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The Marijuana Conspiracy: The Reason Hemp is Illegal

Bamby

New member
Maybe more than you wanted to know about "Hemp"

By: Doug Yurchey

They say marijuana is dangerous. Pot is not harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does not pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people. The truth is, if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about the plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.

Where did the word ‘marijuana’ come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant – as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years :

1) All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s. (Jack Frazier. Hemp Paper Reconsidered. 1974.)

2) It was legal to pay taxes with hemp in America from 1631 until the early 1800s. (LA Times. Aug. 12, 1981.)

3) Refusing to grow hemp in America during the 17th and 18th centuries was against the law! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769 (G. M. Herdon. Hemp in Colonial Virginia).


4) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers grew hemp. (Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.)

5) Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America, and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow’s export to England. (Jack Herer. Emperor Wears No Clothes.)

6) For thousands of years, 90% of all ships’ sails and rope were made from hemp. The word ‘canvas’ is Dutch for cannabis. (Webster’s New World Dictionary.)

7) 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc.,were made from hemp until the 1820s, with the introduction of the cotton gin.

8) The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross’s flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp. (U.S. Government Archives.)

9) The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons.Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th century. (State Archives.)

10) Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.

11) Rembrandt’s, Van Gogh’s, Gainsborough’s, as well as most early canvas paintings, were principally painted on hemp linen.

12) In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs. (U.S. Department of Agriculture Archives.)

13) Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935. (Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before the U.S.Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.)

14) Henry Ford’s first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the car itself was constructed from hemp! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, ‘grown from the soil,’ had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel. (Popular Mechanics, 1941.)

15) In 1938, hemp was called ‘Billion Dollar Crop.’ It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars. (Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938.)

16) Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled ‘The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.’ It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

The following information comes directly from the United States Department of Agriculture’s 1942 14-minute film encouraging and instructing ‘patriotic American farmers’ to grow 350,000 acres of hemp each year for the war effort:

“…[When] Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850, all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable… Now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese… American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries… The Navy’s rapidly dwindling reserves. When that is gone, American hemp will go on duty again; hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for victory!”

Certified proof from the Library of Congress, found by the research of Jack Herer, refutes claims of other government agencies that the 1942 USDA film ‘Hemp for Victory’ did not exist.

Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that hemp produces four times as much pulp with at least four to seven times less pollution.

From Popular Mechanics, February 1938:
“It has a short growing season… It can be grown in any state… The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year’s crop. The dense shock of leaves, 8 to 12 feet above the ground, chokes out weeds. …Hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.” In the 1930s, innovations in farm machinery would have caused an industrial revolution when applied to hemp. This single resource could have created millions of new jobs generating thousands of quality products. Hemp, if not made illegal, would have brought America out of the Great Depression.

THE CONSPIRACY
William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst’s grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, DuPont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. DuPont’s Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of DuPont’s business.

Andrew Mellon became Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury and DuPont’s primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law,Harry J.Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: ‘marijuana’ and pushed it into the consciousness of America.

MEDIA MANIPULATION
A media blitz of ‘yellow journalism’ raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst’s newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marijuana. The menace of marijuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.

Films like Reefer Madness (1936), Marijuana: Assassin of Youth (1935) and Marijuana: The Devil’s Weed (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marijuana laws could be passed.

Examine the following quotes from The Burning Question, aka Reefer Madness:
• a violent narcotic;
• acts of shocking violence;
• incurable insanity;
• soul-destroying effects;
• under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax;
• more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (heroin, cocaine) is the menace of marijuana!

Reefer Madness did not end with the usual ‘the end.’ The film concluded with these words plastered on the screen: ‘Tell your children.’

In the 1930s, people were very naive, even to the point of ignorance. The masses were like sheep waiting to be led by the few in power. They did not challenge authority. If the news was in print or on the radio, they believed it had to be true. They told their children, and their children grew up to be the parents of the babyboomers.

On April 14, 1937, the prohibitive Marijuana Tax Law, or the bill that outlawed hemp, was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. This committee is the only one that can introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. The Chairman of the U.S. Senate, Ways and Means Committee, at the time, Robert Doughton, was a DuPont supporter. He insured that the bill would pass Congress.

Dr. James Woodward, a physician and attorney, testified too late on behalf of the American Medical Association. He told the committee that the reason the AMA had not denounced the Marijuana Tax Law sooner was that the Association had just discovered that marijuana was hemp.

Few people, at the time, realized that the deadly menace they had been reading about on Hearst’s front pages was in fact passive hemp. The AMA understood cannabis to be a medicine found in numerous healing products sold over the last hundred years.

In September of 1937, hemp became illegal. The most useful crop known became a drug and our planet has been suffering ever since.

Congress banned hemp because it was said to be the most violence-causing drug known. Harry Anslinger, head of the Drug Commission for 31 years, promoted the idea that marijuana made users act extremely violent. In the 1950s, under the Communist threat of McCarthyism, Anslinger then said the exact opposite: marijuana will pacify you so much that soldiers would not want to fight.

