JFK and Marijuana

I read recently that our late President John Kennedy used marijuana on a regular basis to help alleviate his chronic back pain. In fact he was seriously contemplating legalizing it do to it's medicinal properties. This idea obviously died with him when he was tragically assasinated. When I mentioned this to a couple of friends, they both independently stated, "Well no wonder the Mafia shot him." This got me to thinking, there will always be conspiracy theories as to the assasination of JFK put it has been fairly well established that the mafia was responsible for his presidential election in 1960. Looking back, was it really wise for his brother, then Attorney General Robert Kennedy to so viciously persue the mafia as he did. Think about the consequences of all of this. Had the mafia not helped JFK win the election as a friend pointed out, President Nixon would have lead us through the Cuban Missle Crisis. That is a sobering thought as to how the outcome may have differed. If President Kennedy had lived through the end of his presidency, we would have been most likely out of Viet Nam in the early to mid sixties as opposed to 1975. How many lives would that have saved. If the president had legalized marijuana in the mid sixties, how many 100's of thousands of people would not have been arrested on drug possesion charges and had their lives changed forever. How many Billions of dollars would have been saved in prosicution, defense, incarceration and lost wages to the American economy. The mafia and other organized crime syndicates would have lost out on billions of dollars of profit. The police would have had millions of man hours free to persue real criminals. Just think how our lives would most likely be different if JFK had not been assasinated in Dallas back in November of 1963. There is a little bit of sick humor present when you realize hat the man who placed an embargo on Cuban cigars that has been in effect for over 43 years was contemplating legalizing marijuana. Perhaps a larger lesson to be learned from this is how small changes can have large effect on your life as well as those around you. Think about what you do, particularly if it involves breaking the existing laws of our country and how it may have a lasting effect on you and those around you. If you don't like a law, work through the proper channels to have them changed. I personally do not and have never smoked any marijuana for reasons that are my own. I also do not participate in threesomes, cheat on my wife or juggle with venomous snakes, all things that would most likely be harmfull to me but I do not have a problem with other people that want to engage in such activities. I also do not smoke cigarettes. I do believe that it should either be legalized or decriminalized if for no other reason that there is no way to control a substance that the populace wants and can grow in their backyards or their houses. John Kennedy obviously saw the benefit in this plant, but sixty nine years of governmental predjudice and blinders to the truth have kept it illegal in this country. In 1937 it was made illegal for a number of trumped up, bullshit reasons, largely as a device to stop illegal immigration from Mexico and an attempt tocontrol the blacks as racial predjudice was rampant in the south. Well sixty-nine years later, the immigration problem is still with us and as bad or worse than it has ever been. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson took large strides to end racism in America. Perhaps President Kennedy would have ended the illegality of marijuana as well. Lets face it, those people who want to use this substance do so at the risk of being criminals, those that don't, don't. I doubt the number of people that use marijuana would change if it was legalized, we, as a country would just stop turning regualr citizens into criminals. More on this in the future. This is just my opinion and I could certainly be wrong.