a post from Morg

[timtama]

I found this interesting and while I new about it I didnt know the specific details of what happened. This should be widely known!

 

If people knew the real story behind the demonizing of pot they would be outraged. Way back when, cannibis hemp was the new cash crop. It was being hailed by everyone as the miracle plant, including the AMA. It was so successful that it was going to replace wood as the main ingredient in paper. It was easily renewable and didn't require the vast amounts of water to produce paper like wood does. It also didn't pollute nearly as much. Lots of rich people had a huge stake in wood and paper, the Duponts, etc. Eventually, a banker and influential person was in the right place to do something about it. A Mr. Mellon, I forget his first name, and his rich wood and paper buddies had a lot to lose if hemp replaced wood, so he used his position in the Gov't to personally appoint his son-in-law, Harry Anslinger as the first drug czar. Suddenly hemp went from being hailed as the next best thing to being evil, and was eventually outlawed. Before people blindly judge, they should take a moment to educate themselves on the issues they claim to be experts on.

posted by Morg on Feb 16, 09 at 6:05 pm

 

Thaks Morg for the information!

[Morgaine]

WTF! Who are you, and I don't recall posting that anywhere.....

[freddie]

Thats pretty much right timtama and morg(aine)

 

This potential rejuvenation of hemp was a major threat to Secretary Mellon's friends and business associates, especially Randolph Hearst with his wood paper industry and Lammont DuPont with his petrochemical and synthetic fiber conglomerates. After all, hemp farmers wouldn't need DuPont's chemicals to grow their hemp because the crop is self-sufficient. The hemp-based ethanol fuel that was mentioned in the Popular Mechanics' article probably didn't sit too well with the oil companies of the time. They also couldn't have been too thrilled to learn that this same plant produced high-strength plastics without a petroleum base. The hemp-based plastics developed at the time were stronger and lighter than steel, which we can imagine wasn't the best news for the steel industry.

 

In addition, the growing pharmaceutical companies were producing synthetic drugs to replace natural medicines. Hemp extract was used for thousands of years to effectively treat everything from epileptic fits to rheumatoid arthritis. Chances are, hemp's resurgence wasn't good news for these drug companies either.

 

What we see is that the potential revival of the hemp industry was a threat to almost all the corporate giants of the time, and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was at the top of this food chain.

 

So Commissioner Anslinger, Mellon's appointee, begins researching rumors that immigrants from Mexico are smoking the flowers of the hemp plant. Racism was rampant at the time, and there was a government movement to curb the number of immigrants crossing the U.S. border at Mexico. Anslinger plugged into the racist sentiment, and began referring to the "hemp" that Americans knew cannabis to be, as "marijuana," the Mexican slang word for the plant. He labeled it as a "narcotic" even though cannabis flowers cannot cause narcosis, and spread exaggerated stories and outright lies that Mexicans and blacks became violent and disrespectful to whites when they smoked the "evil menace marijuana."

 

This slander of cannabis was all just fine for Anslinger's friends, the Mellons, the DuPonts, and the Hearsts. In fact, Hearst's newspapers picked up on the propaganda and fueled the fire by publishing hundreds of lurid stories about people raping and murdering while under the influence of marijuana. The sensationalism sold lots of newspapers, and the people of the country actually based their opinions on this one-sided information. Of course the stories never mentioned the hemp that people used everyday as rope, paper, medicine, and more. The stories always referred to cannabis by the Mexican slang word, marijuana.

 

With the moral and prohibitive fervor of the time duly stirred, Anslinger took his show to Congress. At the proceedings of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, Anslinger didn't mention that marijuana was hemp. And because anti-marijuana propaganda didn't mention that basic fact, hemp industries found out almost too late about the effort to criminalize cannabis cultivation. Testimony was heard from the full gamut of hemp companies and advocates, from birdseed suppliers to cordage manufacturers, from farmers to physicians, all touting hemp's importance in American history and the many industrial, agricultural, medicinal, and economic benefits of cannabis. Only after their testimony, was the wording of the bill changed to allow for the continued legal cultivation of industrial hemp. Anslinger even backed off on hemp prohibition in a very cunning maneuver.

 

After the Act was passed, Anslinger single-handedly usurped congressional power by mandating hemp prohibition. He justified his action by saying that his agents couldn't tell the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana in the field, so hemp cultivation made enforcement of marijuana prohibition impossible. This unconstitutional usurpation of congressional law is still in effect today as the Department of Justice and the DEA still cling to Anslinger's unjust and unjustifiable prohibition on domestic hemp cultivation.

 

according to this anyway.

http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0199/et0199s11.html

 

This is also interesting:

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/12036...amp;pID=1111658

[Nooby]

The definitive history of hemp persecution:

 

http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html

 

Click on each chapter heading to read the full chapter.

[boxerbill]

Same reason why we dont all drive cars that run of clean green ethanol because people with lots of money can buy any government.

 

Well I make my own fuel from thypha and drive for less than 10c a litre woohooo