Marijuana has been with humanity since 2737 BC, when it was first documented in a Chinese medical compendium. Today, however, the plant is considered a highly illegal Schedule I drug in the United States. How did this happen?

Advertising campaigns, the government, and even our own school tell us that marijuana causes cancer, damages the brain, and destroys lives. Yet a further analysis of these claims shows them to be false, and that marijuana is actually less dangerous than legal drugs such as tobacco or alcohol.

Perhaps the biggest fear people have about marijuana is that it causes cancer. This idea was recently proven wrong by a study done by Daniel Tashkin at UCLA, which was described as “the largest case-control study ever done” about marijuana use. The study showed no positive correlation between marijuana use and cancer, even for heavy smokers.

What’s more interesting is that there was actually a slightly negative correlation, which led Tashkin to conclude that marijuana might have anti-carcinogenic effects.

Another concern about marijuana is that it damages the brain. This is simply not true. The brain has its own marijuana-like chemicals called endocannabinoids, and the chemicals in marijuana act completely naturally on the brain by mimicking them.

Furthermore, a study done by the Harm Reduction Journal showed that even in adolescents, marijuana causes no permanent changes in the brain. Legal drugs such as alcohol, on the other hand, are neurotoxic, especially to the developing brains of teenagers.

The only really bad thing about marijuana is the smoke, but that’s not a big problem, and even then, it can be avoided. Marijuana foods such as hash brownies are completely safe, and vaporizing, the process of boiling the psychoactive ingredients without actually setting the plant on fire, is much healthier than smoking.

Some people might suggest making tobacco and alocohol illegal when told the substances are more harmful than marijuana. But realistically, that will never work, just look at how successful alcohol prohibition in the US was. The only way to go is legalization. Over one-third of the United States has legalized it in one form or another, it’s time for the rest to follow.