The Wicked Weed “It must have taken years of research to establish that marijuana was dangerous.” There were a few attempts, in the 20 th Century, to make cannabis and hemp illegal. And when powerful men faced, due to competition from cannabis and hemp, the possibility of losing major assets, these powerful men took action. In the 1930s, American industrialist and media magnate, William Randolph Hearst, devised a hoax—a hoax with tremendous legs. Because Hearst owned a wealth of paper mills, timbered land and newspaper interests, he feared losing them to hemp paper. Hearst had no qualms about using his media empire to spread lurid stories about marijuana. These stories were, in fact, contrary to the science of the time. Hearst depicted marijuana as the worst drug in history. He claimed it could, even after cavalier use, turn people into fiends.
Hearst aided the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in outlawing marijuana and hemp. Hearst sought to save his paper-mills from a superior hemp product, in order to insure a low-priced source on which to print his newspapers. In so doing, he showed little regard for distinguishing marijuana (the psychoactive and biologically active dried flower clusters and leaves, usually of female plants) from hemp (used to make paper, plastics and so on, usually a male plant). Hemp is chock-full of fiber, oil and seeds. Under normal circumstances, the male and female plants grow together. Hearst, a consummate racist, passed off lurid stories on an unwary public, portraying Mexicans as vicious, dope fiends. His newspapers depicted Americans of African decent as brutal rapists, cursed by “satanic voodoo jazz,” and rampaging through the streets high on the Devil Dope. He portrayed the use of marijuana (so-called “Mexican opium”) as the most malevolent drug in history* . The lies of Hearst and others greatly influence the anti-drug attitudes of today. They block scientific investigation into the medical properties of marijuana. The billions spent on the immense empire used to fight the “evil weed,” and create a vast population of marijuana criminals, and an ever-expanding prison industry is deplorable
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Creating a Monster: Ne wspape rs, Magazine s, and America's Drug Proble m. Mol Inte rv. 2002 Jul; 2(4):201-4
Marijuana is effective as a medicine, but it is a travesty when the government tells scientists and doctors what they can and cannot do. Meanwhile, sick and dying people lose the fight. High courts rule against making marijuana available for patients, in spite of what voters say. Until a government approves medical marijuana for appetite stimulation, nausea control, pain control, and a long list of other ailments, this travesty will persist. A drug that makes us mellow, stress-free and eager for food will remain illegal, while caffeine, alcohol and tobacco are fine. This is a brilliant—criminalizing a weed that grows in the countryside. The cultivation of cannabis (marijuana) and hemp as sources of paper, cloth, linen, rope, canvas (from Latin cannabis), medicine and so on, is centuries old.
Likewise, if governments would start waking up, scientists could develop inhalers, patches, and pills that supply patients with the whole drug. Until then, we will continue to be subjected to the glaring double standards of righteous mental giants:
The plan succeeded because people in the 1930s, like people today, believe that if an authority tells them something, or it is in the newspaper, it must be factual. Some people believed that because DuPont Chemicals had just developed nylon and rayon, synthetics that would be in direct competition with hemp for many uses. The US Treasury Secretary who was also financially tied to DuPont appointed his son-inlaw, Harry Anslinger, as Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Then came DuPont petrochemical synthetic products "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men." Federal Bureau of Narcotics Chief Harry J. Anslinger, 1929 Anslinger, a dyed-in-the-wool racist, changed his tune when a report, released in 1944, disputed his claims. “But marijuana causes people to be against war,” was his new argument. Little did it matter: legislators had voted to criminalize marijuana back in 1937. Anslinger testified before Congress by reading Hearst's newspaper articles verbatim.
In 1931, United States Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon (1855-1937), appointed Harry J. Anslinger as the first Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotic These industrial barons and financiers knew that machinery to cut, bale, decorticate (separate the fiber from the high-cellulose hurd), and process hemp into paper or plastics was becoming available in the mid-1930s. Cannabis hemp would have to go.
In DuPont 1937 Annual Report to its stockholders, the company strongly urged continued investment in its new, but not readily accepted, DuPont petrochemical synthetic products. DuPont was anticipating “radical changes” from “the revenue raising power of government … converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganization.” Prior to 1931, Anslinger was Assistant U.S. Commissioner for Prohibition. Anslinger, remember, was hand-picked to head the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics by his unclein-law, Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury under President Herbert Hoover. The same Andrew Mellon was also the owner and largest stockholder of the sixth largest bank (in 1937) in the United States, the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, one of only two bankers for DuPont from 1928 to the present. ___________________. Smoking marijuana is inefficient, and, so far, marijuana pills, which cannot be swallowed by many sick people, contain only part of the drug. Then again, a vaporizer will heat the marijuana, without creating smoke, and get it to the bloodstream rapidly.
Hearst, risked when low-cost hemp paper proved superior to wood.