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From: Homo
Excelsior Omega Database / Open Encyclopedia:
Man has used cannabis since ancient times. Cannabis or Marijuana
or Hemp has an extensive, well-documented history, virtually
hidden to most today. According to The Colombia History of the
World, 1981 edition: "The earliest known woven fabric was
of Hemp, a.k.a. Cannabis or Marijuana, (one and the same), which
began to be used as a textile in the eighth millennium BC".
Archaeologists and historians have little difficulty
distinguishing Cannabis from other plant fibers in their work.
Since Cannabis-Marijuana is the only known plant known for both
its fiber and its medicinal properties, its unique identifiers
make for ease of reference clarification. Ancient artifacts can
be accurately tested, and as well, in ancient writings, Cannabis
is easily and unmistakably identified. Written references to the
use marijuana as a medicine date back nearly 5,000 years. The
world's oldest surviving text on medical drugs, the Chinese
Shen-nung Pen-tshao Ching, cites marijuana's ability to reduce
the pain of rheumatism and treat digestive disorders.
The name "marijuana" though is itself a fairly new
phenomena, derived from a Mexican term and used effectively in
the anti-Hemp movement of the 30's leading up to prohibition.
For the first ten thousand years of its long history it went by
many other names. In English, the farmers referred it to as
"Hemp", while the medical field used the scientific
term "Cannabis". Whatever the term we endear to it, it
is long been speculated that the sacred herb is the object of
much more attention than mere man can garnish it with, and
perchance is a key to the foundation of mankind's existence.
With guidance, perhaps we shall see.
It is generally agreed upon among historians that Cannabis was
early civilization's largest agricultural crop, from well before
1000 BC until the late 1800's AD. Cannabis was used for the vast
majority of the world's fiber, fabric, medicine, paper, incense,
and lighting oil as well as foodstuff for both humans and
animals. Most people in the world up until the 20th century
regularly used Cannabis-Hemp seed in porridge, soups and gruel.
Recently it was uncovered that Cannabis was even used for
building material. A bridge made of hemp hurds mixed with lime
dating from around 600 AD has been discovered in the south of
France. While it has flourished across the Americas, Cannabis is
not a species indigenous to North America. It was first
introduced to the Americas by the early Vikings, and later by
Spanish European settlers. In that time period, the days of
sailing ships, Cannabis was a vitally important crop. Since
Cannabis was known to be highly resistant to salt and rot, the
sails and rigging of virtually all ships were made from
Marijuana-hemp. Today, military power has its foundation of
dependence in a fossil fuel, petroleum oil; not so in the early
ages of transportation, indeed All Early Explorers who mapped
the world and wrote history as we know it depended on
Cannabis-hemp for fuel, food, medicine, and cloth.
Let us examine a brief history of the development of Cannabis
use from early history to our modern era. It has been estimated
that approximately 80% of all mankind's' textiles and fabrics
were made primarily from Cannabis fibers until the 1820's in
America, and until the 20th century in the great majority of the
remaining nations.. Overseas, Ireland was renowned for her fine
linens and Italy produced cloth for clothing, all with Cannabis,
at least until the 1830's. Contrary to popular belief, the
majority of linen used to be made from Cannabis-hemp, not flax.
Early American settlers knew from experience that Cannabis-hemp
was softer and warmer than cotton, and had three times the
tensile strength of cotton, making it much more durable than
Cotton. Homespun cloth was almost always spun from the family
Cannabis-hemp patch until after the Civil War. In the Americas
virtually every city and town through the mid-1800's had an
industry making Cannabis-hemp rope and cordage.
To say that the navies of the world relied on Cannabis in their
campaigns and conquests is an understatement. Cannabis Hemp was
once so crucial to the navy that King Henry VIII made it a
compulsory crop to safeguard supplies for making sails and rope.
When Napoleon was conquering the European continent, his most
serious opposition was from the British navy. To overcome this
adversary, he had to cut off his enemy from their much-needed
Cannabis-hemp supply. Russia was then the world's largest
Cannabis producer and exporter, so it was logical that Napoleon
attack Russia. He did just that and eventually forced the Czar
to stop selling Cannabis-hemp to British merchants. With these
events came the inevitable US involvement in this European power
struggle. A strange chain of circumstances then led up to the
Americans intervention. The British had to resort to alternative
measures to obtain the crucial Hemp needed to maintain their
naval fleet, and they knew the outcome of their Naval campaign
depended heavily upon it. So they began capturing US as well as
other nations merchant ships. They gave the ships' captains an
ultimatum upon capture. They could either lose their lives, ship
and crew, or they could change course and sail to Russia, and
the British navy would even compensate them well for the
Cannabis-hemp they brought back.
To get an idea of the magnitude of the quantity of Cannabis-hemp
needed by the U.S Navy alone, it is estimated that the USS
Constitution used over 60 tons of hemp in her. Along with the
USS Constitution, ninety vessels were listed in the 1861 Naval
Register. The numbers are your proof when you multiply the
number of ships by the initial tonnage required, that and the
fact that sails and rigging needed to be replaced every few
years, the importance of Cannabis for shipping and military uses
becomes plainly evident. Important enough so everyone who could
grew it. The first marijuana law in America was enacted in
Jamestown colony in 1619. It ordered all farmers to grow
Cannabis. More mandatory hemp cultivation laws were enacted in
Massachusetts in 1631, and in Connecticut 1632, and the
Chesapeake Colonies.
Meanwhile in England, the crown decreed that any foreigners who
grew Cannabis would be rewarded with full British citizenship,
while those who refused to grow hemp were often fined. Cannabis
was even recognized as legal tender in most of the Americas from
1631 until the early 1800's, mainly to encourage farmers to grow
more. Americans could even pay their taxes with Cannabis for
over 2 centuries. In modern times, most American school children
are educated to know that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
grew Cannabis-hemp on their plantations. Few however, know that
Jefferson was also a Cannabis smuggler extraordinaire. While
commissioned as envoy to France, he masterminded the smuggling
and transport of some extremely high-grade hemp seeds from China
into Turkey. At the time, the Mandarin rulers valued their
Cannabis seeds so highly that exportation was strictly forbidden
and a capital offense punishable by death.
