to cross the threshold to adulthood. Many things await me in the coming two years. However, as I approach my 21st birthday, I join the millions of other innocent college-age kids who will be further subjected to the myopic thinking of the U.S. government.

In their unwillingness to relinquish their tight, conservative grasp on the freedom of Americans, the U.S. government oppresses its people to a standard of mediocrity.

While the unknowing American people enjoy the few freedoms the government grants them, the freedoms which are not granted remained challenged by the American people.

The American government, in its attempt to suppress original thought and forward thinking, has made illegal the few substances that assist the exploration of the mind.

Alcoholism is a persistent problem on our campestral campus. Whilst we party our weekends away, with both legal and illegal substances, we lubricate the gears of our nation with the use of these illegal substances. Over the summer, a friend was issued a citation for misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, a class A misdemeanor in Tennessee. More outrageous than a charge for the possession of a water pipe, sans marijuana, are the fees levied from this innocent, productive and academically successful student. Between $420 in probation fees (yes, $420...not an imaginary or coincidental figure for the offense in the state of Tennessee), $1,250 in court costs and $1,200 for a lawyer, my friend’s resources are completely tapped out.

Not only is he guilty of a crime (which shouldn’t be considered a crime in a nation built on forward thinking), but he is also labeled a pot-head by society and has his personal record marred for future employers as a public offender.

As I’m sure most of you know, marijuana is a substance far less toxic than tobacco and chemically non-addictive. So, why does the American government not see fit to allow a substance that provides personal introspection and exploration to be used legally when they allow for physically damaging and non-explorative substances such as tobacco and alcohol to pass through society with free license?

Marijuana is produced and sold through an enormous black market in our society.

If the American government would simply legalize marijuana, then it would have the liberty to fully tax and regulate its production.

A raw commodity, marijuana is now produced by drug lords, private companies and individual growers who answer to no one and enjoy free reign with production practices and their final product.

The U.S. government levies exorbitant taxes on both tobacco and alcohol. If the government were to legalize the production and use of marijuana, then the possible tax revenue might surpass those funds garnered from these currently legal substances.

While tobacco is a non psychotropic substance, marijuana’s psychotropic chemical construction is the only drug which simultaneously releases people from their inhibitions, provokes introspection and produces no sort of chemical addiction.

It cannot be denied that the United States was founded by a forward-thinking culture of rebels and dissidents. It is ironic that the land spawned by free thinking and intellectual curiosity harshly limits the freedom of its inhabitants in order to protect them from substances that allow them to expand their minds and have fun by using a substance far less harmful than currently approved recreation.

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