I’m going to rant here and feel free to reference the web to find that most of what I say here are facts. Also look up “Jack Herer: The emperor wears no clothes” or “Hemp Revolution” on youtube for more information. I’m not even going to touch on the economic benefits to the state, they speak for themselves.
Ok let’s start by taking a look at history shall we: Does anyone here know that in Jamestown in 1619 there was a law passed which said all land owners must grow Cannabis on their plantations or they would be fined and thrown in jail for it? All the Founding Fathers grew cannabis on their plantations along with tobacco. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington both smoked it and wrote about it. George Washington wrote “Make the most of the Indian (dot not feather) hemp seed, sew it everywhere” (Indian hemp implies Cannabis Indica which is used in making hash not Cannabis Sativa used for ropes or for the fibers). It was the second most prescribed medicine prior to the turn of the century (1900) where the most prescribed medicine was hashish, that’s what they gave woman for menstrual cramps and child bearing.
You could also pay your taxes in Cannabis right up to the 1820s. The term “legal tender” meant you were bartering and trading in cannabis. During the early stages of this country the states each had their own currency and since most of it was paper money they didn’t trust it and used other things like tar, tobacco and cannabis to trade. http://books.google.com/books?id=O7AoY6ljSygC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cannabis+By+Martin+Booth
Before William Randolph Hearst and his racist yellow journalism demonized the plant and the Mexicans who smoked Cannabis. Cannabis was commonly known as Hemp, does it seem strange he would name it Marijuana which is Spanish for Mary Jane? His articles were used as evidence to convince congress to pass the Marijuana Tax act of 1937. Congress didn’t even know they were criminalizing the Hemp plant. In February, 1938 Popular Mechanics had an article about Hemp titled “New Billion Dollar Crop”. As the article points out the fibers can be used for much more than just textiles. It “can be used to produce more than 25,000 products, ranging from dynamite to Cellophane”.
Besides W.R.Hearst DuPont had a large stake in criminalizing the plant, they made over 80% of their profits from the sulfuric acid process that turns wood into paper and also invented nylon on February 28, 1935 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon . What better way to get rid of their direct competition than making it illegal to grow it. If we went back to hemp paper we would stop deforestation and stop dumping toxins into the environment.
During the 30s we had two other economic reasons to criminalize it as well as one big social reason. There was a slump in the economy known as the great depression and with prohibition over there were many unemployed police who needed something to do and this gave them a purpose. Also we had laborers from Mexico who would (and still) work for a fraction of what the Anglo Americans would work for. This brings us to the social reason which is RACISIM, the things the reefer madness articles bring up are things like blacks raping white woman in a jazz club after getting them high or Mexicans becoming violent after smoking it. This was pure propaganda and BS.
People who want to keep the plant illegal include alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical, and petroleum industries. The first two are self explanatory, pharmaceutical wants to have sole control over the drugs you take. If you can grow your own where do they make their money? Anything you make with petroleum you can make from Cannabis from fuel to plastic to lubricants. The same as DuPont they have a huge stake in keeping the plant criminalized.
Lastly let’s look at the health of the user. There have been zero deaths from use of cannabis recorded and a recent study from UCLA and Harvard show that smoking it even heavily and over long periods of time does not cause cancer additionally tests in lab rats has shown THC reduces the size of cancer tumors.
It’s illegal for the wrong reasons and should have been legalized years ago. Since people can and will grow their own it might not produce as many tax dollars as one hopes, but the reduction in law enforcement and persecution of minorities is enough to stop the true “Reefer Madness”.
Also Heroin is already legal; just get a prescription for Vicodin or Oxycontin. It’s just synthetic heroin or opium. How many people are really addicted to those pain killers?