Cannabis was also very important to the American Revolution.
Benjamin Franklin started one of America's first paper mills
using not trees as pulp, but Cannabis. The revolutionary
newspapers and pamphlets like Common Sense would probably not
have been published if they had had to procure their paper from
England. Until 1883, 80 to 90% of all paper in the world was
made from Cannabis. Books, bibles, maps, money and newspapers
were usually made from Cannabis. As a matter of fact the term
"rag paper" originates from the custom that Americans
as well as many other nations regularly used to recycle their
Cannabis clothes, sheets, and rags, as well as discarded sails
and rigging, to make paper. A popular American use for old sails
was to cover the wagons of pioneers migrating westward.
The word canvas has its origins as a derivative from the word
cannabis. Etymology: Middle English canevas, from Old North
French, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin cannabaceus hempen, from
Latin cannabis hemp. It is noteworthy to mention that the
American national Icons, the flag "Old Glory" and
drafts of the Declaration of Independence were made of Cannabis
principally. The US census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp
plantations. Plantations were farms with a minimum of at least
2,000 acres. A majority of these Cannabis farms were in the
south, a primary reason being the cheap slave labor.
Cannabis-Hemp production back then was very labor intensive. The
census does not include the tens of thousands of smaller farms,
nor the family Cannabis gardens. Even with a large number of
farms growing Cannabis, the US still imported roughly 80% of its
overall Cannabis from Russia and various other East European
countries.
A little acknowledged fact is a majority of US Presidents used
Cannabis. This may sound shocking to some, but upon reflecting
the period of history and its medical and textile contributions
to America, this was normal. Of course, it is speculative as to
whether George Washington and Thomas Jefferson actually inhaled.
It was used in over 90 % of tinctures prior to the 1800's.
People of the era used tincture of Cannabis as commonly as we
might take an aspirin today. By far, it was a standard medicine
administered generally in liquid form as extracts, tinctures and
elixirs, and commonly used for a large variety of ailments. The
US Pharmacopoeia listed Cannabis until 1941 and stated that
Cannabis can be used for treating fatigue, coughing, rheumatism,
asthma, delirium tremens, migraine headaches, and the cramps and
depressions associated with menstruation.
So in review thus far we have bridged the huge synaptic gap in
knowledge of the historic contribution of Cannabis-hemp to
mankind's development. We have clearly shown that it was the
world's leading agricultural crop until the late 1800's. The
question we must now examine is, How can it be that Cannabis can
be attributed the historic value we acknowledge and in the same
breath be condemned with the statistical criminal element we
read about so regularly? Cannabis has been an object of
controversy throughout history, as we shall soon see.
In Western Europe for instance, the Holy Roman Catholic Church
strictly forbade the use of Cannabis and any other medical
treatment, except for alcohol and bloodletting, for 1200 years
and more. After the dark ages Cannabis was again reasserted for
its medicinal value, but this time with a little help from the
monarchy of the time. Documentation shows that Queen Victoria
used it under physician's care to successfully treat menstrual
cramps and PMS, helping to popularize it in the English-speaking
world. Interestingly though, under Queen Elizabeth I, it was law
that if you owned a certain amount of land, some of it had to be
reserved for growing Cannabis. Under Queen Elizabeth II, you can
spend up to fourteen years in prison and face an unlimited fine
for growing Cannabis. All the while Queen Elizabeth's horses at
Windsor Castle are bedding down on Cannabis every night!
With careful research and consideration we find a series of
notable historic events, which relate directly to the plant
Cannabis and which heavily contributed to its demise and
ultimately, its prohibition. 1: The first event was the
invention of the cotton gin in 1793. Before that, Cotton and
Cannabis were both highly labor intensive crops. Cannabis-Hemp
was the preferred crop though, because of its superior qualities
as well as its cheaper price. The 1820's saw the replacing of
Eli Whitney's hand cotton gins with European-made industrial
looms and gins. For the first time, cotton cloth could be
produced cheaper than hand retting (rotting) and hand
separating. Cannabis-hemp fibers had to be hand-spun on spinning
wheels and jennies. In reflection we can see the first
detrimental event to Cannabis is precipitated on a competitive
technical advancement issue. Cannabis production declined, but
the farmers all knew - sooner or later - a Cannabis
"gin" was imminent to turn things around.
2: The second issue arose out of the medical community. Cannabis
had long been an accepted, safe medicine for centuries, but it
had some clearly undesirable disadvantages. One such issue was
the quality of the Cannabis-hemp. It could potentially vary
significantly, and because of non-specific strain and
non-regulated growing techniques - one crop of Cannabis plants
could be markedly more potent than the previous crop. Another
viable concern was its effects varied from person to person,
making a concise prescription a difficult if not unattainable
regime according to conventional diagnosis/treatment plans. In
addition, there existed no scientific process of testing for the
amount and strength of the active substances in the 1800's or
even for that matter, what the active substances were. Indeed,
it wasn't until 1964 that Marijuana's main active ingredient THC
(9-tetrahydrocannabinol) was isolated and identified. But these
two seemingly huge detriments could be and in time would be
dealt with successfully and overcome.
3: Another strong theory exists that Cannabis lost popularity in
the field of medicine because of its being fat soluble, that is
oil-based. As an oil base medicine it could not be injected as
morphine could be. It thus lost appeal in the eyes of the new
generation of medicine, those of the progressive new sciences,
seeking to utilize the developed technologies of the modern era.
Yes a third setback was again directly related to another
competitive technological advance: the invention of the
hypodermic syringe. When the syringe became popular among
physicians it was quickly promoted as the primary choice of
medical administration by an overwhelming majority of doctors.
