The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.

We want to legalize marijuana. But we can't sell it in cafes like in Amsterdam, because we'd get all the unemployed Germans coming here. We don't want foreigners consuming marijuana in public. It could demean marijuana. We like the system where a friend gives it to or sells it to his friends.

We want to legalize marijuana. But we can't sell it in cafes like in Amsterdam because we'd get all the unemployed Germans coming here.

On 21 February 2006 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in accordance with the Constitution, that a church in New Mexico should be exempt from the law, which everybody else has to obey, against the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.8 Faithful members of the Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal believe that they can understand God only by drinking hoasca tea, which contains the illegal hallucinogenic drug dimethyltryptamine. Note that it is sufficient that they believe that the drug enhances their understanding. They do not have to produce evidence. Conversely, there is plenty of evidence that cannabis eases the nausea and discomfort of cancer sufferers undergoing chemotherapy. Yet, again in accordance with the Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that all patients who use cannabis for medicinal purposes are vulnerable to federal prosecution (even in the minority of states where such specialist use is legalized). Religion, as ever, is the trump card. Imagine members of an art appreciation society pleading in court that they ‘believe’ they need a hallucinogenic drug in order to enhance their understanding of Impressionist or Surrealist paintings. Yet, when a church claims an equivalent need, it is backed by the highest court in the land. Such is the power of religion as a talisman.

The marijuana paradox - although associated with increased
appetite and calorie consumption, regular use of cannabis,
protects against diabetes and obesity. How it manages to do so, however, is still anybody's guess!

I have used, you know, marijuana ... since I've been in the league,