When Henry Ford invented the first automobile to run on hemp, he didn't know that it would create a 75 year marijuana (also known as hemp, hash, cannabis, or marihuana) prohibition. The entire car was made out of hemp and it ran on hemp fuel. The technology was way ahead of it's time! It was truly wonderful because hemp can be grown easily and quickly. It really will answer a lot of environmental questions now that it's being grown in the United States again.
I mention Ford's
Model T because that innovation got some tongues wagging.
Andrew Mellon, Hoover's Secretary of Treasury, was the primary financial support for DuPont, a company heavy into chemical, fossil fuel and paper manufacturing, and he was concerned that hemp would interfere with his investment. Paper made out of hemp doesn't turn brown, but the paper they were producing needed extra chemicals to keep it white and Mellon wanted to continue to turn a profit, so he joined forces with
William Randolph Hearst, producer of several publications in NY and CA. Together they used yellow journalism and sold Reefer Madness to the public. Racism and business fueled Reefer Madness with words like,
“Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows, and look at a white woman twice.”
In 1932, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was created under the US Department of Treasury (notice the correlation?). Mellon appointed his niece's husband, Harry J. Anslinger as the chief of the agency.
When he testified before congress he had this to say,
“Marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind…Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, 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.”
Within two years, Anslinger drafted the "Marihuana Tax Act of 1937" which was disguised as a tax revenue bill. Since the bill was introduced into the House and Ways Committee that meant that it didn't have to be debated. It didn't hurt that the chairman of the committee was Robert Doughton nor that the member of the Senate Finance Committee to stamp it into law were both DuPont allies.
The American Medical Association (AMA) was opposed to the law because taxing meant that they had to pay those taxes and the doctors didn't want to lose money. They said that they didn't know that this bill was about 'cannabis' as it had been put under the term, 'marihuana'. Marihuana was a word only used by Mexicans at that time (hemp was the name known by society) so it was largely misunderstood. The AMA argued that if the name had been something that they had known then they would've fought the legislation.
In 1969,
Leary v. United States, found that the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 violated our 5th amendment by requiring people to incriminate themselves when paying the tax. In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and
Control Act. This act required all doctors to keep track of strict security and records. It classified drugs into five categories with marijuana being in the Schedule 1 category with meth, heroin and cocaine due to potential abuse. Remember that the AMA fought the Marihuana Tax Act because they thought it was a viable medication and they didn't want to pay taxes?
In 1974, the US government became aware that cannabis could cure cancer, but they did not legalize marijuana nor did they tell any citizens about their miraculous discovery. Cancer is a 95.5 billion dollar per year industry. Pharmaceutical companies and the entire medical industry is reaping the benefits of marijuana prohibition. There is little benefit to corporations if marijuana is re-legalized because they won't make as much money off of a natural plant that can be homegrown and produced by the common man and not a high tech pharmacist.
Big Pharma is definitely benefiting monetarily from the prohibition of marijuana. With the inclusion of genetically modified organisms in the 1980's in the American diet, people are becoming severely ill with gastrointestinal and neurological disorders (to name a couple) due to the EPA increasing the amount of allowable pesticides by 3000%. There are so many diseases that cannabis cures and helps that it can be deemed a medicine for all (see my next post about medicinal benefits of the cannabis plant.)
In 1999, the United States government applied for and received a patent on cannabinoids (cannabis). The government is fully aware that there are many European studies that solidify that marijuana does have medical benefits. The patent states,
"Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention. A particular disclosed class of cannabinoids useful as neuroprotective antioxidants is formula (I) wherein the R group is independently selected from the group consisting of H, CH3, and COCH3."
The facts are clear. Big Pharma wants to be the one to produce and profit off of the legalization of marijuana. I'm beginning to wonder if whoever is heading up DuPont now still has a stake in all this due to the immersion of news that
the government would like to legalize CBD oil only. Despite all of the heavy handed dirty tactics from the United States government, the American people are waking up the medicinal benefits of the 'all-natural' mighty powerful medicinal qualities of cannabis! Over 23 states have some form of legalization and two states have legalized recreational use of marijuana. Several more states such as Florida, Oregon and Pennsylvania are putting legalization on their ballots this November. I believe the entire country will soon have some form of legalization by the year 2020. That's wonderful news for all American patients and means that soon we will all have the right to choose between a 'plant derivitive + chemicals' with multiple harmful side effects or an 'natural plant derivative' without any harmful side effects.