Today, our planet is in desperate trouble. Earth is suffocating as large tracts of rain forests disappear. Pollution, poisons and chemicals are killing people. These great problems could be reversed if we industrialized hemp. Natural biomass could provide all of the planet’s energy needs that are currently supplied by fossil fuels.We have consumed 80% of our oil and gas reserves. We need a renewable resource. Hemp could be the solution to soaring gas prices.

THE WONDER PLANT
Hemp has a higher quality fiber than wood fiber. Far fewer caustic chemicals are required to make paper from hemp than from trees. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable. The plant grows quickly to maturity in a season where trees take a lifetime.

All plastic products should be made from hemp seed oil. Hempen plastics are biodegradable! Over time, they would break down and not harm the environment. Oil-based plastics, the ones we are very familiar with, help ruin nature. They do not break down and will do great harm in the future. The process to produce the vast array of natural (hempen) plastics will not ruin the rivers as DuPont and other petrochemical companies have done. Ecology does not fit in with the plans of the oil industry and the political machine.Hemp products are safe and natural.

Medicines should be made from hemp. We should go back to the days when the AMA supported cannabis cures.‘Medical Marijuana’ is given out legally to only a handful of people while the rest of us are forced into a system that relies on chemicals. Pot is only healthy for the human body.

World hunger could end. A large variety of food products can be generated from hemp. The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature. Also: They have two essential fatty acids that clean your body of cholesterol. These essential fatty acids are not found anywhere else in nature! Consuming pot seeds is the best thing you could do for your body. Eat uncooked hemp seeds.

Clothes should be made from hemp. Hemp clothing is extremely strong and durable over time. You could hand clothing, made from pot, down to your grandchildren. Today, there are American companies that make hemp clothing; usually 50% hemp. Hemp fabrics should be everywhere. Instead, they are almost underground. Superior hemp products are not allowed to advertise on fascist television.

Kentucky, once the top hemp producing state, made it illegal to wear hemp clothing! Can you imagine being thrown into jail for wearing quality jeans?

The world is crazy. But that does not mean you have to join the insanity. Get together. Spread the news. Tell people, and that includes your children, the truth. Use hemp products. Eliminate the word ’marijuana.’ Realize the history that created it. Make it politically incorrect to say or print the M-word. Fight against the propaganda (designed to favor the agenda of the super rich) and the bullshit. Hemp must be utilized in the future. We need a clean energy source to save our planet. Industrialize hemp!

The liquor, tobacco and oil companies fund more than a million dollars a day to Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other similar agencies. We have all seen their commercials. Now, their motto is: ‘It’s more dangerous than we thought.’ Lies from the powerful corporations, that began with Hearst, are still alive and well today.

The brainwashing continues. Now, the commercials say: If you buy a joint, you contribute to murders and gang wars. The latest anti-pot commercials say: If you buy a joint… you are promoting terrorism! The new enemy (terrorism) has paved the road to brainwash you any way they see fit.

There is only one enemy: the friendly people you pay your taxes to, the war-makers and nature destroyers. With your funding, they are killing the world right in front of your eyes.

Half a million deaths each year are caused by tobacco. Half a million deaths each year are caused by alcohol. No one has ever, ever died from smoking pot!!

In the entire history of the human race, not one death can be attributed to cannabis. Our society has outlawed grass but condones the use of the killers: tobacco and alcohol.

Hemp should be declassified and placed in drug stores to relieve stress. Hardening and constriction of the arteries are bad, but hemp usage actually enlarges the arteries, which is a healthy condition. We have been so conditioned to think that smoking is harmful. That is not the case for passive pot.

Ingesting THC, hemp’s active agent, has a positive effect: relieving asthma and glaucoma. A joint tends to alleviate the nausea caused by chemotherapy. You are able to eat on hemp. This is a healthy state of being.

[one personal note. During the pregnancy of my wife, she was having some difficulty gaining weight. We were in the hospital. A nurse called us to one side and said: “Off the record, if you smoke pot… you’d get something called the munchies and you’ll gain weight.” I swear that is a true story.]

The stereotype for a pothead is similar to a drunk, bubble-brain. Yet, the truth is one’s creative abilities can be enhanced under its influence. The perception of time slightly slows and one can become more sensitive. You can more appreciate all arts, be closer to nature and generally feel more under the influence of cannabis. It is, in fact, the exact opposite state of mind and body as the drunken state. You can be more aware with pot.

The pot plant is an alien plant. There is physical evidence that cannabis is not like any other plant on this planet. One could conclude that it was brought here for the benefit of humanity. Hemp is the only plant where the males appear one way and the females appear very different, physically!

No one ever speaks of males and females in regard to the plant kingdom because plants do not show their sexes. Except for cannabis. To determine what sex a certain, normal, earthly plant is, you have to look internally, at its DNA. A male blade of grass (physically) looks exactly like a female blade of grass. The hemp plant has an intense sexuality. Growers know to kill the males before they fertilize the females. Yes, folks, the most potent pot comes from ‘horny females.’

The reason this amazing, very sophisticated, ET plant from the future is illegal has nothing to do with how it physically affects us.

