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5 St. John's J. Int'l & Comp. L. 1 (2014-2015)

handle is hein.journals/sjjicl5 and id is 1 raw text is: IN TREATMENT: COMPARING THE LEGALITY OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA UNDER AMERICAN LAW AND JEWISH LAW NOTE Michael Schultz INTRODUCTION On July 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared illegal drugs public enemy number one. ' Ever since Nixon's anti-drug comments, American politicians have engaged in a war on drugs,2 which has cost the United States government over $2.5 trillion.3 In 1988 alone, the war on drugs led to 1,000,000 drug related arrests in the United States.4 By 2006, drug arrests had increased by 3.25 times from what they were in 1980.5 The war on drugs is aimed to reduce the illegal trade of several drugs, including marijuana.6 Marijuana is a seed born and flowering plant,7 which is normally consumed by crushing and smoking the leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds of the marijuana plant.8 * J.D. Candidate, June 2015, St. John's University of Law; B.S., 2012, Wagner College 1 Brian Gilmore, Again and Again We Suffer: The Poor and the Endurance of the War on Drugs, 15 U. D.C. L. REv. 59, 65 (2011). 2 id. 3 Id. at 6 8. 4 Paul Finkelman, The Second Casualty of War: Civil Liberties and the War on Drugs, 66 S. CAL. L. REv. 1389, 1396 (1993). 5 Bruce L. Benson, Escalating the War on Drugs: Causes and Unintended Consequences, 20 STAN. L. & POL'Y REv. 293 (2009). 6 Gilmore, supra note 1, at 63 (explaining that marijuana was added to the list of prohibited substances in the United States in 1937). 7 Aaron Roussell, The Forensic Identification ofMarituana: Suspicion, Moral Danger, and the Creation ofNon-Psychoactive THC, 22 ALB. L.J. SCI. & TECH. 103, 107 (2012). 8Id.