Guess what? In 1619 Jamestown colony law declared that all settlers were required to grow hemp. George Washington grew hemp at Mount Vernon as one of his three primary crops. The use of hemp for rope and fabric was ubiquitous throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States.
Shortly before marijuana was banned by The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, new technologies were developed that made hemp a potential competitor with the newly-founded synthetic fiber and plastics industries. Hemp's potential for producing paper also posed a threat to the timber industry. Those 2 sentences brought about the death of legalization of the cannabis plant! Men with powerful connections in Washington made this useful plant and harmless byproduct on it's way to being illegal and we are still ignorant to how it all started to this day! Evidence suggests that commercial interests having much to lose from hemp competition helped propagate reefer madness "the funniest movie ever created, watch it while you are high and you will laugh your ass off" " hysteria, BIG BUSINESS used their influence to lobby for Marijuana Prohibition. It is not known for certain if special interests conspired to destroy the hemp industry via Marijuana Prohibition, but enough evidence exists to raise the possibility " Use your own common sense".
Ok. So we have an elite group of special interests dominated by Du Pont petrochemical company and it's major financial backer and key political ally, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon was a banker who took over Gulf Oil Corporation. In 1913, Henry Ford opened his first auto assembly line, and Gulf Oil opened its first drive-in gas station. In 1919, with ethanol fuel poised to compete with gasoline, Alchohol Prohibition descended on the nation. Lucky Mellon. When President Harding made him Secretary of the Treasury, he was considered the richest man in America. In the 1920's, Mellon arranged for his bank to loan his buddies as Du Pont money to take over General Motors. Du Pont had developed new gasoline additives and the sulfate and sulfite process that made trees into paper.
In the 1930's, Ford Motor Company operated a successful biomass fuel conversion plant using cellulose at Iron Mountain, Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch ethyl-acetate and creosote from hemp. The same fundamental ingredients for industry were also being made from fossil fuels.
William Randolph Hearst "Newspaper Mogul" had always supported any kind of prohibition, and now he wanted cannabis included in every anti-narcotics bill. Never mind that cannabis wasn't a narcotic. Facts weren't important. The important thing was to have it completely removed from society, doctors, and industry.
Around 1920 or so, a new word arose - "Marihuana". Through screaming headlines and horror stories,"marihuana" was blamed for murderous rampages by blacks and mexicans. Hearst continued to use his power of the press to impress on his readers the dangers of the "marihuana" plant.
When the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed in 1932, Mellon's nephew Harry Anslinger was appointed its head, a job in Mellon's treasury department that was created just for him. Treasury agents were beginning to operate on their own agenda. Deep in the throes of the depression, congress began to reexamine all federal agencies. Anslinger began to fear that his department was in danger of emasculation. Although worldwide, hemp was still big business, in 1935 the Treasury Department began secretly drafting a bill called The Marihuana Tax Act. The Treasury Department's general counsul Herman Oliphant was put in charge of writing something that could get past both Congress and the Court disguised as a tax revenue bill. Congress wasn't all that interested in the matter, seeing as all the information they had to work with was what was provided to them by Anslinger. They deliberately collected horror stories on the evils of marihuana pulled primarily from the Hearst newspapers, called Anslinger's Gore Files. Crimes that had never happened at all were being attributed to marihuana.
So, in 1937, Anslinger went before a poorly attended committee hearing and called for a total ban on marihuana. He stated under oath "This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured". Bureaucrats planned the hearings to avoid the discussion of the full House and presented the measure in the guise of a tax revenue bill brought to the six member House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Du Pont ally Robert Doughton of North Carolina.
Okay, enough of the past, can Americans get away from this Puritanical bullshit and realize that more people die from cigarettes and Alcohol than Weed has in it's entire history. The tax revenues alone would justify it's legalization. If there is a demand you will have "criminals" who will fill that void. Just think back to the prohibition act, there was no lack of alcohol!
AMF...
References:
*How Marijuana Became Illegal - Bud Fairy
*Wikipedia
No comments:
Post a Comment