a, drowsiness and other mental changes. Usually the plant is cut, dried, chopped and rolled into cigarettes. The cannabinoid responsible for most of the psychological effects of marijuana is known as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Besides its recreational utility, Cannabis has several medical applications. It is widely used in the treatment of glaucoma. It is also effective in reducing the nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy programs. Other potential therapeutic uses include: antiasthmatic, tranquilizer, sedative, analgesic, treatment of alcoholism, and anti-peptic ulcer. The recreational use of marijuana was banned in 1937 with passage of the Marijuana Tax Act, which requires physicians to pay a tax for a license to prescribe marijuana.
Despite the popular notion that marijuana is a drug of the 1960s counterculture, it has been cultivated by various societies for thousands of years (Graham, 1976, p. 4). Between the mid-1930s and the mid-1960s in the United States, a strong consensus reigned that marijuana is a dangerous drug and recreational use is unthinkable. Following the lead of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, congressional hearings on the 1937 Tax Act pictured marijuana as a "national menace" akin to heroin (Himmelstein, 1986, p. 4). It was argued that everything was known about the drug, and it was all dangerous. Today, the anti-Cannabis argument takes the position that the drug is dangerous because "nothing is known" about its effects. This is a strange pr
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