From this growing general consensus, there arose what can be
construed as a bias attitude in favor of injections over
tinctures and orally ingested medication. Morphine became the
default drug of choice in pain management therapy, and largely
replaced Cannabis. Morphine was considered superior because its
potency was consistent and easily measured, it worked
successfully on virtually everyone, and it could be injected,
thus following the newly established acceptance of science
principles being instituted in the medical communities
worldwide. The medical community then had no conclusive data as
to the damaging, addictive properties of Morphine as it does
now. Even with such daunting opposition, Cannabis was still used
regularly by doctors and remained in the Pharmacopoeia. Medical
researchers still entertained high aspirations that it would
reassert itself when it was scientifically understood. And, of
course, as the problems of morphine addiction began to surface
and be recognized, Cannabis was again reevaluated as a medical
component.
Coordinated in this same time frame, whether coincidental or
not, the Cannabis Industry equivalent of the cotton gin, called
the "decordicating machine", was developed. It was
invented by G.W. Schlichten and patented in 1917. By the 1930's
the harvesting and processing equipment for Cannabis was up to
the same performance grade as that of the Cotton industry and
ready to issue a challenge for textile dominance. Popular
Mechanics magazine of February, 1938 touted hemp as "The
New Billion Dollar Crop." All in all, Hemp seemed poised to
make a viable contribution to the North American textile
industry.
Henry Ford, inventor of the Ford automobile, recognized the
utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin
stiffened hemp fiber, and even ran the car on ethanol made from
hemp. Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources
if widely cultivated. Ford's optimistic appraisal of cellulose
and crop based ethyl alcohol fuel can be read in several ways.
First, it can be seen as an oblique jab at a competitor. General
Motors had come to considerable grief the summer of 1925 over
another octane boosting fuel called tetra-ethyl lead, and
government officials had been quietly in touch with Ford
engineers about alternatives to leaded gasoline additives. As
well, by 1925 the American farms that Ford loved were facing a
growing economic crisis that would later intensify into the
depression of the 30's. Although the causes of the crisis were
complex, one potential solution was seen in creating new markets
for farm products. With Ford's financial and political backing,
the idea of opening up industrial markets for farmers would be
translated into a broad movement for scientific research in
agriculture that would be labeled "Farm Chemurgy." The
Ford Motor Company, in the 1930s, created charcoal fuel,
methanol, and other compounds out of Cannabis-Hemp at their Iron
Mountain, Michigan plant. It seemed Fords plans were well under
way to engineering an era of Farm Chemurgy Why Henry's plans
were delayed for more than a half century remain a point of
controversy to this day: Ethanol has been known as a fuel for
many decades. Indeed, when Henry Ford designed the Model T, it
was with the expectation that ethanol, made from renewable
biological materials, such as Cannabis, would be a major
automobile fuel. Surprisingly however, gasoline emerged as the
dominant fuel in the early twentieth century. This has been
speculatively attributed to the ease of operation of gasoline
engines with the materials then available for engine
construction, to a growing supply of cheaper petroleum from oil
field discoveries, and the intense lobbying by petroleum
companies for the federal government to maintain steep alcohol
taxes, thereby restricting the economic feasibility of ethanol
based fuels.
Many bills proposing a National energy program that made use of
Americas vast agricultural resources (for fuel production) were
killed by sensationalist smear campaigns launched by vested
petroleum interests. Gasoline had many recognized disadvantages
as an automotive resource when compared with Cannabis-hemp fuel.
The "new" fuel had a lower octane rating than ethanol,
was much more toxic (particularly when blended with tetra-ethyl
lead and other compounds used to enhance octane), generally more
dangerous, and contained harmful threatening air pollutants.
Petroleum was more likely to explode and to burn accidentally,
gum would form on storage surfaces and carbon deposits would
form in combustion chambers of the engines using it. Pipelines
needed to be constructed for distribution from "area
found" to "area needed". Petroleum was much more
physically and chemically diverse than ethanol and as such
necessitated complex refining procedures to ensure the
manufacture of a consistent quality "gasoline"
product. And yet even with its obvious serious shortcomings when
compared to cellulose fuels, Gasoline managed to become the
primary fuel for the new automobile age, spurned on by huge cash
incentives and infusions of several corporate entities wielding
huge media budgets. The advertisement campaigns were sensational
and relentless in coercing the general opinion towards
acceptance of the inferior new gasoline over the ethanol based
fuels.
Ultimately it proved to be an untimely confrontation for
Cannabis. For within months came perhaps the most devastating
blow to Cannabis in the form of a nationwide negative-publicity
smear campaign initiated by several key figures in the American
Economy who shall remain named. This campaign of public paranoia
generation has been aptly named the "reefer madness"
scare of the 1930's. Conspiracy theories abound worldwide, and
most turn out to be one form of hoax or another, but the
national media attention which was turned on Cannabis with so
much vile obfuscation is a terrible blemish to journalism. It is
an insult to respectable intelligence recognized as a national
horror story that is well documented by respected journalists.
During the years in question there existed several special
interests of the day that stood to be financially compromised,
even ruined by the advent of a textile such as Cannabis-hemp.
And even as in modern times, some business interests, upon
discovery that they cannot compete in quality or price, stoop to
unethical competing by political manipulation. It is well
documented that William Randolph Hearst, legendary newspaper
mogul, owned huge tracts of forest land, which he intended for
use in the paper industry making wood-pulp paper. Cheap
Cannabis-based paper would have compromised his forestry
investments into a huge loss. A man of his shrewdness was not
about to let that happen. Through his extensive publishing and
film enterprises, Hearst was able to exert a great influence on
American public opinion. Late in the 19th century, for example,
reports in his newspapers on Spanish atrocities in Cuba so
aroused the public that the U.S. declared war against Spain. The
policies advocated by Hearst's publications made him one of the
most controversial media figures of his time. He was denounced
by many for his isolationist policy and extreme nationalism and
praised by others as a patriot.
