To keep its people safe, the United States Government classifies different drugs and “controlled substances” under “schedules” after extensive scientific research and investigation.

There are a few fallacies in that statement that make it untrue, one of them being that classification of controlled substances is objective—it’s not. The first drug laws were opiate restrictions made directly on prejudices against Chinese immigrants. Ever since, drug restrictions have been made subjectively, almost always in regard to specific race or ethnicity.

Focus, of course, has recently been on the border with “high schedule” drugs, but the subjectivity might be more evident when focusing on the subjectivity of another classification; marijuana is a Schedule-I drug and earned its classification because of the War on Drugs, a movement of sorts started essentially with the intent of having an excuse to disproportionally search and jail minorities—specifically African Americans.

The prejudice is ghastly, of course, but it isn’t uncharacteristic of the country. What is probably more unsettling is the scientific credibility of the laws, or lack thereof. Not only are these restrictions made subjectively, under Nixon, scientific research on the effects of over-regulated substances was halted altogether, so as not to disturb the fabricated notion that certain drugs were illegal for a legitimate reason. Marijuana is characterized as a Schedule-I controlled substance, legally considered just as, if not more, dangerous than either heroin or cocaine, which is, as anyone can agree, ridiculous.

I don’t personally indulge in any of these substances, and I think many of us don’t simply because we’ve been conditioned not to. Marijuana especially is objectively less dangerous than alcohol and, in some facets, things like cigarettes and caffeine. Marijuana is not addictive, which is immediately something that alcohol, nicotine, or even caffeine can’t boast. And beyond that, it is linked to a staggering zero direct deaths. Caffeine overdoses are unfortunately not too uncommon (and with products like RedBull and Monster, that isn’t really a surprise), and the dangers of nicotine and alcohol addiction are already very well known.

Why then, if marijuana poses less of a threat in many of these cases, is it at the top of the government’s list of dangerous substances, especially while alcohol, cigarettes, and caffeine are perfectly legal and readily available?

This isn’t a marijuana legalization article, that’s not the argument at hand, although that argument pretty much facilitates itself. This is more about the authority exercised by the federal government in intentionally misleading its constituency for ulterior motives—stopping scientific research to push one’s own agenda sounds like it belongs in government drama, but it’s the reality most effectively under Nixon and George W. Bush, and under all other modern administrations to some extent.

I’m not saying go smoke weed to spite the government, but I am saying that we shouldn’t just take the government at their word. A democratic republic, a representative democracy, is based on the idea that the government represents the people in some way or another, but if those people are represented in the ideas that their government immorally conditioned them to believe, then the political symbol of “freedom” suddenly becomes a self-perpetuated system of corruption.

So, whether or not you #blazedit on the twentieth, know that legally you shouldn’t have, but morally, who knows?

Not me.