Pot is illegal because billionaires want to remain billionaires!

“And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land.” – Ezekiel 34:29.

p.s. I think the word ‘drugs’ should not be used as an umbrella-word that covers all chemical agents. Drugs have come to be known as something bad. Are you aware there are legal drugstores?! Yep, in every city. Unbelievable. Each so-called drug should be considered individually. Cannabis is a medicine and not a drug. We should dare to speak the truth no matter what the law is.
 

muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
It has to be better for you than the pills I got Friday. After taking the first one at the pharmacy I read the 3 pages of warnings when I got home. First page about takes the wind out of your sails. It says it is a drug that is used to treat skin cancer,ovarian cancer or chronic myelocytic leukemia that is recurrent, has spread, or cannot be helped with surgery. It says to wear disposible gloves while handling the med or the bottle it comes in. Follow your docs advice for disposal of gloves or expired med. Makes me want to swallow it right down!:w00t2::yum::yum:
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Good post Bamby. :thumb:

I have to take exception to this statement though:

Half a million deaths each year are caused by tobacco. Half a million deaths each year are caused by alcohol. No one has ever, ever died from smoking pot!!

I do believe it was at least a partial cause in Bob Marley's death and probably some others. Nothing near the numbers of alcohol and tobacco though.

Is medical MJ available for you Muley? Being on a state line might have it's advantages if either NY or PA offer that. Or any state within reasonable driving distance. I know you get out and about in your Pirus. Might be worth a try for you if available.
 

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Bamby, I can't take exception to anything said and I was aware of quite a bit of it. The only thing that it doesn't stress is that the marijuana plant of today is not the hemp plant of yesteryear. It has been cultivated to increase its narcotic content way beyond whatever was found in traditional hemp so we are actually talking about what are essentially two different plants.

I think that I read somewhere that a non-narcotic strain of hemp has been developed and some were trying to be allowed to grow it as a cash crop.
 

muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
"Is medical MJ available for you Muley? Being on a state line might have it's advantages if either NY or PA offer that. Or any state within reasonable driving distance. I know you get out and about in your Pirus. Might be worth a try for you if available."

Not really. I just don't tell anybody it is medicinal.:yum::yum: I call it herbal therapy!
weed.gif
 

waybomb

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
I don't cared what y'all say; a stoned person is , well, stoned. Don;t tell me there's no impairment or danger,
 

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
I'm no expert on these things and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express but inhaling cigarette smoke gives you cancer an is therefore BAD, inhaling marijuana smoke .... hey , that's OK, no problem, no health risk there, let's all get high.

You know what? ... I came over to this country on a 747 not a banana boat. There's something that just doesn't seem right there.
 

luvs

'lil yinzer~
GOLD Site Supporter
i was once highly ranked on the i.q. scale
then i discovered booze. tossed those shrubs to the wind. (booze was was less expensive.) my i.q. subsequently dipped quite drastically. via booze.
 

leadarrows

Member
I'm no expert on these things and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express but inhaling cigarette smoke gives you cancer an is therefore BAD, inhaling marijuana smoke .... hey , that's OK, no problem, no health risk there, let's all get high.

You know what? ... I came over to this country on a 747 not a banana boat. There's something that just doesn't seem right there.
Their are zero....no cases of just marijuana ever killing anyone....ever...none.

The cigarette companies are not putting addictive chemicals in pot to begin with and you can't smoke 2 packs of good pot a day and stay awake.

In fact their is some studies that indicate pot may slow down and even prevent cancer in some cases.


By Lanny Swerdlow
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has been spending millions of taxpayer dollars on advertisements and printed material declaring that marijuana causes cancer. The truth is just the opposite - marijuana can prevent cancer. Recent research has shown that the cannabinoids found in marijuana can not only halt the spread of cancer but can also kill cancer cells.
A study conducted in 2005 by Dr. Donald Tashkin at the UCLA School of Medicine demonstrated that people who smoke marijuana are at less risk of developing lung cancer than tobacco smokers. The study of 2,200 people in Los Angeles found that even heavy marijuana smokers were no more likely to develop lung, head or neck cancer than non-users. In comparison, tobacco users' risk of cancer increases the more they smoke.
Data in Dr. Tashkin's study suggest that people who smoke marijuana are less likely to develop lung cancer than people who do not smoke anything at all. Since marijuana smoke contains the same cancer-causing agents as tobacco and the only difference between the nonsmokers and the marijuana smokers was their use of cannabis, then it is not an unreasonable hypothesis that marijuana can prevent the development of cancer.
In 2003, Dr. Manual Guzman at the Complutense University in Madrid Spain published a research paper entitled Cannabinoids: Potential Anticancer Agents. Dr. Guzman's research on the brains of laboratory rats found that the cannabinoids in cannabis inhibit tumor growth and are selective antitumor compounds, as they can kill tumor cells without affecting noncancerous cells.
Investigators at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health reported in January 2008 that the administration of cannabinoids halts the spread of a wide range of cancers, including brain cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lymphoma. The report noted that cannabis offer significant advantages over standard chemotherapy treatments because the cannabinoids in cannabis are both non-toxic and can uniquely target malignant cells while ignoring healthy ones.
Is the evidence incontrovertible that cannabis can inhibit the spread of cancer, kill cancer cells and prevent the development of cancer?
No it is not - but doctors are telling millions of people to spend billions of dollars and ingest all kinds of supplements on way less evidence than there is to support the anti-cancer properties of cannabis.
When taking any kind of medicine or supplement, a person needs to decide if the claimed benefits of a product outweigh the risks. Many times the answer is no.
Cannabis is not one of these products, as there has never been a single death attributed to cannabis or any other significant debilitating consequences.
Further, the vast majority of cannabis users report numerous beneficial effects.
If cannabis can prevent the development of cancer, then the appropriate ingestion of cannabis is desirable in the same way that the appropriate ingestion of calcium supplements can prevent or at least delay the onset of osteoporosis. Since for the vast majority of people, cannabis has no negative side effects and only beneficial effects, it would seem that the regular appropriate ingestion of cannabis as a cancer preventative agent would be a prudent course of action.


