The typical American citizen is willfully ignorant. Content to believe anything and everything the media feeds them they blindly live their daily lives uninterested in challenging the principal majority. Unaware that the accepted “norm” is carefully fabricated and disseminated to the public by a minority with personal hidden agendas. In all fairness, the media is normally merely the vessel of this misinformation, even when the correspondents accept it themselves. In fact, ensuring the purveyors of these untruths believe what they pass along actually endorses the general public\u2019s ability to accept these lies as the unquestionable truth. A perfect example of our nation\u2019s incapacity to recognize propaganda is the ignorant criminalization of marijuana.<\/p>\n
Hemp has been used in the creation of woven fabrics for thousands of years and has been traced back to as early as the Chou dynasty (1122-249 B.C.). The first laws passed in America pertaining to marijuana were actually designed to enforce the mandatory growth of hemp in the early 1600\u2019s. George Washington grew hemp at Mount Vernon as his primary harvest. Cannabis was a critical crop and even grown by the government to supply essential rope and related supplies during World War II. The term “canvas” is directly related to “cannabis” due to hemp\u2019s practical use of being woven into this strong and inexpensive material. Literally, cannapaceus means “made from hemp”.<\/p>\n
Racism and prejudice were notorious original sources of campaigns to outlaw the recreational use of marijuana. Initially directed toward Mexicans consuming the drug\u2010farmers were employing them as cheap labor\u2010the same ignorance fueled misguided attempts to criminalize the plant by blaming black jazz musicians and their “devil music” for the decline of cultural decency.<\/p>\n
Political and financial influences to outlaw marijuana seem obvious but many of the indisputable details have been conveniently overlooked. In 1933 Alcohol Prohibition ended, thus reducing funding for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (later to become the DEA \u2010 Drug Enforcement Administration). The director of the FBN, Harry Anslinger, actively campaigned for Marijuana Prohibition vomiting outrageous and unfounded lies about the effects and consequences of smoking marijuana.<\/p>\n
Anslinger represented the epitome of propaganda based on racism, prejudice and ignorance propelled by both politics and financial greed. His testimony before Congress in 1937 reflected his strong abhorrence of cannabis users and he has been repeatedly reported as uttering controversial quotes, for example: “Marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind. Most marijuana smokers are Negros, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes.”<\/p>\n
William Hearst was extremely helpful in perpetuating Anslinger\u2019s cause. He, however, had ulterior motives of his own. While he shared a hatred for Mexicans and other minorities, his racism was rooted in his personal finances. He had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, a Mexican Revolutionary general. Hemp would also threaten to further his losses based upon his timber investments. Most of all, publishing scandalous stories about the dangers of marijuana sold newspapers.<\/p>\n
Anslinger and Hearst were instrumental in the 1937 bill signed by President Roosevelt that damned cannabis illegal at the federal level. As a result, the hemp industry, in its entirety, was doomed to its ultimate destruction.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to draw a logical conclusion to a conspiracy among existing leaders of industry of the day that would be threatened by the widespread use of hemp. Namely, the chemical company Dupont, who actively supported the prohibition campaign, was motivated by removing competition to its patented nylon products. In addition, pharmaceutical companies could not control home-grown remedies to common ailments nor were they prepared to standardize or identify cannabis dosages.<\/p>\n
What does all this have to do with modern ignorance? Everything. Some of today\u2019s major concerns are the national deficit, the rising unemployment rate and irresponsible government spending. Why not combat unemployment, cut wasteful spending and contribute to paying off the deficit in one fell swoop? Consider the positive implications of legalizing and regulating marijuana. No longer would we spend excessive amounts of taxpayer money to arrest, prosecute, detain and incarcerate non-violent marijuana users. Instead, by regulating and taxing the sale of marijuana cigarettes, dealers, distributors and growers of black-market varieties of the drug (which are of unknown strength and purity\u2010lacing cannabis with incredibly dangerous drugs is common practice) would be out of business. The jobs created by this new industry would be substantial and the government would finally profit from the production, preparation and sale of recreational marijuana versus their current practice of spending countless millions of wasted funds to fight a losing war on a substance much less dangerous than alcohol. The later has been deemed acceptable by our culture as a legal drug despite the proven dangers on our society and the daily death-toll attributed to alcohol consumption but, in contrast, it is easily regulated, difficult to refine and the government has already lost that war once.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the countless products available which could be produced from the hemp plant would flood the market with alternatives to their present counterparts; thus stimulating the economy and forcing new levels of competition: driving down the price of fabrics, building materials, food products and the many uses of paper and other similarly produced goods. It is even conceivable that this practice would curb our planets existing deforestation issues.<\/p>\n
The medicinal value of marijuana has been addressed to a limited extent in recent years. While more willing to accept its use as a medicine, there are still many critics that crusade to ban even this helpful application of the drug. These advocates often have their own specific agendas unrelated to the actual issue in question: religious leaders standing on “moral values”, political figures seeking increased public acceptance or reelection, and industry monopolies protecting their financial interests. Once again, an example of the dominate minority representing the ignorant majority. Most of these factions preach the dangers of “the devils weed” while few understand even the minutest details of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC\u2010the active chemical in cannabis). The fact of the matter is, the consumption of red-meat is more likely to cause cancer than smoking marijuana and there has never been a documented case of an overdose attributed to the usage of marijuana. The same cannot be said of cocaine, heroin or even alcohol. A cannabis smoker can fear an increased appetite or escalated fatigue far before the outrageous claim by the 1936 movie Reefer Madness of losing one\u2019s mind and being uncontrollably influenced to become an axe-murderer. Even frequently noted research linking long-term use of marijuana and short-term memory loss are inconclusive as several similarly conducted experiments and studies have resulted in widely varied outcomes. Basically, the medicinal value of cannabis far outweighs its commonly alleged dangers.<\/p>\n
Despite all of these facts, the popular opinion of the average American is insistently to keep marijuana banned, that legalization efforts are solely pursued by “pot-heads” and the drug is more dangerous than alcohol. Few of those with these opinions could eloquently or intelligently argue their reasoning without quoting uneducated myths and former perpetuated deceits of anti-marijuana propaganda. Some common lines of thought have been, “Alcohol is legal, thus it is safe if used responsibly” and “Marijuana is illegal, so it must be dangerous no matter what the practice”.<\/p>\n
Scarce would be the defender of a substance that has been so demonized in American society; however, the truth remains that marijuana has only been illegal in the United States for approximately eighty years out of our nation\u2019s two-hundred plus (not to mention the thousands of years the plant has been in use preceding our nations birth and it\u2019s widespread acceptance around the world). As for why, it seems blatantly obvious that the prohibition of marijuana is due to the typical American citizen\u2019s complete failure to think for themselves, shrewdly question authority or rebel insightfully against popular opinion. Is it possible to allow ourselves to benefit from this relatively harmless plant? Will we confront our government and demand they cease the needless spending and wasted funds fighting a senseless war on a fictional enemy? Can we agree, instead, to battle unemployment, create jobs and heal our sick? The answer lies in one last, definitive question: do we have the audacity to think for ourselves?<\/p>\n