“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, in finite.

For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

-William Blake, from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

As we view the effects of Cannabis prohibition in the United States,
we see a growing liberalization in the treatment of the herb.
Currently, thirteen of the fifty U.S. states have progressive laws
decriminalizing non-medical marijuana.  This liberal trend is a far
cry from the D.A.R.E. pinnacle that embodied the anti-narcotic Reagan
administration.

The idea behind cannabis prohibition is the language of narcotics and
misinformation.  The government classifies any non-controlled drug
substance a narcotic.  From this legal precedent, the narcotization of
the cannabis culture fed through a propaganda press.  Private and
publicly funded organizations depict cannabis as an evil drug on par
with crystal meth, crack, or even oxycodone.

Of course language is the fruit, the mind being the root that nurtures
and anchors language to this world.  So the question then proposes
itself, is the ability of the government to outlaw mind altering
substances a form of mind control?  At the same time, is the
government’s ability to prohibit certain products an extension of
Rousseau's famous Social Contract?  There are no easy answers,
especially when treading in the waters of individual liberty.
Ironically, with the election of President Obama, many conservative
Americans who support Cannabis prohibition, harp at the false idea of
a socialist president hell bent on forming a dictatorship in the image
of a Stalinist or Nazi regime.  Yet, when their elected officials were
in power, the conservative Americans had no issues with regulating the
private lives of Cannabis users, homosexual couples, or the poor who
were reliant on public welfare to survive.

Cannabis is not a recent discovery in the long relationship between
human culture and plant life.  Graves from three thousands years ago,
unearth remnants of cannabis use, mostly found amongst shamanic
graves.  The growth of the Silk Road and the subsequent cultural
assimilation that accompanied the rise of trade throughout the Eurasian continent would escort
the cannabis herb from region to region in various formats. 

 Hashish or hash oil, is still a popular mode of consuming the plant throughout
the middle east and the Caribbean.  Scholars argue that the Romans,
even the famous Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurellius, had adopted the
use of the herb in the manner of the traditional Scythian rite.

The Scythian empire, a precursor to the Islamic age of expansion, was
a perfect example of the cultures that assimilated through the Silk
and Spice routes of early human civilization.  The Scythians burned the
cannabis like incense, much in the manner of the Native Americans of
the modern United States.   Like all plant life on Earth, cannabis will outlast any narrow minded legislation that may temporarily prohibit its cultivation and use within society.  Temporarily prohibit, is the key phrase here simply put, organic life is immortal,; laws merely restrict peoples actions for brief moments in time.