Dear Mrs. President,

First you may think that the drug laws in the United States are pretty good, like all the bad drugs being illegal, right? While I do agree that almost every drug should be illegal, the punishments are so extreme that I wonder what was going through lawmaker’s heads when they made those rules. I think people who use really addictive drugs shouldn't be in prison for an unbelievable amount of years; those people who have a problem and need help should receive serious help. Because that's what they need they don't need to waste a large part of their life behind bars because they will probably just go out and continue down the same path. I think people should get help and go to rehabilitation. It is also extremely expensive to run a prison, and to have people in their who are spending like 10 years out of their life in prison for abusing their body with illegal substances. I think in this situation prison is far more abusive than some of those drugs would be. I also think that it is crazy how many years you can go to prison for for selling the drugs.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),drugs are scheduled on a rating of 1-5. The scale represents how dangerous the government rates the drugs. Stage one being the highest and 5 being the lowest. Examples of schedule #1 drugs are heroin, lysergic acid (LSD), marijuana, peyote, meth, ecstasy. I fully understand the dangers of most of these drugs. Overdosing on heroin peyote and meth isn't that hard. But I think using marijuana, peyote, LSD and ecstasy in moderation can be safe. And one of the reasons that MDMA Molly/ecstasy is said to be dangerous is because it's a pill, you don't really know if it is actually MDMA. it could really be anything it could be something as simple as an Advil. or something that could kill you or give you bad effects. And even if it is something like ibuprofen or something along those lines, people take one of those and don't feel any effects so they end up taking every pill they have thinking it is ecstasy but in reality they are overdosing on a prescription drug.

Also according to the National Cancer Institute it is physically impossible to overdose on cannabis. You can overdose but the amount of THC (which is the psychoactive chemical in marijuana) you would need to have is insane. One would need to smoke 1,500 pounds of cannabis in the course of 30 minutes. So it's possible. Also I believe that LSD and psilocybin mushrooms should be legal for medical use in the United States. The chemicals used to make LSD used to be legal for scientists to use for medical purposes, You used to be able to buy a form of LSD at the drugstore as another alternative for what today would be an Advil or something along those lines. It was thought to be used for headaches but it really did nothing. But now scientists think some of the chemicals in LSD could be used medicinally (http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/lsd/a-short-history.html).

LSD and mushrooms used to be legal up until about 1960 when they were heavily used across the United States, mostly used by hippies in the 60’s in their attempt to find peace and oneness with the universe. I question why alcohol and tobacco are legal when they have no health benefits, and worse short term and long term negative effects on the body compared to drugs like cannabis, LSD, mushrooms. But our drug laws aren't the worst in the world.

Having a drug addiction isn't a crime, it's a health issue, and it should be treated that way. Albert Hofmann a chemist working for sandoz pharmaceutical, LSD synthesized for the first time in 1938 Basel Switzerland. He was looking for a blood stimulant he accidentally got a refined dose of LSD on his hands and the chemical entered his bloodstream through his hand and he felt subtle effects while riding his bike home from the lab. The next day he went to the lab and he knew that it couldn't kill you in doses like that, so he decided to take some orally. He had very lucid and vivid hallucinations. The military tested it to see if it could help in war. It didn't at all, in fact on youtube you can find a video of a bunch of military commanders and sergeants being tested in the field while having intense hallucinations. Really funny (http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/lsd/a-short-history.html).

There is one thing I think we can do for young adults or teens who have drug addictions, we have their parents sign them up for a long trip in places like Patagonia or somewhere in India where there is no civilization anywhere around, and a bunch of teens go into the wilderness with no drugs and every day for a month they wake up early, exercise, go on long hikes up in the mountains. They are watched very strictly, and required to participate in the daily activities. I think that this plus rehabilitation would make a very effective addiction curing system.

I actually have an aunt who lived in Minnesota almost her whole life, she has a number of medical conditions one of which is crippling depression, she has suffered with it for almost her whole life, but in 2013 she moved to Denver as a medical marijuana patient, she was given pills with THC and CBD the active chemicals in marijuana. This helped with one of her conditions but her depression became worse over time, especially from being away from Minnesota. So she then moved to Brazil where she could receive psilocybin mushrooms legally. This has helped her depression immensely. It isn't a crutch, she has been using it for five months now, and she can now go weeks without using mushrooms as an antidepressant. At this point mushrooms have started to cure her, and now she is thinking of moving back to Minnesota, because as of 2014 medical marijuana has been legalized in Minnesota. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_medical_status_of_cannabis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_psilocybin_mushrooms

Here is a link on how scientists are studying psilocybin mushrooms as a cure for depression: http://time.com/4338947/magic-mushrooms-for-depression/

People who have depression have a part of their brain that is more active than in other people's brains, and this part of the brain is self-reflection. If you are constantly self reflecting on all the poor things in your life then you are going to be depressed and unable to function properly. But psilocybin has almost an opposite effect on the brain, it reverses the growth of the self reflecting part of the brain and this allows people to stop constantly self reflecting on the bad parts of their life. Basically stopping depression in its tracks. For people without depression it basically does nothing if the self reflecting part of your brain is already small and inactive, some of the effects may be a lack in motivation or laziness because you're never self reflecting on how you can make yourself better.

Drugs should be legalized to scientifically study and determine potential positive medical purposes. Additionally, we should decriminalize drug use in the United States and help people who have these addictions instead of criminalizing them. Laws need to change and something needs to be done to rehabilitate people, and not only do people go to prison, but they get an outrageous fee for the drug. And nobody can actually pay that fee. We need to have a better system for drug laws.

Sincerely,

Finnegan