“Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere“-George Washington, 1st President of the United States

“We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.” -John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

“Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.” -Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States

“Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.” –Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States

“Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.” -Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States

“When I was a kid, I inhaled. That was the point.” -Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

Study: Marijuana Appears to Slow Cancer Growth in Laboratory Setting

In laboratory tests, cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, were found to slow the spread of lung and cervical cancer tumors, according to researchers Robert Ramer and Burkhard Hinz of the University of Rostock in Germany.

Proponents of medical marijuana believe that cannabinoids reduce the side effects of cancer treatment, such as pain, weight loss and vomiting.

The study, published in the Jan. 2 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, finds that the compounds may also have an anticancer effect; however, more research is needed to determine whether the laboratory results will hold true in humans, the authors wrote.

Click here for the study.

In addition to suppressing tumor cell invasion, cannabinoids also stimulated the expression of TIMP-1, an inhibitor of a group of enzymes involved in tumor cell invasion.

“To our knowledge, this is the first report of TIMP-1-dependent anti-invasive effects of cannabinoids,” the authors wrote. “This signaling pathway may play an important role in the antimetastatic action of cannabinoids, whose potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of highly invasive cancers should be addressed in clinical trials.”

• One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale.
• This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing marijuana—taxing and regulating it like other goods—in all fifty states and at the federal level.
• The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion would accrue to the federal government.
• The report also estimates that marijuana legalization would yield tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like all other goods and $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.
• Whether marijuana legalization is a desirable policy depends on many factors other than the budgetary impacts discussed here. But these impacts should be included in a rational debate about marijuana policy.

-http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/execsummary.html