Our government is responsible for the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on people in the history of mankind. The government owes every non-violent drug offender a clean record and restitution for the damage done to their lives. The drug war is the problem not the solution.


Ask yourself this...If we had to amend the Constitution to prohibit alcohol consumption where is it in our laws that gives the government a right to tell us what we can consume?
I said 30 years ago this would someday lead to a food war...guess what...
http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2011/08/cops_raid_rawesome_foods_owner_james_stewart_arrested.php


You get arrested now for selling raw milk.



I have been posting a similar story as the OP on the net now for 10 years. I will follow this post with my version of the OP's post.
 

leadarrows

Member
I don't think any one should do drugs like crack. I worked in a bar for several years and I have seen the devastating effects of that drug. It's a terrible thing to see someone throw his or her life away like that. But I have seen them go to prison only to get out and pick right back up where they left off. Prison doesn't help them or society deal with this problem. There has too be a better way. Crack addicts can't even get help if the want it with out fear of going to jail. What good is the cure for a sickness if it destroys the patient? The reason I involve myself in debates like this is I have seen first hand that the war on drugs causes more death and destruction than the drug use it is suppose to protect us from. It's time for a change in tactics and we all need to demand it. After the end of the cold war Hollywood needed new villains and drug dealers became the new enemy. Trouble is most drug dealers are just friends of friends helping each other acquire what ever it is they want. A lot of convicted drug dealers are just some unlucky sob that was doing a friend a favor and were set up because some one else didn't want to do there own time. Prosecutors and cops know this but don't care. One arrest is as good as another it all looks the same to JQ public and makes them look like they’re doing their job. It's not right and it needs to stop. The drug war has become nothing more than a modern day witch-hunt.


Here is some historical facts about the drug war.

One last point....The Government has been far more successful in the war on tobacco with out arresting one single person and with out killing anyone.


"Recreational drugs have never been legal."
Wrong.
Opium, a very addictive drug (but relatively harmless by today's standards) was once widely used by the Chinese. The reasons for this are a whole other story, but suffice to say that when Chinese started to immigrate to the United States, they brought opium with them. Chinese workers used opium to induce a trance-like state, which helped make boring, repetitive tasks more interesting. It also numbs the mind to pain and exhaustion. By using opium, the Chinese were able to pull very long hours in the sweatshops of the Industrial Revolution. During this period of time, there was no such thing as fair wages, and the only way a worker could make a living was to produce as much as humanly possible.

Since they were such good workers, the Chinese held a lot of jobs in the highly competitive industrial work place. Even before the Great Depression, when millions of jobs disappeared overnight, the White Americans began to resent this, and Chinese became hated among the White working class. Even more than today, White Americans had a very big political advantage over the Chinese -- they spoke English and had a few relatives in the government, so it was easy for them to come up with a plan to force Chinese immigrants to leave the country (or at least keep them from inviting all their relatives to come and live in America.) This plan depended on stirring up racist feelings, and one of the easiest things to focus these feelings on was the foreign and mysterious practice of using opium.

We can see this pattern again with cocaine, except with cocaine it was Black Americans who were the target. Cocaine probably was not especially useful in the work place, but the strategy against Chinese immigrants (picking on their drug of choice) had been so successful that it was used again. In the case of Blacks, though, the racist feelings ran deeper, and the main thrust of the propaganda campaign was to control the Black community and keep Blacks from becoming successful. Articles appeared in newspapers, which blamed cocaine for violent crime by Blacks. Black Americans were painted as savage, uncontrollable beasts when under the influence of cocaine -- it was said to make a single Black man as strong as four or five police officers. (Sound familiar?) By capitalizing on racist sentiments, a powerful political lobby banned opium and then cocaine.

Marijuana was next. It was well known that the Mexican soldiers who fought America during the war with Spain smoked marijuana. Poncho Villa, A Mexican general, was considered a nemesis for the behavior of his troops, who were known to be especially rowdy. They were also known to be heavy marijuana smokers, as the original lyrics to the song 'la cucaracha' show. (The song was originally about a Mexican soldier who refused to march until he was provided with some marijuana.)

