America’s Relationship with Marijuana

The Takeaway

America has a love-hate relationship with marijuana. Millions of people use the drug but it remains mostly illegal. A journalist and self-professed marijuana enthusiast explores the country’s dysfunctional relationship with cannabis and his own experience with the drug in a new book, “Marijuanamerica.”   
Part travelogue, part analysis, author Alfred Ryan Nerz goes inside a medical marijuana dispensary and finds himself entrenched with a major West Coast dealer as he looks at the drug’s effects on everything from physical pain to memory. Nerz also examines the move towards legalizing the drug and asks if “marijuana is hurting or helping us?”

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