Newly leaked information reveals that officials in some of the top alcohol companies in America spent money on persuading members of Congress to pay attention to the alleged problem of "marijuana-impaired driving."

Credit: High Times

When one compares the effects of marijuana to alcohol, there really is no competition. To begin with, alcohol is responsible for approximately 88,000 deaths in the United States each year and marijuana 0.

In addition, people can die from overdosing on alcohol but it's nearly impossible with marijuana. Salon relays that while alcohol use damages peoples' brains, marijuana use does not. Of course, we're not saying smoking isn't likely to eventually take a toll on one's lungs, but toking the herb has been found to be far less detrimental to one's bodily health than regularly consuming alcohol. It's also pertinent to note that according to research, alcohol is by far the more addictive substance.

Sadly, the average individual in America has not been informed of these facts and still believes that marijuana is a "gateway" drug to harder substances down the road. This is mainly because the U.S. government has blatantly lied about cannabis – and its multitude of uses – for decades.

The widespread use of cannabis as a medicine can be traced back millennia, where early Chinese doctors used the herb as an anesthetic by reducing the plant powder and mixing it with wine for administration before surgery. In Egypt, the plant was utilized to treat a range of illnesses, including hemorrhoids. And in India, cannabis was commonly relied upon to treat a variety of ailments, including insomnia, headaches, GI disorders and pain.

Until the early 1900's in the United States, it was still considered perfectly acceptable to grow and harvest cannabis. Things took a turn for the worse, however, when fear of the herb arose during the Great Depression and marijuana was banned in over 20 states.

Ignoring the fact that the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper and that the cannabis plant can be used for a number of applications – not limited to industrial, clothes, and medicine – it is still a herb that, more often than not, is denounced by mainstream media.