Chomsky. Transcript. Why marijuana is illegal and tobacco is legal.

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  US Drug Policy has been designed to try to compel people to drop using soft drugs like marijuana, and to turn to hard drugs like coke. That's actually the case. I don't say that they thought of this and decided to do it, but that's what the policies are. It's almost concomitant of the fact that marijuana is big and bulky and easy to detect, and highly industralised drugs are harder to detect. Furtheremore, there is another...  Somebody wants to do a research project, somebody around here wants to make sure you never get a job. You might look into the History of why marijuana is illegal and tobacco legal. I mean, tobacco is vastly more lethal and destructive than marijuana, they're not even  in the same domain, you know. Tobacco in fact is the most lethal substance around. Second most lethal substance known. The most lethal is sugar, I guess. Tobacco is close second. And... the... so.... Why is tobacco legal but marijuana illegal? Well, I think there's a speculation that comes to mind. Speculation is... Marijuana, it's kind of like solar energy. You can grow it anywhere. You can grow it on your back yard. It's weed. Grows everywhere. On the other hand, tobacco is an industrial crop. You can make money on it. Lot of input, takes lot of capital, and so on. Now, if you have something that everybody can do, you're not gonna make any profit on it. So you'd better make it illegal. On the other hand, if it's something people can make a lot of profit on it especially, you know, agri business, pesticide, fertiliser company, and so on. It had better be legal so you can get away with it. That's just speculation. I've never seen the study on the topic, but you might want to look into it. In any event. Again, if you don't want a job. That's qualification. The fact is, marijuana was made illegal, though... It's probably not good for you. There hasn't been one record of overdose with, I think, about 60 million users, as far as I'm aware. (Probably because it is impossible. I can prove it by means of BioChem.) Marijuna was essentially made illegal. And very high percentage of people now in jail are there because somebody found a marijuana joint in their pocket, quite literally. (accurate) So, Colombia, in fact, has shifted to producing coke from producing marijuana, which is mostly produced here.