Marijuana should never have been illegal. There are many within the toking community who choose to devalue the significance of Prop 19 because marijuana is already accessible to people with a medical recommendation, but I believe these people fail to perceive the larger potential of the cannabis organism. The cannabis plant has more value to humanity than simply making us feel good. Hemp, the male counterpart to the female marijuana flower, is the key to America’s industrial prosperity for life in the 21st century.

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For every beginning there is an end, especially for prohibition of marijuana. I suspect there are many voters who are ambivalent regarding the legalization of cannabis, either because of their present success within the marijuana market or because of their fear of the ‘corporatization’ of production within the marijuana market, but there are benefits from accepting this plant that merit closer inspection of its legalization. California has some of the most fertile farming ground on the continent, and to abuse such a potential privilege to grow premium Californian hemp in such a time of regional economic strife is mindless ignorance.

There are many sober birds and alcohol enthusiasts who like to attack the competency of the average American cannabis smoker. These people are brainwashed. Let’s break it down: cannabis was made illegal by stealth methods and the reasons used to ban it consisted of complete nonsense. In fact, the medical professionals and industrial farmers of the day mostly had no idea that the ‘rampant drug marijuana’ was the same plant species, Cannabis sativa, which they had been reaping for fiber and medicine for centuries. If we are to repeal marijuana prohibition, we must understand how prohibition began.

Let’s start with some Halloween-themed bullshit.

The first ‘drug czar’ Harry J. Anslinger said: “If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana, he would drop dead of fright.” That’s just some stupid shit. Some have criticized me for comparing Al Capone to the Mexican drug cartels. I would smoke a thousand spliffs before backing down on this point: nearly 30,000 have been killed by border drug gangs since 2007, while the 1933 repeal of alcohol prohibition was prompted by the death of seven people. Any philosophical comparison that regards Al Capone as a greater threat to American life than the bordering Mexican drug cartels is ridiculous.

The humans who psychologically enforce the prohibition of marijuana enjoy joking about the consumers of marijuana as if they are stupid due to their inebriation. The fact is, alcohol degrades intelligence far more than marijuana does. And the psychological effects of cannabis are so mild that for it to remain unwelcome within the commercial sphere simply does not make sense.

Other moronic comments by our first ‘drug czar’ Anslinger include “Narcotic effects are good or bad. Marihuana effects run in one direction only, and that is bad. Marihuana weakens the will.” Guess what, ghost of Harry Anslinger, I’m apt to respect the dead, but once more your words are just retarded. If smoking marijuana was an impairment to the human will then I surely would not be the author of this column.

Californians are not the only ones wondering about the effects of Prop 19’s marijuana-legalizing passage. President of Columbia Juan Manuel Santos recently wondered “If all we are doing is sending our citizens to prison while elsewhere drugs are legalized, we must ask ourselves: Isn’t it time to revise the global strategy against drugs?” I could not agree more; the entire world could afford to legalize marijuana.

The arguments against us are weak: pot is in reality safe for everyone. Opponents claim that the increasing potency of cannabis is bad; but would you expect computer chip manufacturers to maintain the exact same computing potential forever? Not at all — any rational market demands increasing performance from a product over time. Maybe I’m just an inebriated university student, but to me this logic seems fucking infantile.

The evil associated with marijuana has always been a figment of the imagination; the truth of this is implicit in Anslinger’s initial 1937 condemnations: “How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity [cannabis] causes each year, especially among the young, can be only conjectured. … No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher or a murderer.” Guess what, mister Anslinger, not only did cannabis cure my migraines, but it increased my capacity to be a joyous reveling philosopher, and I’m saying that your existence was ultimately worthless.

If getting high is a sin, then I’ll see mister Anslinger in Hell.

If reality is definable and the input of my senses means anything, then I’ll continue ignoring the empty advice of hateful people while I’m chilling on clouds living in Heaven.

Daily Nexus drug columnist Kevin McCarty shares a hydraulic cloud with Bob Marley and Tupac.