In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering
strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal -- both
the hemp plant and the marijuana plant -- and that the use of the drug marijuana
should that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive,
and that it is used by large numbers of people
who are not criminals but productive members of society.
They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or
tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant
used to produce fibre; this group want to make it legal to cultivate the plant and
sell the fibre for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major
triumph recently : in 1997 , Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fibre. For the
first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can
expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.