Bringing Cohesion to a Country with Cannabis
Bringing Cohesion to a Country with Cannabis
Try to imagine a near future in America where corn has become illegal. Corn is a staple in our farming industry that gives us food, feeds the animals we eat, provides a substitute for cane sugar, and fuels vehicles. The idea of it becoming illegal is preposterous to some, but the proponents for the bill stated that a certain strain, undetectable in physical appearance from all other corn, is being grown for pure recreational pleasure. Immigrants, mostly illegal deviants whom entered the American border, dry the husks and then grind them into powder, where they smoke the powder in cigarette like fashion, and smoke its contents which lead to inebriating but uninvestigated effects. This is one of the most accurate metaphors that can be used to describe the prohibition of marijuana in the United States of America, which was federally prohibited (unless an excise tax was paid by the user for medical use) on April 14, 1937 by The Marijuana Tax Act. This act had world changing consequences, nearly all being malevolent to society, and has fueled the elephantine smoke cloud in congress for nearly 100 years.
The prominence and importance of the marijuana plant precedes that of America itself, allowing for colonists to cultivate the “weed” for the multifaceted utility that hemp provided. Hemp fibers were highly used for sturdy ropes, paper, ship sails, clothing, and medicine. Hemp is still used today and can be found for commerce sporadically, still being used in ways as the colonists relied on for survival for over 300 years. It was such an important plant that during the 1600’s farmers were offered high incentives by the governing body to produce the plant, and even fined those who didn’t (Weisheit, Smith, and Johnson, 1991). Hemp was allowed to be traded as legal tender in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. It flourished in domestic production, being sold within medicines and open to buy within pharmacies until in 1906, where it was first required to follow with a label among the product in which it was contained. By invention of the cotton gin, better saws for cutting down trees, and other inventions, hemp faded off in its prominence of use during this period of America’s past, though it was never obsolete. Thus, for over 300 hundred years in America’s growing prosperity among the world by way of acquiring independence from England, uniting a country by way of civil war, abolishing slavery, and expanding the borders from Atlantic to Pacific oceans, and \ was entering the industrial age in the 1900’s with a promising workforce, marijuana was legal and it was never proclaimed as being a danger to society.
The Green Depression
When the Mexican revolution began in 1910, bringing the United States of America into involvement briefly in 1914, and basically ending in 1920; an upsurge of Mexican immigrants began their Northern migration into America in search of freedom and promise of a new way of life. They brought with them the habit of using the plant leaves from hemp plants (known as marijuana) in order to use as a carcinogenic inhalant, much like tobacco is used in cigarettes. The Mexicans brought with them the knowledge and cultural history of using this “narcotic” as a cheap, renewable, and available substitute for other inebriants, such as alcohol. With such an odd coincidence in time, alcohol was prohibited by the federal government in 1920. During this time alcohol was prohibited while marijuana was readily available, though not as prominent as alcohol was before the prohibition. During the thirteen year prohibition of alcohol marijuana use in the way the Mexicans were accustomed to using it began to take off in popularity (Weisheit, Smith, and Johnson, 1991 though still not as used recreationally as it is today in 2014 (though illegal in many states). As well during the prohibition of alcohol, on October 29th of 1929 the stock market crashed, resulting in the Great Depression. There was massive unemployment rates across the nations and resentment towards the Mexican immigrants for being a leading cause to the nation’s crumbling economy. According to research done by the Center for Substance Abuse Research (n.d.), “the Great Depression of the 1930’s led to a growing hostility toward the increase in marijuana use that was linked to immigration” (para. 2). Due to this correlation and perceived causation of why Mexican immigrants were tearing America apart by their presence and their recreational marijuana smoking, the government made this ideology apparent to the citizens, likely to displace blame on their own institution to a new population swell. Though it is possible that the immigrants accounted for some blue-collar and farming job loss among Americans, the association between marijuana and Mexicans was unjustified and used as a fear tactic.
The American government along with some of the wealthiest industrialists in America, were able to coerce the population by a steady stream of propaganda to ban marijuana, leading to its eventual illegalization. On September 16th of 1931 it was published within The New York Times newspaper that the government was preparing a uniform law prohibiting the use of marijuana (The Associated Press, 1931). By this time alcohol was already legal once again, as prohibition proved to only cause the trafficking of alcohol to go underground, creating a black market controlled by mobsters and bootleggers, whom all profited heavily by maintaining secret bars and speakeasies under the government’s nose. It is quite known that many politicians, state representatives, and law enforcement visited these establishments as well. These men preached against what they were doing themselves by enforcing the banishment in public and taking bribes to allow them to operate. This proved in a thirteen year period in America’s history that prohibition of such a widely popular substance will not hinder its’ use. Especially when it can be produced naturally by anyone with a few materials and know how. Marijuana on the other hand needs very little helping hand in its growth, as it occurs abundant in nature, a gift from God, evolution, or Mother Nature herself.
