Prior to passage of the Harrison Act in 1937, which criminalized marijuana, an over-the-counter preparation called Lydia Pinkum's Women's Tonic was sold in drug stores and was used by virtually every post-adolescent woman in America because it was the most effective relief for menstrual discomfort available with or without a prescription. It was made from cannabis (marijuana) extract, licorice oil and honey.
Luckily for us, we have advanced our pharmaceuticals and medicine since 1937, which provide superior pain relief, many of which do not have sedating effects.
The effect of marijuana on the human organism is best described as a euphoric tranquilizer. In fact there is no more effective tranquilizer available anywhere and it is not addictive nor can one overdose on it. The same cannot be said for Valium or any of its knock-off prescription tranquilizers -- which collectively represents one of the most commonly used and profitable products peddled by the pharmaceutical industry.
If you need evidence of the effectiveness just obtain some good marijuana brownies or tea and when you need a tranquilizer, or when your wife or girl-friend is suffering from the monthly blues, you'll have all the proof you need within a few minutes.
The fact still remains that sedation is not medically indicated in either of those examples. This returns us to the fact that marijuana really is rarely indicated EVER, and yet people like you with absolutely no medical knowledge continue to come up with these unfounded reasons to use it.
The reason pot brownies (or any number of other edible forms of ingestion) and vaporizers are not popular is the suppressive effect of prohibition. If marijuana were legally available there would emerge a competitive abundance of delightful pot-laced foods (and teas) which soon would establish preference over smoking as the presently expedient form of ingestion. (And vaporizers would be sold on QVC and HSN.)
all complete unsupported speculation
And you have a poor understanding of the issue if you can't see the impact legal marijuana will have on the Economy, beginning with the fact that the majority of inmates in American prisons are there for marijuana offenses. Consider not only the cost of this wrongful and unnecessary confinement but the cost of police and court processing to get these people, who represent absolutely no threat to society, into prison.
I'm not saying it won't shunt some money to the government. I'm saying it's foolish to believe that legalizing ONE substance is somehow going to act as a cure-all for an economy in crisis, just as it's foolish to believe legalized marijuana will be a cure-all for medical conditions. It's not.
Consider that an estimated forty million Americans each use approximately one ounce of marijuana per month. If only half that number each purchased an ounce of legal marijuana every month with an average federal tax attachment of $25, that's twenty million times $25 every month.
Do the math
You mean to tell me that there are almost as many marijuana smokers in this country as tobacco smokers? Alright, let's ignore that point to do the math, as you suggest: $500,000,000 per month, or $6B per year. Let's say all instead of half of your completely fabricated numbers purchased marijuana, making it $12B/year. Your "economy saver" just increased the GDP by 0.08%. Even with completely fabricated numbers biased towards your point, it neither addresses the underlying issues with the economy, NOR actually puts significant money into it. Yes, it may be a big number compared to your yearly salary, but it's insignificant to the American economy.
So let's just drop the pretense already. You just want to legalize pot for your own personal gratification. It has nothing to do with medicine or the economy, so please drop the ridiculous excuses, conjecture, and unsupported anecdotal garbage.