After the war had ended and Mexicans had begun to immigrate into the South Eastern United States, there were relatively few race problems. There were plenty of jobs in agriculture and industry and Mexicans were willing to work cheap. Once the depression hit and jobs became scarce, however, Mexicans suddenly became a public nuisance. It was said by politicians (who were trying to please the White working class) that Mexicans were responsible for a violent crime wave. Police statistics showed nothing of the sort -- in fact Mexicans were involved in less crime than Whites. Marijuana, of course, got the blame for this phony outbreak of crime and health problems, and so many of these states made laws against using cannabis. (In the Northern states, marijuana was also associated with Black jazz musicians.)

Here is where things start to get complicated. Put aside, for a moment, all the above, because there are a few other things involved in this twisted tale. At the beginning of the Great Depression, there was a very popular movement called Prohibition, which made alcohol illegal. This was motivated mainly by a Puritan religious ethic left over from the first European settlers. Today we have movies and television shows such as the "Untouchables" which tell us what it was like to live during this period. Since it is perhaps the world's most popular drug, alcohol prohibition spawned a huge 'black market' where illegal alcohol was smuggled and traded at extremely high prices. Crime got out-of-hand as criminals fought with each other over who could sell alcohol where. Organized crime became an American institution, and hard liquor, which was easy to smuggle, took the place of beer and wine.

In order to combat the crime wave, a large police force was formed. The number of police grew rapidly until the end of Prohibition when the government decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to just give up and allow people to use alcohol legally. Under Prohibition the American government had essentially (and unwittingly) provided the military back-up for the take-over of the alcohol business by armed thugs. Even today, the Mob still controls liquor sales in many areas. After Prohibition the United States was left with nothing to show but a decade of political turmoil -- and a lot of unemployed police officers.

During Prohibition, being a police officer was a very nice thing -- you got a relatively decent salary, respect, partial immunity to the law, and the opportunity to take bribes (if you were that sort of person.) Many of these officers were not about to let this life-style slip away. Incidentally, it was about this time when the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was reformed, and a man named Harry J. Anslinger was appointed as its head. (Anslinger was appointed by his uncle-in-law, Andrew Mellon, who was the Secretary of the United States Treasury.) Anslinger campaigned tirelessly for funding in order to hire a large force of narcotics officers. After retiring, Anslinger once mused that the FBNDD was a place where young men were given a license to steal and rape.

The FBNDD is the organization which preceded what we now call the DEA, and was responsible for enforcing the new Federal drug laws against heroin, opium, and cocaine. One of Anslinger's biggest concerns as head of the FBNDD was getting uniform drug laws passed in all States and the Federal legislature. (Anslinger also had a personal dislike of jazz music and the Black musicians who made it. He hated them so much that he spent years tracking each of them and dreamed of arresting them all in one huge, cross-country sweep.) Anslinger frequented parent's and teacher's meetings giving scary speeches about the dangers of marijuana, and this period of time became known as Reefer Madness. (The name comes from the title of a silly movie produced by a public health group.)
To make a long story short, during the first decades of this century, opium was made illegal to kick out the Chinese immigrants who had flooded the work-force. Cocaine was made illegal to repress and control the Black community. And, marijuana was made illegal in order to control Mexicans in the Southeast (and Blacks.) All these laws were based mainly on emotional racism, without much else to back them up -- you can easily tell this by reading the hearings held in state legislatures. Also at this time, the end of Prohibition left us with a large force of unemployed police officers, who looked for work enforcing the new drug laws. Consequently, these same police officers needed to convince the country that their jobs were important. They did so by scaring parents about the dangers of drugs. All this set the stage for a law passed in the Federal legislature which put a prohibitive tax on marijuana. This is what killed the hemp industry in 1937, since it made business in hemp impossible.

Before the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, the state of Kentucky was the center of a relatively large American hemp industry which produced cloth and tow (rope for use in shipping.) The industry would have been larger, but hemp had one major disadvantage: processing it required a lot of work. Men had to 'brake' hemp stalks in order to separate the fiber from the woody core. This was done on a small machine called a hand-brake, and it was a job fit for Hercules. It was not until the 1930's that machines to do this became widely available.

Today we use paper made by a process called 'chemical pulping'. Before this, trees were processed by 'mechanical pulping' instead, which was much more expensive. At about the same time as machines to brake hemp appeared, the idea of using hemp hurds for making paper and plastic was proposed. Hemp hurds were normally considered to be a worthless waste product that was thrown away after it was stripped of fiber. New research showed that these hurds could be used instead of wood in mechanical pulping, and that this would drastically reduce the cost of making paper. Popular Mechanics Magazine predicted that hemp would rise to become the number one crop in America. In fact, the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was so unexpected that Popular Mechanics had already gone to press with a cover story about hemp, published in 1938 just two months after the Tax Act took effect.

