But those Americans who sought to ban the drug in the 1930s favored the previously little known and foreign-sounding term "marijuana," which might and apparently did stir racial passions among whites.

Cohara1103 asserts: "The main reason it should be legal is... as a 38-year- old white man in a white collar job I will never be stopped, questioned or arrested for marijuana possession EVER!"

After 75 years, haven't our laws against marijuana shed their racist past? Apparently not. Although African-Americans are 25% more likely to use marijuana than white Americans, they are 300% more likely to be arrested for it. A criminal record greatly limits one's opportunities for success in life. The racial divide widens, and racial tensions grow. This, dear readers, is the enduring legacy of pot prohibition.

And finally, Roland Gyallay-Pap comments that "cannabis [is] the correct term for marijuana."

I'm afraid we may be stuck with the contentious word "marijuana," but it provides a useful reminder of one way in which American society was long ago manipulated into the prohibition of a plant that caused a mild euphoria in most people who tried it and a severe paranoia in many who didn't.

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