Randolph Hearst was a master of his namesake "yellow"
journalism, notorious for his ability to sensationalize matters
and highly capable of starting wars. The "reefer
madness" anti-cannabis campaign is an unsightly tribute to
his facetious workings in American history and is despised
and/or laughed at to this day. Typical stories published by him
might be about drug-crazed "niggers" that raped white
women and couldn't be stopped with bullets, or about little
Johnny, who smoked reefer then ax-murdered his whole family.
Hearst was unrelenting in his extremist pursuit and not above
deploying the racist issue, after all there was a fortune in
investments at stake. His company was one of the first to employ
radio as well as film in their quest for control of the media.
Perhaps Hearst's most cunning ploy was his successful campaign
to rename Cannabis-hemp. By doing so he successfully eliminated
the problem of previously established credibility accorded the
plant Cannabis. After all, there were questions haunting the
issue as plain as his proverbial writing on the wall, and he had
to dissolve them. How could you convince farmers that their hemp
patch, which grandma used to spin into cloth, was a "killer
weed"? How could you convince the medical community that a
medicine that they themselves have proved safe for over a
thousand years was "the assassin of youth"? The answer
was both terrible and brilliant: You don't. Instead Hearst had
to manipulate the data given to the public - don't let them
understand what you're talking about.
So Hearst, with a long history of anti-Mexican racism, came up
with the plot to use an obscure slang Mexican term for Cannabis:
the new word. Marijuana. He stole the term from a popular song
sung by some of Pancho Villa's revolutionaries - La Cucaracha.
("The roach, the roach, refuses to march, until he has some
marijuana to smoke.") Hearst knew the value of a dollar,
honest or not, and with his many dollars he managed to establish
some formidable allies in his campaign to eradicate the
potentially competitive Cannabis industry. His paper mills
required toxic bleaching and chemically processing of the wood
pulp. The DuPont Corporation supplied most of the lethal
chemicals involved.
It has been long debated the issue of the relationship between
the coincidental appearance of DuPont's eagerness to introduce
petroleum-based fibers such as nylon and Hearst's all out
condemnation of Cannabis. In truth, the last thing DuPont needed
was economic competition in the form of a viable, proven
superior natural fiber flooding the market. Again it seemed
mutually beneficial for both companies to see Cannabis
production eliminated in America. Alas, as in all great
theatrics, there were allies employed within the government, and
they were keen on entertaining the idea of prohibition, even a
plant like Cannabis. Alcohol prohibition had just recently
ended, and there were scores of soon-to-be unemployed ATF
"G-men." Scattered in offices across the nation, they
were eager and ready to protect the masses from, uh, just what
is there left for them to protect us from? If a new demon wasn't
found and quickly, hundreds and hundreds of competent colleagues
might have to get an honest job.
Thus it was that Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics, became a key player in the conspiracy to effectively
weed out Cannabis for extinction. Anslinger was the Nephew of
Andrew Mellon, head of Mellon Bank who were the key financial
backers to DuPont. In 1937 Mellon patented the sulfuric acid
wood pulp bleaching process used by Hearst's mills. Anslinger
testified to congress that "Marijuana is the most violence
causing drug known to Mankind," backing his claims with
cuttings from Hearst's since-discredited newspaper stories.
Since direct outlawing of Cannabis would require a
constitutional amendment (like alcohol prohibition), something
subtler than a full frontal attack against Cannabis-Hemp was
required. The devious end result of avoiding the Constitutional
issue was accomplished by disguising Cannabis prohibition as a
revenue measure. More treachery for the future to sort out.
Instead of going to the food and drug, commerce, or textile
committees, as it should have, the Marijuana Tax Act was
submitted to the House Ways and Means Committee on April 14,
1937. What the house received was a bill prepared in secrecy
without outside consultation or input from interest groups, and
then erroneously mislabeled so as to prevent the nations farmers
and America's medical community from being aware of it. And so
it was that the Marijuana Tax Act was basically rubber-stamped
through approval by committee and Congress without so much as a
pondering as to the true repercussions of what their terrible
miscarriage of truth would manifest in generations to come.
Despite the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act, World War II saw
the US government forced to eat crow and come around to a
complete about face. The Japanese had successfully cut off the
USA's main supply of hemp, Manila Hemp via the supply line from
the Philippines to USA. The US war effort required rope and
cordage to move forward. The war effort saw the US government
supplying "The Assassin of Youth", Cannabis seed to
American farmers, and the Department of Agriculture producing
pamphlets and a training film called "Hemp for
Victory" to American farmers. It became mandatory law for
USA farmers to see the film, and the children in Kentucky 4H
Clubs were recruited to participate by growing "The Killer
Weed" Cannabis-hemp. It was a fitting twist of irony for
the government to employ innocent children to cultivate the
Cannabis they needed to wage a not-so-innocent war after so many
years of exposing those same children to media sensationalism
that ended Hemp's national production. Without the nation's
children and the farmer's mandatory intervention in the
cultivation of Cannabis, the war effort may certainly have had
different results. After the war, however, the prohibition of
Cannabis was again instituted and remains strictly enforced.
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 is without question considered the
most pronounced attack against Cannabis. Today, the USA is the
sole remaining bastion for mass-hysteria generated towards
Cannabis. Canada is leading the world with its Medical Marijuana
Research Programs and Initiatives. Most European countries have
either decriminalized Cannabis, or have stopped enforcing
biased, antiquated and unjust laws. Amsterdam has for decades
allowed people to buy Cannabis in coffeehouses, as do various
other cities in Germany and Denmark. England's Conservative
Party leader recently called for legalization of Cannabis, only
to be trumped by the head of the prison system, who called for
the legalization of all drugs. England has Dutch style Cannabis
Cafés open. Portugal has already legalized all drugs. The USA
is the only remaining major nation to insist that Cannabis is a
law enforcement issue rather than an agricultural or mental
health issue. Farmers in 30 countries grow hemp for industrial
purposes, while American farmers are prohibited from growing
this profitable and environmentally friendly crop. Nine American
states currently have lawful provisions for medical marijuana,
but to date many Americans continue to face legal prosecution
for medical marijuana in those states that have medical
marijuana access. Canada although pioneering in experimental
medical marijuana programs, has neglected to facilitate safe
access and supply for Canadian patients. It continues to enforce
the unconstitutional laws of an ineffective policy, to the
extent of patients dying while waiting for medication, to the
extent of criminal prosecution from a government for not being
able to follow a discriminatory unconstitutional medical
procedure, to the extent of forcing human beings to choose
between life and death.