There's more. 'Chemical pulping' paper was invented at about this time by Dupont Chemicals, as part of a multi-million dollar deal with a timber holding company and newspaper chain owned by William Randolph Hearst. This deal would provide the Hearst with a source of very cheap paper, and he would go on to be known as the tycoon of 'yellow journalism' (so named because the new paper would turn yellow very quickly as it got older.) Hearst knew that he could drive other papers out of competition with this new advantage. Hemp paper threatened to ruin this whole plan. It had to be stopped, and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was the way they did it. As a drug law, the Tax Act really was not a very big step -- it did not really accomplish much at all and many historians have caught themselves wondering why the bill was even written. Big business interests took advantage of the political climate of racism and anti-drug rhetoric to close the free market to hemp products, and _that_, my friend, is how hemp became illegal.

For the 1930's, this business venture was one very large transaction; it included other timber companies and a few railroads. Dupont's entire deal was backed by a banker named Andrew Mellon. Don't look up! That's the same Andrew Mellon who appointed his nephew-in-law Harry Anslinger to head up the FBNDD in 1931. The Marijuana Tax Act was passed in a very unorthodox way, and nobody who would have objected was informed about the bill. The American Medical Association found out about the bill only two days before the hearings, and sent a representative to object to the banning of cannabis medicines. A hemp bird seed salesman also showed up and complained. However, the bill was passed, partially due to the testimony of Harry J. Anslinger.

Not that Americans would have protested against this bill, even if they had known it existed most Americans did not know that cannabis hemp and marijuana is the same thing. The separate word 'marijuana' was one of the reasons for this. Nobody would associate the evil weed from Mexico with the stuff they tied their shoes with. Also, this was the time when synthetic fabrics were the latest fad -- nobody was interested in natural fibers any more. To top this all off the word 'hemp' was often wrongly used to refer to other natural fabrics, specifically jute.

The ignorance of hemp continues today, but it is even more scary. During the 1970's (Reefer Madness II) all mention of the word 'hemp' was removed from high school text books here in the United States. So much for free speech! When Jack Herer, the world's most beloved hemp activist, asked a curator at the Smithsonian Museum why this word had been removed from all their exhibits, the answer he got was astounding: "Children do not need to know about hemp anymore. It confuses them." Jack Herer went on to uncover a film made by the United States government, a film which the government did not want to admit existed. The film "Hemp For Victory" details how the United States government bypassed the Tax Act during World War II, when they needed hemp for the War Effort, and ran a large hemp-growing project in Kentucky and California.
__________________
"I don't think you can convince me that drug use will not climb if legalized."

=============================================

"Isn't marijuana a gateway drug? Doesn't it lead to use of harder drugs?"

This is totally untrue. In fact, researchers are looking into using marijuana to help crack addicts to quit. There are 40 million people in this country (U.S.) who have smoked marijuana for a period of their lives -- why aren't there tens of millions of heroin users, then? In Amsterdam, both marijuana use and heroin use went *down* after marijuana was decriminalized -- even though there was a short rise in cannabis use right after decriminalization. Unlike addictive drugs, marijuana causes almost no tolerance. Some people even report a reverse tolerance. That is, the longer they have used the less marijuana they need to get 'high.' So users of marijuana do not usually get bored and 'look for something more powerful'. If anything, marijuana keeps people from doing harder drugs.

The idea that using marijuana will lead you to use heroin or speed is called the 'gateway theory' or the 'stepping stone hypothesis.' It has been a favorite trick of the anti-drug propaganda artists, because it casts marijuana as something insidious with hidden dangers and pitfalls. There have never been any real statistics to back this idea up, but somehow it was the single biggest thing which the newspapers yelled about during Reefer Madness II. (Perhaps this was because the CIA was looking for someone to blame for the increase in heroin use after Viet Nam.)

The gateway theory of drug use is no longer generally accepted by the medical community. Prohibitionists used to point at numbers which showed that a large percentage of the hard drug users 'started with marijuana.' They had it backwards -- many hard drug users also use marijuana. There are two reasons for this. One is that marijuana can be used to 'take the edge off' the effects of some hard drugs. The other is a recently discovered fact of adolescent psychology -- there is a personality type which uses drugs, basically because drugs are exciting and dangerous, a thrill.

On sociological grounds, another sort of gateway theory has been argued which claims that marijuana is the source of the drug subculture and leads to other drugs through that culture. By the same token this is untrue -- marijuana does not create the drug subculture, the drug subculture uses marijuana. There are many marijuana users who are not a part of the subculture.

This brings up another example of how marijuana legalization could actually reduce the use of illicit drugs. Even though there is no magical 'stepping stone' effect, people who choose to buy marijuana often buy from dealers who deal in many different illegal drugs. This means that they have access to illegal drugs, and might decide to try them out. In this case it is the laws which lead to hard drug use. If marijuana were legal, the drug markets would be separated, and less people would start using the illegal drugs. Maybe this is why emergency room admissions for hard drugs have gone down in the states that decriminalized marijuana during the 70's.

" I don't want children (minors) to be able to smoke marijuana. How can I stop this?"


