Between politics, socializing, and celebrity news, there’s a lot going on in this world. But for a second, let us give time to something that is actually important. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love knowing whether Nicki Minaj is going to get another round of plastic surgery in the next month, but sometimes it all becomes a little overwhelming. For instance, when something completely unimportant floats into our lives, like election results or social policy, or whether someone got three hundred likes on a lame status they posted eleven minutes ago, which incidentally your girlfriend commented on whereas she has never even visited your page. It’s times like these when some people like to smoke a bowl or six, lie down on the couch, and pass out to high heaven. There is something about the dizziness, the sporadic bursts of happiness and lethargy, and happily putting on fifteen pounds that (for some people) may bring more joy than a mother looking at her newborn child. But enough on that. This article is about marijuana, so let’s keep it straight. For those of you who don’t know, marijuana, commonly referred to as bud, weed, grass, or dope, is, in many places, classified as a drug. The reason that many government and health organizations classify it as such is because, amongst other things, according to them “it can lead to death”. Now, I’m going to write that again: “it can lead to death”. And again: “it can lead to death”. If you haven’t realized the blatant stupidity yet, you probably don’t need to read on, or maybe you’re still stuck on spelling out ‘politics’ in phonetics, so you didn’t even get this far anyway. “It can lead to death”. This is why, as I described earlier, political and social news is a steaming pile of pointlessness. If all the lawmakers in the world put their intelligence together, and if brains were explosive, they couldn’t set their hair on fire. Drinking water in China leads to death, sleeping leads to death, simply being alive leads to death. Now I’m not one of those pessimistic runts (I’m using runts in substitute of a slightly stronger word) who shamble through the streets mumbling that birth was a death sentence, but only because I’m more optimistic. Honestly, let’s face it, pleasure and fun is worth knocking off a couple years. Time to get super-duper scientific. When you consume marijuana, which is parts of the plant Cannabis sativa with the psychoactive chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), something happens to your brain. In the greatest detail and sense possible, you feel good. In fact, there are real therapeutic effects, because it can relax you, as well as make you sleepy. Alright, that’s not super-duper scientific. Some say it’s better than smoking, others say it’s not at all addictive, and others say marijuana is beneficial to our health. I say, who really cares? It’s a lifestyle choice. There are enough people protesting on the streets for democracy and freedom that even if you don’t believe me in terms of health and research, you will agree that no ruling body has the right to limit what I put into my bloodstream, unless they are willing to be called dictators, and pretty lame ones at that. In all Confucian spirit, parents, by all means beat your children for not taking care of their bodies by poisoning themselves, but governments, stay away, you are not helping, you are wrong, and nobody listens to you anyway. I am not one of those hipster runts who pretends to be a stoner but secretly has a bag of crushed Adderall in his wallet. In short, in my opinion, marijuana makes you feel amazing, it is great for the soul, and it really cannot be that bad for you. I mean, more people die from falling coconuts in Malaysia per year than ever from smoking weed across history and the globe. That will be all. Class dismissed.

This article was written by Paddy Jow. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit:Tirza Alberta