Most of the following information is from: CRRH:
Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp
What is Hemp?
Hemp most commonly refers to the plant species known as Cannabis
sativa L., which consists of varieties known as Cannabis sativa
Sativa and Cannabis sativa Indica, among others.
Canvas - is derived from "cannabis", the Latin word
for "marijuana."
Archaeologists agree that cannabis was among the first crops
purposely cultivated by human beings at least over 6,000 years
ago, and perhaps more than 12,000 years ago.
The most resourceful crop on earth, cannabis yields industrial
hemp for canvas, oil, fiber, and paper among other things; a
harmless medicine for gravely ill individuals; and a source of
recreation for millions of people around the world.
Hemp prohibition is the result of propaganda by the
petrochemical, cotton, and wood-based paper industries, who
foresaw competition from hemp. Virtually anything that can be
made from petroleum can be made from hempseed and other
vegetable oils at a much lesser cost, and hemp fiber is many
times more durable and resourceful than cotton or wood-based
paper.
Industrial Uses
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The U.S. Government
distributed 400,000 pounds of cannabis seeds to American farmers
in 1942 to aid the war effort.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cannabis sativa plant produces more protein, oil and fiber
than any other plant on earth. Hempseed, for example, was an
essential part of our ancestors' diet and is the source of
"gruel," the porridge that is referred to in countless
stories and books written before this century. However, when new
technology in the 1900's made mass processing of hemp possible,
certain petrochemical, wood-based paper, and cotton-fiber
industries protected themselves from competition by recasting
hemp as "marijuana."
Carl Sagan, famed Cornell University astronomer and producer of
the television series Cosmos, speculated in his book "The
Dragons of Eden" that marijuana might be the very first
crop grown . . . the root of the agricultural revolution and
civilization as we know it today.
Hempseed oil
Dr. Udo Erasmus' recently-revised doctoral thesis, Fats and
Oils, (which has been used as a college text book at many
univesities) states that "hempseed oil is the most
perfectly balanced source of plant nutrition available".
Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine to run on hempseed oil
because any diesel engine can run without modification on
unrefined hempseed oil, and hempseed could be among the most
productive seed-oil crops by a ratio of perhaps three-to-one in
comparison to the most productive alternatives, according to
reports from Notre Dame University.
The cities of Spokane, Washington; Kansas City, Missouri; and
St. Louis, Missouri, all run their mass transit buses on a blend
of one-part vegetable oil (biodiesel - sunflower, soybean, and
safflower oils) with four parts petroleum diesel. They claim
this lowers particulate emissions by 75 percent. Kansas City,
Missouri airport also runs all its vehicles on pure biodiesel
(vegetable oil). Vegetable oils are a major fuel of the next
century, just like they were until this century.
Hemp fiber
While forty percent of all trees are cut down just to make
paper, New Billion Dollar Crop, (Popular Mechanics, February
1938) stated that "Hemp is the standard fiber of the world.
It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to
produce more than 5,000 textile products, ranging from rope to
fine laces, and the woody "hurds" remaining after the
fiber has been removed contain more than seventy-seven percent
cellulose, and can be used to produce more than 25,000 products,
ranging from dynamite to Cellophane."
Both the bast and the hurd fiber from the marijuana stalk can
make fiberboard and other composite building materials. In fact,
research in 1993 at Washington State University's Wood Science
Laboratory, which was spearheaded by Harrisburg, Oregon
lumberyard owner and OCTA Chief Petitioner, William Conde,
proved that producing fiberboard from hemp makes a building
material that can be, using the primary bast fiber, stronger
than steel.
Some studies indicate that an acre of hemp, in addition to its
fiber production, will produce 300 gallons of oil that can be
used for either food or fuel, plus more than three tons of
residual presscake, (Notre Dame 1975) containing substantial
nutritional value, including protein. The same acre of hemp will
also produce bast fiber, for canvas, rope, lace and linen, and
the hurd fiber for paper and building materials.
With new technologies, the cost of hemp had dropped a
hundredfold, from $0.50 per ton down to $0.005 per ton, much the
way cotton had after the invention of the cotton gin. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture released a study in 1916, Bulletin
404, called "Hemp Hurds as a Papermaking Material",
which said that hemp hurds made the best grade of paper and
produced more than four times as much paper as trees. Hemp hurds
are the waste material from producing hemp bast fiber for
canvas, rope, lace and linen from the stalks of the marijuana
plant. Those stalks produce roughly 15 percent to 30 percent
bast fiber, with the remainder being hurd fiber.
Hemp prohibition
With these new developments, the petrochemical industry foresaw
the competition took steps to prohibit hemp.
The petrochemical and wood-based paper industries are capital
intensive. It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to cut down
forests and process them into paper. It takes billions of
dollars to drill the earth for petroleum and to process crude
oil into fuel, plastics and chemicals. These industries realize
that the capital-intensive nature of their endeavors blocks
entry and competition. They want this monopoly and they want all
the money and power they can get from it.
The cotton-growing states also played a lead role in the
prohibition of hemp, since cotton is far less durable than hemp
fiber. Cotton is also the most pesticide-intensive crop amd
grows less than 2 feet tall in a season, while hemp grows 15 to
25 feet. Since cotton cannot compete with other weeds and
insects when cultivated as a monoculture crop, 28% of all
pesticides we produce on our planet are applied to the cotton
crop. Hemp, on the other hand, produces more than a dozen times
as much textile fiber as cotton and is virtually pesticide-free
since it kills weeds.