Legalize it. They can smoke it now; it is about as easy to get as alcohol. There would be less marijuana being sold in schools, playgrounds, and street corners, though, if it was sold legally through pharmacies -- because the dealers would not be able to compete with the prices. If you are a parent, the choice is really up to you: Do you want your children to sneak off with their friends and use marijuana which they bought off the street, or do you want to talk to them calmly and explain to them why they should wait until they are older? Your children are not going to walk up to you and tell you that they use an illegal drug, but if it was not such a big deal they might give you a chance to explain your feelings. Besides, would you rather children use speed, cocaine, and alcohol?

Consider, also, that children have a natural urge to do things that they aren't supposed to. It is called curiosity. By making such a fuss over marijuana, you make it interesting (some call it the 'forbidden fruit' factor.) This is made worse when children are lied to about drugs by teachers and police -- they lose respect for the school and the government. In a lot of ways, it is the hysteria about drugs which causes the most harm. When marijuana users do none of the horrible things they are supposed to, children may think that other more harmful drugs are OK, too. Your children will not respect you unless you are calm and give good reasons for your rules. The first step is for you, the parent, to learn the facts about drugs.
__________________


Nixon Commission Report Advising
Decriminalization of Marijuana Celebrates 30th
Anniversary
More Than 13.2 Million Americans Have Been
Arrested on Pot Charges Since Congress Rejected
1972 Policy Recommendations
Washington, DC: Friday marks the
30-year-anniversary of a 1972 federal commission
report advising Congress to remove criminal penalties
on the possession and nonprofit distribution of
marijuana. The National Commission on Marijuana
and Drug Abuse (a.k.a. "the Shafer Commission"),
appointed by then-President Richard Nixon, formally
made its recommendation on March 22, 1972.
"Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can
be said to constitute a danger to public safety,"
concluded the report's authors, led by then-Gov.
Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania. "Therefore, the
Commission recommends ... [the] possession of
marijuana for personal use no longer be an offense,
[and that the] casual distribution of small amounts of
marihuana for no remuneration, or insignificant
remuneration no longer be an offense."
Despite the commission's recommendations, Nixon
and Congress ignored the report. Since then, more than
13.2 million Americans have been arrested on
marijuana charges, including some 735,000 in 2000 -
the last year for which federal data is available.
"Decriminalizing the personal possession and use of
marijuana by responsible adults was the right thing to
do then and it is the right thing to do now," said
NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup. According
to a December 2001 Zogby poll, 61 percent of voters
agree with the Shafer Commission's conclusion that
responsible marijuana smokers should not be arrested
or jailed.
Recently released transcripts of Nixon's
conversations with Gov. Shafer, who chaired the 1972
pot commission, indicate that the President tried to
pressure him to reject his committee's findings.
"You're enough of a pro to know that for you to come
out with something that would run counter to what
Congress feels ... and what we're planning to do would
make your commission just look bad as hell," Nixon
warned in a May 26, 1971 conversation. In other
conversations, Nixon linked marijuana to the downfall
of civilized societies.
For more information, please contact either Keith
Stroup or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202)
483-5500. A hard copy of the March 22, 1972 letter
from commission chairman Raymond Shafer to
then-President Nixon is available from NORML. A
full report regarding Nixon's declassified statements
on marijuana is available online at:
http://www.csdp.org.


The following is a list of the causes of human deaths worldwide for the year 2002, arranged by their associated mortality rates. There were 57,029,000 deaths tabulated for that year. Some causes listed include deaths also included in more specific subordinate causes (as indicated by the "Group" column), and some causes are omitted, so the percentages do not sum to 100. According to the World Health Organization, about 58 million people died in 2005.[1]
Contents

* 1 Causes Ranked by Frequency
* 2 Malnutrition as an underlying cause
* 3 Developed vs. developing economies
o 3.1 United States
o 3.2 By age group
o 3.3 By occupation
* 4 References
* 5 See also

[Causes Ranked by Frequency

Note:I can't get this to post right. Each cause of death is followed by these
categories....Deaths per 100,000 per year[2] Group[3]

