Wall of Text: Marijuana

WALL OF TEXT: Marijuana. We need to decriminalize drugs. Decades of treating drugs as a criminal matter rather than a medical issue have only served to create a massive prison population, and only for-profit prisons and companies looking for outright slave labor have benefited. Treating drugs as a medical issue rather than a criminal issue will ensure people get the help they need rather than being thrown in prison. Also, because of cannabis being a schedule 1 drug this whole time, there hasn't been much research done on its effects. I hope that changes, because I think we will find that mj may not be as harmful or addictive as tobacco, but it's certainly not benign either. I tried cannabis for the first time recently. Actually twice. The first time did nothing to me, but the second time... I was expecting it to feel amazing. It gave me a panic attack. Similar to that medicine that gave me serotonin syndrome. I was nauseated and dizzy. Spent most of it in bed, having waking dreams similar to a bad reaction to an antidepressant. Sounds became distorted, like hearing Loscil emerging out of the noises coming into my bedroom. Marijuana fucks with your serotonin somehow, and people need to be aware of this. If you're prone to depression or anxiety, stay away from the stuff because it will make you worse. I hope if we research and educate people on its effects, we can inform everyone. Instead, we treat it as a criminal act, and it only fosters ignorance. More people get hurt as a result. This is the ugly side of cannabis that pot smokers don’t like to talk about. The case for legalization largely depends on mj being relatively harmless, and it probably is compared to tobacco, but much like with alcohol, not everyone reacts to it well, and people need to know this. We need to be honest about what this stuff actually does to the body and the mind. We need real research into its effects, and we need to inform people of what it might do to them, especially with long term use. I don't think we've done much research into how it affects people long-term, and we need this information. Tobacco has short-term effects and long-term effects, and I hope I live to see a day when we know that much about cannabis. No more treating addiction as a criminal or moral failing. We need actual knowledge, and people need to be prepared for what might happen if they try it. More important, the stigma needs to change. Addicts aren't criminals. They need help. Drugs, even relatively benign ones, affect people in different ways, and people need to understand how it might affect them if and when they start using them. Thousands of people drink alcohol and never develop a problem, but that doesn’t mean there are no alcoholics, so let’s be honest about weed. Yes, please, let's start treating drugs as a medical and scientific process rather than a criminal and moral activity. I tried an illegal drug. I'm not a criminal. It gave me a shit reaction. Imagine thousands of people having that same reaction and not knowing what's going on, but being arrested for it. Fuck that. America needs to stop treating everything as a criminal offense and start assigning nuance to things. Start educating the population on what it actually is and what it will do to them.