Hemp cloth was worn by most of mankind until the 19th century;
however, today we rely on cotton, the most pollution-intensive
crop on earth. We are stripping the last remnants of our
planet's protective mantel of old-growth forests, causing
environmental destruction, desertification and serious changes
to the world's climate. We are neglecting hempseed protein, the
most productive and healthiest food crop on earth.
Prohibiting the cultivation of this ancient plant, the most
productive source of fiber, oil and protein on our planet, is
evil. Our civilization is consuming fossil fuels that represent
hundreds of millions of years of carbon deposits, at a cost so
expensive that only the world's largest and most powerful
industries can enter into competition. As we burn this
petroleum, coal and natural gas for fuel, and release
prehistoric carbon into the atmosphere, it causes changes in the
world's climate that we are only beginning to understand.
Petroleum is Capital Intensive
It takes Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to Locate and Pump
Petroleum out of the Earth.
It takes Tens of Billions of Dollars to Build and Operate a
Facility to Refine Petroleum.
Facts about Oil Refineries and Your Health:
Oil refineries dump thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into
communities every day!
Many toxic chemicals released by refineries into the environment
cause cancer, birth defects, and serious health problems.
Odors from refineries can be more than a nuisance, such as
hydrogen sulfide, which can cause serious health impacts or
death.
Leaks in equipment, oil spills and flares can dump dangerous
pollution anywhere.
We don't have to use petroleum. Biodiesel is the solution!
Brought to you by the Campaign for the Restoration and
Regulation of Hemp (CRRH), working to restore the plant that
produces more fiber, protein and oil than any other plant on our
planet.
Petroleum's Role in Hemp Prohibition
Popularizing an obscure Mexican slang word, these powerful
interests -- including William Randolph Hearst (the namesake of
"yellow journalism"), who had bought up entire forests
for his vast chain of newspapers -- orchestrated a nationwide
campaign that played on racism and wildly lurid and inaccurate
reports in order to prohibit hemp.
They said that a deadly new drug called "marijuana"
caused users to go insane and uncontrollably kill their family
and friends. We call that misinformation campaign "Reefer
Madness," after a 1938 movie popularizing this hoax. The
basis of marijuana prohibition is filled with lies and overt
racism. Everyone knew what hemp was, but very few understood
that marijuana was hemp when it was prohibited in 1937.
Biodiesel
We believe that the main reason hemp is illegal today is because
of biodiesel's potential. The first diesel engines (by Rudolph
Diesel in 1894) were invented to run on hempseed oil; petroleum
wasn't synthesized to mimic hempseed oil for over a decade.
Therefore hempseed oil was the primary fuel for automobiles for
over 30 years after the invention of the first internal
combustion engine.
Entry into the biodiesel market has very low capital entry
requirements and is, therefore, not centralized. Among the
benefits of using biodiesel:
Start an economic boom!
Use vegetable seed oil (biodiesel).
Run any diesel engine with no engine conversion at all.
Make biodiesel from hemp, soybean, rapeseed/canola and safflower
seed oil Save family farms.
Return economic control to the people!
Naturally decentralize wealth.
Stop global warming.
Stop A lot of toxic pollution.
Create a useful byproduct: food.
Petroleum is Out of Balance; Biodiesel is Sustainable and In
Balance.
In comparison, petroleum is capital intensive and, therefore,
centralized. To maintain market share, the petroleum industries
wanted to prohibit hemp.
Medical Uses
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For 3000 Years
prior to 1842, marijuana and hashish extracts were the most
widely-used medicines in the world.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marijuana is much safer, more effective and less costly than
many alternatives currently in use. The Drug Enforcement
Administration's own top administrative law judge, Francis L.
Young, dismissed the drug warriors' untrue propaganda when he
ruled in 1988 that, "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one
of the safest therapeutically active substances known to
man."
Beyond the grasp of the U.S. drug-abuse industrial complex and
biased mass media, The Lancet, Britain's most widely respected,
peer-reviewed medical journal, recently wrote that "The
smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health .
. . Sooner or later politicians will have to stop running scared
and address the evidence: cannabis per se is not a hazard to
society but driving it further underground may well be."
("Deglamorising Cannabis," Volume 346, Number 8985,
November 11, 1995.)
During a random survey of the American Society of Clinical
Oncology in 1990, 48 percent of the 1,035 respondents (about 10%
of members) said they would prescribe smoking marijuana if it
were legal. Another 30 percent said they would need more
information. Only 22 percent said they would not prescribe it.
Forty-four percent of the respondents said they had already
recommended marijuana to a patient to combat the nausea
associated with chemotherapy. However, because a significant
percentage of pot arrests are medical marijuana patients,
doctors who make these recommendations do so at the risk of
their medical licenses and livelihoods.
Let's stop this madness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abraham Lincoln
said that "Prohibition . . . goes beyond the bounds of
reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by
legistlation."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marijuana Market
Currently, substance abusers and kids are the people who control
most of the marijuana market -- the prohibition on the sale of
marijuana to adults has lead to the opposite of its intended
effects.
The last time school-age children were involved in the sales of
gin, rum and whiskey was during alcohol Prohibition, from 1917
to 1933. Since Prohibition ended, the use of alcohol has
decreased every year.
In the Netherlands, where the sale of marijuana is allowed to
responsible adults age 18 or older, the use of marijuana by
minors is five times less than what it is in the United States,
according to the British Medical Journal.
