Since 1945, the US Federal government has engaged in the most irresponsible behavior ever documented by humanity. This is what is wrong with America:
In 1619, the American colonies passed their first marijuana law, making it mandatory for all landowners to grow Cannabis hemp which was essential to international trade (Columbus would not have reached "the New World" without hemp sails and ropes). This industry flourished for 300 years and was the primary reason for the institution of slavery- cheap labor was needed to break the hard hemp stalks and remove the fibers.
After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, American textile manufacturers began importing less expensive fibers from Asia where workers are paid as little as possible (as opposed to paying American workers a real living wage). Despite this, the American hemp industry remained America's second largest fiber-bearing crop. Eli Whitney's cotton gin invented in 1793 moved cotton above hemp in productivity.
In 1917, a German immigrant named George Schlichten invented the decorticator, the hemp industry's equivalent to the cotton gin. After twenty years of innovation, this machine was set to make American hemp economically competitive with foreign imports, and would lead to a replacement for fossil fuels for energy, and trees for paper and construction.
In 1937, with the Depression still looming and unemployed white workers being told that all of their problems stem from Mexican immigrants who smoke pot, the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics managed to convince the American voters to outlaw Cannabis hemp under the name "Marihuana." The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 went into effect and for the first time in 300 years, American hemp was illegal to grow without a license (which the government refused to issue).
In 1942, the government began issuing those licenses.
When those foreign imports of fiber were cut off by Japan after Pearl Harbor, the US Federal government began encouraging Americans to grow the same "demon weed" that the US Federal government told everyone was the cause of all of the crime, rape, murder, and suffering on Earth. "Marihuana" was so important to America's defense that Americans who agreed to grow Cannabis were excluded from the military draft, along with their sons. According to the US Department of Agriculture, legal "Marihuana" production skyrocketed from 1941 to 1942- "an increase of several thousand percent."
The Allies defeated the Axis with the help of legal "Marihuana", and there weren't any widespread outbreaks of marijuana-induced violence across America, which proved beyond question that all of the anti-marijuana propaganda before or since is complete and total bullshit.
But after legal "Marihuana" helped save America during World War II, the US Federal government went back to its idiotic stance of Cannabis prohibition. Since passage of the 1952 Boggs Narcotic Act, Cannabis Sativa has been one of the most illegal things in America. Since the 1972 Controlled Substances Act, it has definitely been
the most illegal thing in America.
Legalize "Marihuana" again, America, and you will begin to diminish America's greatest source of government waste: the military industrial complex.