Cause Percent of deaths↓ All↓ Male↓ Female ↓
– All Causes 100.00 916.1 954.7 877.1
A Cardiovascular diseases 29.34 268.8 259.3 278.4
B Infectious and parasitic diseases 23.04 211.3 221.7 200.4
A.1 Ischemic heart disease 12.64 115.8 121.4 110.1
C Malignant neoplasms (cancers) 12.49 114.4 126.9 101.7
A.2 Cerebrovascular disease (Stroke) 9.66 88.5 81.4 95.6
B.1 Respiratory infections 6.95 63.7 63.5 63.8
B.1.1 Lower respiratory tract infections 6.81 62.4 62.2 62.6
D Respiratory diseases 6.49 59.5 61.1 57.9
E Unintentional injuries 6.23 57.0 73.7 40.2
B.2 HIV/AIDS 4.87 44.6 46.2 43.0
D.1 Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 4.82 44.1 45.1 43.1
– Perinatal conditions 4.32 39.6 43.7 35.4
F Digestive diseases 3.45 31.6 34.9 28.2
B.3 Diarrhea diseases 3.15 28.9 30.0 27.8
G Intentional injuries (Suicide, Violence, War, etc) 2.84 26.0 37.0 14.9
B.4 Tuberculosis 2.75 25.2 32.9 17.3
B.5 Malaria 2.23 20.4 19.4 21.5
C.1 Lung cancers 2.18 20.0 28.4 11.4
E.1 Road traffic accidents 2.09 19.1 27.8 10.4
B.6 Childhood diseases 1.97 18.1 18.0 18.2
H Neuropsychiatric disorders 1.95 17.9 18.4 17.3
– Diabetes mellitus 1.73 15.9 14.1 17.7
A.3 Hypertensive heart disease 1.60 14.6 13.4 15.9
G.1 Suicide 1.53 14.0 17.4 10.6
C.2 Stomach cancer 1.49 13.7 16.7 10.5
I Diseases of the genitourinary system 1.49 13.6 14.1 13.1
F.1 Cirrhosis of the liver 1.38 12.6 16.1 9.1
I.1 Nephritis/nephropathy 1.19 10.9 11.0 10.7
C.3 Colorectal cancer 1.09 10.0 10.3 9.7
C.4 Liver cancer 1.08 9.9 13.6 6.2
B.6.1 Measles 1.07 9.8 9.8 9.9
G.2 Violence 0.98 9.0 14.2 3.7
– Maternal conditions 0.89 8.2 0.0 16.5
– Congenital abnormalities 0.86 7.9 8.1 7.7
J Nutritional deficiencies 0.85 7.8 6.9 8.7
C.5 Breast cancer 0.84 7.7 0.1 15.3
C.6 Esophageal cancer 0.78 7.2 9.1 5.2
A.4 Inflammatory heart disease 0.71 6.5 6.7 6.2
H.1 Alzheimer's disease and other dementias 0.70 6.4 4.7 8.1
E.2 Falls 0.69 6.3 7.5 5.0
E.3 Drowning 0.67 6.1 8.4 3.9
E.4 Poisoning 0.61 5.6 7.2 4.0
C.7 Lymphomas, multiple myeloma 0.59 5.4 5.4 5.4
A.5 Rheumatic heart disease 0.57 5.3 4.4 6.1
C.8 Oral and oropharynx cancers 0.56 5.1 7.1 3.1
E.5 Fires 0.55 5.0 3.8 6.2
B.6.2 Pertussis 0.52 4.7 4.7 4.8
C.9 Prostate cancer 0.47 4.3 8.6 0.0
C.10 Leukemia 0.46 4.2 4.7 3.8
F.2 Peptic ulcer disease 0.46 4.2 5.0 3.5
J.1 Protein-energy malnutrition 0.46 4.2 4.2 4.2
– Endocrine/nutritional disorders 0.43 3.9 3.4 4.4
D.2 Asthma 0.42 3.9 3.9 3.8
C.11 Cervical cancer 0.42 3.8 0.0 7.7
C.12 Pancreatic cancer 0.41 3.7 3.9 3.5
B.6.3 Tetanus 0.38 3.4 3.4 3.5
B.7 Sexually transmitted diseases excluding HIV/AIDS 0.32 2.9 2.9 2.9
C.13 Bladder cancer 0.31 2.9 4.0 1.7
B.8 Meningitis 0.30 2.8 2.9 2.7
G.3 War 0.30 2.8 5.0 0.5
B.7.1 Syphilis 0.28 2.5 2.7 2.3
– Neoplasms other than malignant 0.26 2.4 2.4 2.4
J.2 Iron deficiency anemia 0.24 2.2 1.5 2.9
C.14 Ovarian cancer 0.24 2.2 0.0 4.4
B.9 Tropical diseases excluding malaria 0.23 2.1 2.5 1.6
H.2 Epilepsy 0.22 2.0 2.2 1.8
– Musculoskeletal diseases 0.19 1.7 1.2 2.2
B.10 Hepatitis B 0.18 1.7 2.3 1.0
H.3 Parkinson's disease 0.17 1.6 1.6 1.6
H.4 Alcohol use disorders 0.16 1.5 2.5 0.4
H.5 Drug use disorders 0.15 1.4 2.2 0.5
B.1.2 Upper respiratory infections 0.13 1.2 1.2 1.2
C.15 Uterine cancer 0.12 1.1 0.0 2.3
– Skin diseases 0.12 1.1 0.8 1.4
C.16 Melanoma and other skin cancers 0.12 1.1 1.1 1.0
B.11 Hepatitis C 0.09 0.9 1.1 0.6
B.9.1 Leishmaniasis 0.09 0.8 1.0 0.7
B.9.2 Trypanosomiasis 0.08 0.8 1.0 0.5
I.2 Benign prostatic hyperplasia 0.06 0.5 1.0 0.0

Malnutrition as an underlying cause
Hunger and poor nutrition directly or indirectly cause 36 million deaths per year, which is more than 1 death each second on average.[4][5][6] On average, a child under five dies every 5 seconds as a direct or indirect result of poor nutrition.[7] This is 6 million children per year, more than half of all child deaths Developed vs. developing economies

Drug use is pretty far down the line don't yeah think
 
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