The Not So United States of Cannabis

~ By Benji Zamora on November 14, 2016

The US marijuana industry is blossoming and booming. Full of zoned out genius/entrepreneurs creating all sorts of new businesses all over the country. But that's only because, despite the Federal Government officially proclaiming a War on Drugs and throwing cannabis under the bus, recently many states have started making the move to a more open view of the cannabis plant.

In fact, at the time of writing it is now legal for anyone over 21 years to possess marijuana in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, as well as Washington DC in varying degrees. The stigma is changing around how marijuana and hemp derived products are viewed. Less and less people in this country view marijuana as a threat, but more as an asset or a blessing.

Even generally conservative states have a hard time getting around the benefits of using and cultivating cannabis for so many different things. Arkansas, for example, just legalized medical marijuana use for 17 different conditions including PTSD, Alzheimers, Arthritis, and more.

Cannabis is legal for medical use in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin, again all with varying degrees of legality and punishment.

That doesn't mean it's legal or tolerated everywhere, however. There are still many states where it is very illegal to posses or cultivate cannabis in any form. If you happen to have a gram of marijuana on your person in Indiana for example, you'd be looking at a misdemeanor, and up to $2,500, or up to a year in jail. Sometimes I still hear pot being referred to as a gateway drug to doing heroine, or something that will convince you that jumping off a cliff is a good idea.

Sometimes I wonder how these ideas were cultivated within so many people. And then I think about how the War on Drugs could have kept a majority of our societies population from fully understanding what hemp and marijuana can do for our planet.

Things like Hempcrete, for example -- which has existed for thousands of years, is an extremely green and efficient substance used to build walls and structures in a sustainable manner. With Hempcrete use on the rise, it could change the way we see hemp in our future and it will definitely change the way we see even just buildings themselves. Hempcrete is cheaper, better at insulating heat, easier to break down than concrete, plus it is a natural repellant to pests like mice and bugs. Unfortunately hemp is illegal to grow in the US, and thus hempcrete has to be imported. However it is available for purchase here.

Another amazing product is Charlottes Web CBD cannabis oil extract, which was made out of pure compassion for a young girl named Charlotte. Charlotte was suffering from constant epilepsy seizures since she was 3 months old, and when the parents had no where else to turn, they found the Stanley Brothers and created a specific cannabis CBD oil extract specifically to treat her epilepsy. It has completely turned her life around, and many other children's lives all over this country and the world. The stigma around marijuana as a hard core drug has been lost in lot of noise lately. The change to federally legalizing marijuana across the United States is inevitable in my eyes, and I hope that it will come into law within the coming decade.

If you're looking for more info on current marijuana laws in the US, Wikipedia has a great page outlining all the laws state by state.

Original post can be found on our website: Pass The Piece, LLC