Melissa Rochelle's Reviews > Marijuana: A Short History

Writing a short paper on marijuana policy? Read this book. Or need more sources for a larger project on marijuana and drug policy? Read this book and scour the footnotes. Want to be an educated voter when it comes to legalization of marijuana in your state? Read this book and find out more about the specifics of the ballot initiative.

This book is a quick look at marijuana policy in the US. It covers it from the very beginning of our nation when it was legal and grown (and occasionally used) by our Founding Fathers to present day where states rights meet Federal regulations meet the will of the people. It's it the most fascinating read, but it's definitely interesting and good to know.

It's especially fascinating to me that there have been multiple commissions on drugs/marijuana, etc and each time the commission reported back that marijuana was not nearly as harmful as previous reports suggested, that it should not be Schedule I, that it did have medicinal benefits, and that punishments should be more on par with fines than jail time. Because that definitely isn't what they taught me during all of those DARE programs.