http://www.funadvice.com/my/advice/alex001 en-us " Why is it that pot is illegal? " Strictly speaking because of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. It was make illegal because the fact that jack and his uncle could grow it was a direct threat to the timber *monopoly* of newspaper magnate J. Randolph Hearst. If anyone could make paper pulp (from hemp), it would have meant more competition. It was a way of limiting newspaper competition. He got together with the chemical industry's Dupont family who saw hemp as a threat to the cotton industry's need for huge amounts of chemicals. It was then sold to the American public as a way of getting at Mexican immigrants and Black jazz musicians. alex001 Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:55:59 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 474050 Forget about 'legal bud'. If you want to get stoned, try low doses of psychedelics. Try 1 fresh leaf of salvia divinorum - which is 100% legal. Also very good for opening the mind's eye. You can buy salvia plants completely legally. Which is of course one of the contradictions of 'prohibition' because salvinorum A is more powerful than LSD (which itself is based on the ancient fungus called Ergot that grows on wheat). Prohibition makes no sense, because there are thousands of plants and fungi that contain DMT, psilocybin, etc. alex001 Thu, 08 May 2008 10:27:27 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/i_don_t_get_it_110301 339295 " Pot is illegal because it actually affects the way a person thinks, and therefore can cause the person to do things that they don't really want to do. Cigarettes don't do this, and therefore, cigarettes are legal, even though they are bad for peoples' health. " How about alcohol? The history of marijuana prohibition is well known. In fact, Marijuana was banned in part to give the alcohol prohibitionists at the FBI something to do. Most violent crimes are associated with alcohol, not marijuana or even psychedelics. People set out to to commit crimes and smoke weed tend to forget all about it. :) On the other hand, James Watson discovered the double helix while high. alex001 Thu, 08 May 2008 10:22:21 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 339292 Hi GirlFromGA, You can check when and why marijuana or hemp became illegal, after centuries of legality. For instance, check out the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Marihuana_Tax_Act Also, alcohol is legal, even though it kills many people a year, while marijuana has never been known to kill anyone. And even though alcohol is legal, it is restricted to people over a certain age. The same should be true for marijuana. And when there are too many trivial laws, the people stop respecting the law itself. And that is a very dangerous trade off, for making a plant illegal to own or grow. alex001 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:23:02 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 259949 Hi GirlFromGA, You can check when and why marijuana or hemp became illegal, after centuries of legality. For instance, check out the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Marihuana_Tax_Act Also, alcohol is legal, even though it kills many people a year, while marijuana has never been known to kill anyone. And even though alcohol is legal, it is restricted to people over a certain age. The same should be true for marijuana. And when there are too many trivial laws, the people stop respecting the law itself. And that is a very dangerous trade off, for making a plant illegal to own or grow. alex001 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:22:27 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 259947 Oh yes? Well how many people died from smoking marijuana last year, compared to the number of people who died from smoking cigarettes? Also, you can't overdose on marjiuana, or resin or thc. On the other hand, nicotine makes for a great insecticide. Which is also dangerous to humans. And marijuana doesn't impair your memory - in my case, it enhances it. And it greatly enhances my ability to visualize. alex001 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:04:21 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 228697 Actually there are at least 3 major types of cannabis and whether they produce aggression or not is completely up to the individual, although it is rare. The major types are: Afghani (indica), Skunk #1 (sativa) and Haze (sativa). Afghani and indicas have a sedative effect. Skunk has a euphoric effect, while Haze has a trippy/psychedelic effect. Most marijuana seeds on sale today a hybrids of these. Then, there are the landraces, many of which have their own unique effect. For instance, the African sativas often have 100% THC and 0% CBD, which give a very electric body stone/high. Personally, I only smoke sativas (on the euphoric side). Instead of a sedative effect, some indica's give me a melancholy and negative trip - so I don't smoke them. :) That is one of the benefits of growing your own weed - you always know what you are getting. All you need is a couple of fluorescent lights for germination/early vegging, and a balcony or small yard that gets enough sun. For flowering, you put them in a box or closet that keeps all the light out (important) but lets some air in. Keep the soil and nutrient ph around 6.8 to 7, and you're on your way to growing better weed than you can buy anywhere. And more of it, practically for free. alex001 Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:33:26 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 225425 "Because marijuana changes your personality and ability to react". Talk about indoctrination. You could make the same argument about beer. But then, you can't grow beer in your spare room for practically nothing. No money to be made from marijuana, so let's force people to buy cans of liquid that will clog their arteries and give them strokes and coronaries. I'll stick with the weed. alex001 Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:12:06 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 147146 Thanks, that was very helpful indeed. :) Being in the tropics, I am a little concered about the latitude, and whether this would be influential on (not) triggering flowering or any other phase of the plant's growth. Lattitude and longitude are: at 15°25′S, 28°17′E Altitude is about 1250 meters above sea level. alex001 Mon, 08 Oct 2007 06:38:26 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/crocus_sativa_saffron_crocus_in_zambia 109287 Marijuana is illegal because Hirst wanted a monopoly on newspaper production from wood pulp, and cannabis was a cheap alternative. In other words, it interfered with his newspaper monopoly. He got together with Dupont, which had a huge invested interest, because cannabis is also an alternative to cotton, which consumes most of the world's agricultural chemical pesticides. Together, they used the services of Harry Anslinger, who gave a racist twist to the whole thing by blaming Mexican daylabourers and Black jazz musicians for corrupting white women with marijuana. And so it goes to this day - mandatory minimum sentences for rock form cocaine but not powdered form cocaine, selective enforcement of marijuana laws, etc. As to the poster who listed all the 'ill effects' of marijuana use, that is just propaganda. (If you smoke weed AND snort coke, your blood pressure goes up? Who on earth combines weed with coke, to begin with?) Also, you don't get 5 times more tar in you if you smoke weed. First of all, there are no smokers who just smoke one cigarette per day. They usually smoke a packet, which is 20-25 cigarettes. Secondly, even if sigarette smokers use filtered sigarettes, they don't smoke from a bong, let alone vaporize. Caffeine and tobacco are legal, because they make the masses work faster at the widget factory, while mj helps you look at the world and see it for what it really is. MJ gives you the satisfaction with life that most people only think they can achieve by working 10 hours a day and earning that holiday in the tropics. Now what would that do for productivity? ;) Hemp itself is a great plant, one of nature's little supermarkets. Seeds are nutricious, the fiber can be used to make paper (including the US Constitution, which was written on hemp paper), cloth for shirts, rope, etc. It requires very little fertilizer or pesticides to grow, and the same piece of land can be used year in and year out to grow the crop (unlike forrested land). alex001 Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:32:52 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/pot_vs_ciggs 108391