The use of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin by minors in the
Netherlands has declined since 1976, to one-tenth the rate in
the United States. Dutch police and prosecutors say that the
legal sale of cannabis drugs "builds a wall between the
hard and soft drug markets" and the statistics prove this
to be so. |
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MARIJUANA MYTHS
by Paul Hager
Chair, ICLU Drug Task Force
1. Marijuana causes brain damage
The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage is
the rhesus monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late
1970s. This study was reviewed by a distinguished panel of
scientists sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the
National Academy of Sciences. Their results were published under
the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982. Heath's work was
sharply criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four
monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the
misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as
"damaged". Actual studies of human populations of
marijuana users have shown no evidence of brain damage. For
example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain
damage in heavy users of marijuana. That same year, the American
Medical Association (AMA) officially came out in favor of
decriminalizing marijuana. That's not the sort of thing you'd
expect if the AMA thought marijuana damaged the brain.
2. Marijuana damages the reproductive system
This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas,
who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes,
and the work of researchers who dosed animals with near-lethal
amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the intoxicating part of
marijuana). Nahas' generalizations from his petri dishes to
human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as
being invalid. In the case of the animal experiments, the
animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30
days of the end of the experiment. Studies of actual human
populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely
affects the reproductive system.
3. Marijuana is a "gateway" drug -- it leads to
hard drugs
This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world example
of what happens when marijuana is readily available can be found
in Holland. The Dutch partially legalized marijuana in the
1970s. Since then, hard drug use -- heroin and cocaine -- have
DECLINED substantially. If marijuana really were a gateway drug,
one would have expected use of hard drugs to have gone up, not
down. This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also
been observed in the United States. Studies done in the early
1970s showed a negative correlation between use of marijuana and
use of alcohol. A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug
use in states that had decriminalized marijuana versus those
that had not, found that where marijuana was more available --
the states that had decriminalized -- hard drug abuse as
measured by emergency room episodes decreased. In short, what
science and actual experience tell us is that marijuana tends to
substitute for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol,
cocaine, and heroin.
4. Marijuana suppresses the immune system
Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive
system, this myth is based on studies where animals were given
extremely high -- in many cases, near-lethal -- doses of
cannabinoids. These results have never been duplicated in human
beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978 and one done in
1988 showed that hashish and marijuana may have actually
stimulated the immune system in the people studied.
5. Marijuana is much more dangerous than tobacco
Smoked marijuana contains about the same amount of carcinogens
as does an equivalent amount of tobacco. It should be
remembered, however, that a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much
more tobacco than a heavy marijuana smoker consumes marijuana.
This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90% addiction rate, is
the most addictive of all drugs while marijuana is less
addictive than caffeine. Two other factors are important. The
first is that paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana
users make it difficult to smoke safely. These laws make water
pipes and bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the
smoke, illegal and, hence, unavailable. The second is that, if
marijuana were legal, it would be more economical to have
cannabis drinks like bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle
East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic. This is in
stark contrast with "smokeless" tobacco products like
snuff which can cause cancer of the mouth and throat. When all
of these facts are taken together, it can be clearly seen that
the reverse is true: marijuana is much SAFER than tobacco.
6. Legal marijuana would cause carnage on the highways
Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair
performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of
the effect of marijuana on the automobile accident rate suggest
that it poses LESS of a hazard than alcohol. When a random
sample of fatal accident victims was studied, it was initially
found that marijuana was associated with RELATIVELY as many
accidents as alcohol. In other words, the number of accident
victims intoxicated on marijuana relative to the number of
marijuana users in society gave a ratio similar to that for
accident victims intoxicated on alcohol relative to the total
number of alcohol users. However, a closer examination of the
victims revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on
marijuana WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL. For people only
intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for
alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other research
using completely different methods. For example, an economic
analysis of the effects of decriminalization on marijuana usage
found that states that had reduced penalties for marijuana
possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in
alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents
decreased. This would suggest that, far from causing
"carnage", legal marijuana might actually save lives.
7. Marijuana "flattens" human brainwaves
This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a
Drug-Free America. A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that
purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave, and second,
a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on marijuana".
When researchers called up the TV networks to complain about
this commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the air. It
seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana
brainwave". In reality, marijuana has the effect of
slightly INCREASING alpha wave activity. Alpha waves are
associated with meditative and relaxed states which are, in
turn, often associated with human creativity.
8. Marijuana is more potent today than in the past
This myth is the result of bad data. The researchers who made
the claim of increased potency used as their baseline the THC
content of marijuana seized by police in the early 1970s. Poor
storage of this marijuana in un-air conditioned evidence rooms
caused it to deteriorate and decline in potency before any
chemical assay was performed. Contemporaneous, independent
assays of unseized "street" marijuana from the early
1970s showed a potency equivalent to that of modern
"street" marijuana. Actually, the most potent form of
this drug that was generally available was sold legally in the
1920s and 1930s by the pharmaceutical company Smith-Klein under
the name, "American Cannabis".
9. Marijuana impairs short-term memory
This is true but misleading. Any impairment of short-term memory
disappears when one is no longer under the influence of
marijuana. Often, the short-term memory effect is paired with a
reference to Dr. Heath's poor rhesus monkeys to imply that the
condition is permanent.
10. Marijuana lingers in the body like DDT
This is also true but misleading. Cannabinoids are fat soluble
as are innumerable nutrients and, yes, some poisons like DDT.
For example, the essential nutrient, Vitamin A, is fat soluble
but one never hears people who favor marijuana prohibition
making this comparison.
11. There are over a thousand chemicals in marijuana smoke
Again, true but misleading. The 31 August 1990 issue of the
magazine Science notes that of the over 800 volatile chemicals
present in roasted COFFEE, only 21 have actually been tested on
animals and 16 of these cause cancer in rodents. Yet, coffee
remains legal and is generally considered fairly safe.
12. No one has ever died of a marijuana overdose
This is true. It was put in to see if you are paying attention.
Animal tests have revealed that extremely high doses of
cannabinoids are needed to have lethal effect. This has led
scientists to conclude that the ratio of the amount of
cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (i.e.,
stoned) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to
40,000. In other words, to overdose, you would have to consume
40,000 times as much marijuana as you needed to get stoned. In
contrast, the ratio for alcohol varies between 1 to 4 and 1 to
10. It is easy to see how upwards of 5000 people die from
alcohol overdoses every year and no one EVER dies of marijuana
overdoses.