In the years leading up to The marijuana Tax Act in 1937 big business and government had a mission to extinguish the use of marijuana. A few known proponents that had great pull by their political donations and overall wealth were; William Randolph Hearst, whom feared his paper company could lose millions if hemp was used instead, the DuPont Chemical Company, which produced many patented materials that hemp fiber could replace, and Andrew Mellon whom was Herbert Hoover’s Secretary of Treasury and primary investor in DuPont, whom also appointed his nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
The use of “yellow journalism” was a tactic used by film, newspaper, and radio programs to spread misinformation in order to fuel fear, the strongest emotion when persuading a person to change one’s beliefs. In 1936 the film “Reefer Madness” was released through distribution by Motion Picture Ventures, which was funded directly by a church using the name Tell Your Children for its production. This film placed a direct correlation to the use of marijuana to the crimes of hit and run accidents, manslaughter, rape, and descent into madness of high school students whom partook in the act of smoking marijuana. The film alone caused emotionally charged influence to parents and kids alike who were afraid of this “poison” to infiltrate their homes. Within months, a misinformed public was created to support the ban of marijuana.
Reasons For Legalizing Medical Marijuana
In 1944 the La Guardia Report was released regarding the medical use of marijuana and it’s effects on a person. The report spanned over seven years of research and concluded that marijuana did not induce violence, insanity, sex crimes, fear, or addiction (Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana, 1944) which had little effect on the government as it was already illegalized and seen to have little benefit to overturn it. As a result to the government’s need to uphold this wrongful illegalization for 80 years now has brought upon overcrowding in prisons do to the imprisonment of countless nonviolent criminals as well as many young adults with a scarred criminal record do to possessing small amounts of marijuana or paraphernalia. Proportionally whites and blacks in America admit to smoking marijuana at the same rate across age populations, and yet blacks are highly disproportionately convicted and imprisoned because of the arrest. During 1973, 420,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges, representing 67% of all drug arrest charges (Weppner and Inciardi, 1978) and an average of 700,000 people a year are arrested for marijuana charges in 2008 (King, 2008).
Not only does our government not allow its citizens to express their right to treat their body as they wish to, but they also condone treating their citizens (though equal) unequally when convicting them of a criminal offense. The government, including the FDA, DEA, and FBI are all major advocates of marijuana’s legalization whether it be for medical purposes or recreational purposes. It is evident from research throughout the years that marijuana is not as dangerous as once falsely proposed, and has been seen to actually have benefits to its’ users, where as much of what is legal does not (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, aspartame, MSG, etc.). It is also very important to note that marijuana has never been deemed as a cause of death. It is not possible to overdose on the substance and the long term use of smoking marijuana always has another confounding factor as to why one has an illness (i.e. lung cancer), such as they may have smoked a pack of cigarettes a day while smoking marijuana once per week. Recent research even suggests that the consumption of marijuana can treat glaucoma, migraines, joint pains, painful AIDS symptoms, chronic muscle pain, and multiple sclerosis symptoms, though the government has yet to agree to one of these findings reported in many repetitive studies. There may be money to do with this blockade of information as well, just as it did in the 1930’s. I wonder if pharmaceutical companies have enough money alone to sway the governments’ train of thought regarding these findings. I would suppose that using a natural growing substance in place of a man made prescription drug, one with more side effects, may be a fear of those large conglomerations.
References
CESAR Center for Substance Abuse Research (n.d.) Marijuana, Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/marijuana.asp
Fleisher, J., & Snyder, T. (2002, March 7). Marijuana Reconsidered | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/3/7/marijuana-reconsidered-imagine-that-scientists-at/
King, Bonnie. (2008, October 9). US Drug Czar Mis-Used Marijuana Statistics as Scare Tactics While Arrests Soar, Reports Reveal Salem News. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.salem-news.com/printview.php?id=8964
Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana, by the New York Academy of Medicine (1944) The La Guardia Committee Report Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.drugtext.org/index.php/en/reports/223-the-la-guardia-committee-report-
The Associated Press, (1931, September 16). Government Will Ask States To Ban Growing of Marijuana. The New York Times, pp. 37.
Weisheit, Ralph, Smith, Beverly A., & Johnson, Katerine. (1991). Does the American Experience With Alcohol Prohibition Generalize To Marijuana? AJCJ, XV (2), 25.
Weppner, Robert and Inciardi, James. 1978. Decriminalizing Marijuana. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 22 (2): 115-126.
