Hello, there reader!

I thought I could waste my time coming up with a quirky introduction or I could just mention the elephant in the room, saving us both some time, so we can get right to the point.

MARIJUANA.

There. I said it.

The big, bad, illegal word. But that's all it is, a bad word. I have been both, a witness and a victim, of the 'witchcraft' surrounding this word. Before I was an advocate of Marijuana and its benefits, I was a hater. I judged people who used Marijuana harshly and the people who tried to preach to me about the benefits of Marijuana, I looked at them with a distaste and skepticism (not proud of this).

But it wasn't until I did some research on my own and found its medicinal, recreational and spiritual benefits, that I became a believer.

Once I was aboard the 'Miraculous Marijuana' train, I wanted to invite other people on board too. The first people I tried were my parents. I tried initiating a conversation with them about Marijuana, to see how they felt about it, and their reaction was one of repulsion and disgust as if I placed a plate full of rotten eggs in front of them.

Needless to say, I didn't bring it up again (as I didn't want to end up homeless), but this did get me thinking about the primary reason why marijuana use is prohibited. It is because of its STIGMATIZATION.

I decided to go back as far as I could in time for information on Marijuana and I found out that Marijuana has been around for thousands of years, mostly being used in Central Asia, for medicinal, spiritual, recreational and religious ceremonies throughout the years without any restriction being imposed on its use.

During the Mexican revolution, the United States saw a high entry of immigrants from Mexico, who bought they bought their culture, customs and native language with them. This included Marijuana too. But America didn't take this too well and its media started to demonize Mexican immigrants, to drive them outside the country and used Marijuana as a weapon to do just that.

They made Marijuana a 'dangerous, unpredictable and disruptive drug' which invoked resentment towards Mexican immigrants and in turn made the public fearful of the 'evil weed'. So, as a result, by 1931 twenty-nine states had outlawed cannabis. This was the beginning of Marijuana stigmatization which spread like wildfire all over the world and by 1970 Marijuana was ruled as a drug with 'No accepted Medical Use' and was made illegal for good.

The controversy about and around Marijuana kept growing and finally in 1996, it was made legal again. Fast forward to 2018, Marijuana is legal in multiple countries (like Argentina, Alaska, Canada, Costa Rica, etc.) but the stigma still exists. During my research, I came across multiple articles and the most riveting thing I found was that all the articles that explore any aspect of Marijuana were persistent in their negative, off-putting and distasteful tone even though they all were from different sources.

One of the articles I came across was about a 16-year old Muslim teen, Hamza Warsame, who killed himself by jumping off a schoolmate's balcony. He went to his schoolmate's apartment to study and he told him that he never smoked Marijuana before and wanted to try it.

His schoolmate thought everything was fine afterward so went to go cook some food but then Hamza became 'frantic'. He started taking in agitation about his religion, and how he put himself in a bad standing. He expressed emotions of guilt, shame, sinfulness towards his actions and said he needed to get some air so he went to the balcony.

Before his schoolmate could react, he jumped off the balcony. Police ruled his death as an accident due to political sensitivity around this case but did insinuate that it could have been a result of Marijuana intoxication as they made it a point to mention THC level in his blood at the time of death.

Another article discusses a 19-year old teen, Levy Thamba Pongi, who jumped from a balcony after consuming a Marijuana cookie. He acquired the cookie from a friend and ate half of it. After 30-40 minutes, he didn't feel anything so he decided to eat the other half.

In the hours following his consumption of the cookie, he showed erratic speech, hostile behavior, and psychotic-like symptoms. After about three hours, he jumped off a balcony. Officials concluded that Marijuana intoxication was the chief contributing factor to the teen's death.

Daniel Juarez's name can also be added to a rapidly increasing list of people's names whose death have been ruled as a result of Marijuana Intoxication. He was an 18-year old high school student who had smoked Marijuana and had become manic. Reportedly, after he smoked Marijuana, he started running around wildly, stripping off his clothes and ran into his apartment.

He was behaving irrationally and once he got to his apartment, he took a knife and stabbed himself 20 times, one of which pierced his heart, causing his death.

These articles reflect how much stigmatization affiliated with Marijuana can harm its users. Marijuana has a psychoactive ingredient, called THC, 'which brings about subjective changes in consciousness and mood that the user may find rewarding and pleasant or advantageous and thus are reinforcing'.

So, even though Marijuana is becoming legal, it's stigmatization is still very much alive in the media and society, slowly seeping into people's subconscious. When people use Marijuana, they might think that they are going in with a positive attitude but the stigma has taken the board in their subconsciousness.

So, when they use Marijuana it intensifies those thoughts, making the users manic, panic, anxious and has panic attacks which can lead them to become violent and harm themselves to relieve their feelings of guilt, shame, immorality, etc.

It is so ironic that the society who is trying to protect its members is the one who is killing them. But this can be easily resolved too. By educating people and which can cease their fears. The scientific evidence needs to be given proper weight as it has been tested, peer-reviewed and verified when taking a stand on Marijuana.

In this day and age, with easy access of technology, it increases the amount of false information out there, as it can be accessed by anyone without any account of their credibility and it is up to us, the consumers of that information, to check its credibility before making a decision.

As Descartes once said, "In order to determine whether we can know anything with certainty, we first have to doubt everything we know"