WHAT IS THE ICLU DRUG TASK FORCE?
The Indiana Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) Drug Task Force is
involved in education and lobbying efforts directed toward
reforming drug policy. Specifically, we support ACLU Policy
Statement number 210 which calls for the legalization of
marijuana. We also support an end to the drug war. In its place,
we favor "harm reduction" strategies which treat drug
abuse as what it is -- a medical problem -- rather than a
criminal justice problem.
The Drug Task Force also works to end urine and hair testing of
workers by private industry. These kinds of tests violate worker
privacy to no good purpose because they detect past use of
certain drugs (mostly marijuana) while ignoring others (e.g.,
LSD) and cannot detect current impairment. In situations where
public and worker safety is a legitimate concern, we advocate
impairment testing devices which reliably detect degradation of
performance without infringing upon worker privacy.
For more information about the activities of the Drug Task
Force, call the ICLU at (317) 635-4059 or call Paul Hager at
(812) 333-1384 or e-mail to hagerp@cs.indiana.edu on the
InterNet.
SOURCES
1) Marijuana and Health, Institute of Medicine, National Academy
of Sciences, 1982. Note: the Committee on Substance Abuse and
Habitual Behavior of the "Marijuana and Health" study
had its part of the final report suppressed when it reviewed the
evidence and recommended that possession of small amounts of
marijuana should no longer be a crime (TIME magazine, July 19,
1982). The two JAMA studies are: Co, B.T., Goodwin, D.W., Gado,
M., Mikhael, M., and Hill, S.Y.: "Absence of cerebral
atrophy in chronic cannabis users", JAMA, 237:1229-1230,
1977; and, Kuehnle, J., Mendelson, J.H., Davis, K.R., and New,
P.F.J.: "Computed tomographic examination of heavy
marijuana smokers", JAMA, 237:1231-1232, 1977.
2) See Marijuana and Health, ibid., for information on this
research. See also, Marijuana Reconsidered (1978) by Dr. Lester
Grinspoon.
3) The Dutch experience is written up in "The Economics of
Legalizing Drugs", by Richard J. Dennis, The Atlantic
Monthly, Vol 266, No. 5, Nov 1990, p. 130. See "A
Comparison of Marijuana Users and Non-users" by Norman
Zinberg and Andrew Weil (1971) for the negative correlation
between use of marijuana and use of alcohol. The 1993 Rand
Corporation study is "The Effect of Marijuana
Decriminalization on Hospital Emergency Room Episodes: 1975 -
1978" by Karyn E. Model.
4) See a review of studies and their methodology in
"Marijuana and Immunity", Journal of Psychoactive
Drugs, Vol 20(1), Jan-Mar 1988. Studies showing stimulation of
the immune system: Kaklamani, et al., "Hashish smoking and
T- lymphocytes", 1978; Kalofoutis et al., "The
significance of lymphocyte lipid changes after smoking
hashish", 1978. The 1988 study: Wallace, J.M., Tashkin, D.P.,
Oishi, J.S., Barbers, R.G., "Peripheral Blood Lymphocyte
Subpopulations and Mitogen Responsiveness in Tobacco and
Marijuana Smokers", 1988, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs,
ibid.
5) The 90% figure comes from Health Consequences of Smoking:
Nicotine Addiction, Surgeon General's Report, 1988. In Health
magazine in an article entitled, "Hooked, Not Hooked"
by Deborah Franklin (pp. 39-52), compares the addictives of
various drugs and ranks marijuana below coffeine. For current
information on cannabis drinks see Working Men and Ganja:
Marijuana Use in Rural Jamaica by M. C. Dreher, Institute for
the Study of Human Issues, 1982, ISBN 0-89727-025-8. For
information on cannabis and actual cancer risk, see Marijuana
and Health, ibid.
6) For a survey of studies relating to cannabis and highway
accidents see "Marijuana, Driving and Accident
Safety", by Dale Gieringer, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs,
ibid. The effect of decriminalization on highway accidents is
analyzed in "Do Youths Substitute Alcohol and Marijuana?
Some Econometric Evidence" by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit
Laixuthai, Nov. 1992, University of Illinois at Chicago.
7) For information about the Partnership ad, see Jack Herer's
book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 1990, p. 74. See also
"Hard Sell in the Drug War", The Nation, March 9,
1992, by Cynthia Cotts, which reveals that the Partnership
receives a large percentage of its advertizing budget from
alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies and is thus
disposed toward exaggerating the risks of marijuana while
downplaying the risks of legal drugs. For information on memory
and the alpha brainwave enhancement effect, see "Marijuana,
Memory, and Perception", by R. L. Dornbush, M.D., M. Fink,
M.D., and A. M. Freedman, M.D., presented at the 124th annual
meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 3-7, 1971.
8) See "Cannabis 1988, Old Drug New Dangers, The Potency
Question" by Tod H Mikuriya, M.D. and Michael Aldrich,
Ph.D., Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid.
9) See Marijuana and Health, ibid. Also see "Marijuana,
Memory, and Perception", ibid.
10) The fat solubility of cannabinoids and certain vitamins is
well known. See Marijuana and Health, ibid. For some information
on vitamin A, see "The A Team" in Scientific American,
Vol 264, No. 2, February 1991, p. 16.
11) See "Too Many Rodent Carcinogens: Mitogenesis Increases
Mutagenesis", Bruce N. Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold, Science,
Vol 249, 31 August 1990, p. 971.
12) Cannabis and alcohol toxicity is compared in Marijuana
Reconsidered, ibid., p. 227. Yearly alcohol overdoses was taken
from "Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs,
Consequences, and Alternatives" by Ethan A. Nadelmann,
Science, Vol 245, 1 September 1989, p. 943.
paul hager hagerp@moose.cs.indiana.edu
"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is
reason." -- Thomas Paine, "The Age of Reason"
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