Marijuana before Prohibition

The Politics of Pot

Chapter 17

Marijuana before Prohibition

  Cannabis Hemp* -- Marijuana -- was one of the world’s biggest cash crops before it was outlawed in 1938. Its use spanned the globe. So many products were made from Hemp that in 1938, Popular Mechanics Magazine published an article about Hemp that was titled, “New Billion Dollar Crop.” The February 1938 issue of Mechanical Engineering Magazine also ran an article about Cannabis titled, “The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that can be Grown.” These magazines praised the Hemp plant for its versatility as a natural resource.

  Mankind has used Hemp for thousands of years. The earliest known woven fabric was Hemp -- from the 8^th century BC. Hemp leaves were found with Egyptian Mummies. Ancient cultures used the drug to ease the pain of dying.

  For more than a thousand years before the time of Christ until 1883 AD, Cannabis Hemp was the planet’s largest agricultural crop and most important industry, involving thousands of products and businesses. Hemp was used to produce the overall majority of the earth’s fiber, fabric, lighting oil, paper, incense and medicines. It was also the primary source of food oil and protein for humans and animals.

  Cannabis Hemp was so useful that governments forced their citizens to grow it by law. This natural product was so important that wars were fought over access to it. The War of 1812 -- between the U.S. and Britain -- was fought over access to Russian Hemp. It was also the reason that Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812.

  There was sixty tons of Hemp on the U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) when she was launched in 1797. She is the oldest commissioned ship afloat and still serves in the U.S Navy. The sails, rigging ropes, cargo nets, sheet lines and anchor lines were all made from Hemp. The sailors’ uniforms were also made from Hemp. The flags, pennants and the caulking that was used to seal the gaps between the planks to keep the sea out of the boat were all made from Cannabis Hemp. The oil in the lamps was squeezed from Hemp seeds. The U.S.S Constitution carried well over four miles of Hemp rope. Even the Ship’s Charts, Maps, Logs, and Bibles were all made from Hemp Plant. Ninety percent of all ships’ sails from the 5^th century BC until the late 19^th century AD were made from Hemp. The word “canvas” is the Dutch pronunciation of the Greek word “Kannabis.”

  Until 1883, from 75 to 90% of the world’s paper was made from Hemp.

The Guttenberg Bible and the first and second draft of the Declaration of Independence were written on Hemp paper. The paper made from Hemp was superior to the papyrus alternative, lasted a hundred times longer, was easier to make and produced less pollution in the process of making it. Until 1937, 70-90% of all rope, twine and cordage were made from Hemp. 

  Van Gogh, Rembrandt and most artists used Hemp canvas because it withstands heat, mildew, and insects and is not damaged by light. For thousands of years, all paint and varnishes were made from Hempseed oil. In 1935, 58,000 tons (116 million pounds) were used in the paint and varnish industry.

  Until 1800, Hempseed oil was the most used lighting oil in the world. Abraham Lincoln wrote and read by the light of a Hempseed oil lamp. John Diesel -- the inventor of the diesel engine -- built the engine to run on Hempseed oil and other seed oils. Henry Ford recognized that Hemp and other renewable biomass resources could replace 90% of all fossil fuel and he even built a car out of plastics made from Hemp! According to Cornell University Science Digest (1983), Cannabis is at least four times richer in sustainable, renewable biomass/cellulose potential than its nearest rivals on the planet -- cornstalk, sugarcane and kenaf trees.

  Cannabis Hemp has been used for thousands of years as a medicinal Herb. Until it was outlawed, Cannabis Hemp was the second and third most used medicine in America for humans and animals. Queen Victoria used Cannabis Resins for her menstrual cramps and PMS. The US Pharmacopoeia of the 19^th century stated that Cannabis should be used for treating; fatigue, fits of coughing, rheumatism, asthma, delirium tremens, migraine headaches, and the cramps and depression of menstruation.

  Recent research has shown that Cannabis is useful and safe for treating many health problems including asthma, glaucoma, nausea associated with chemotherapy, tumors, epilepsy, infections, stress, anorexia, rheumatism, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Today, we’re hearing reports about people with terrible illnesses like multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, glaucoma, cancer, etc. who are responding remarkably well to Medicinal Marijuana. Then we find that these same people are being arrested and placed in jail only to have their terrible symptoms return. Their only crime is growing and/or possessing a Medicinal Herb which has been given to us by our Creator. On the first page of the Bible -- Genesis 1:29 -- God gives us, “All the Seed Bearing Herbs.” Read it yourself. Even if you don’t believe the Bible, you have to admit, it’s a great reference.

Many of these people have prescriptions for Cannabis from their doctors but the Federal Government doesn’t really care about their health and would rather have them rot in the Prison-Industrial-Complex. 

  There are many books and papers on the subject of the medical uses of Marijuana. A good one is; “Marijuana, The Forbidden Medicine” by Lester Grinspoon, MD and James B. Bakalar. This book has case studies that follow actual patients with serious illnesses that respond favorably to Marijuana Therapy.

 Cannabis Hemp was also one of the world’s most import food crops. Hempseed was used in porridge, soups and gruels by the entire world’s people until the 20^th century. Hempseed oil contains the highest amount of essential fatty oils in the plant kingdom. These essential oils are responsible for our immune responses and clear the arteries of cholesterol and plaque. 

  Hemp has been used as a building material for centuries. “Isochanvre,” a rediscovered French building material made from Hemp hurds -- mixed with lime, petrifies into a mineral state and lasts for centuries. Archeologists found a bridge in the south of France from 600 AD that was built with this process.

  Hemp building material and plywood is being manufactured today by a few eco-minded visionaries. One acre of Hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as four acres of trees. If Hemp was legal again, the world’s forests would be safe. Hemp fiber building material is inexpensive and fire retardant, with excellent thermal and sound-insulating qualities and superior strength and flexibility.  Hemp produces renewable cellulose that can be used to make plastic plumbing pipe, replacing non-renewable coal or petroleum based chemicals. (Renewable resources are always superior to fossil fuels.)

  And last but not least, Marijuana is the best recreational drug for fun and relaxation. It’s safer than alcohol and tobacco and isn’t addictive as these two legal drugs are known to be. In test after test and in reams of research, not one case of cancer or any other disease has been shown to be caused by Cannabis.

  These two legal drugs -- alcohol and tobacco -- can’t make the same claim. A half million people die every year in the USA from smoking cigarettes. Another fifty thousand die from second hand smoke. And alcohol is responsible for fifty percent of all highway deaths and sixty five percent of all murders, and at least one hundred fifty thousand deaths from alcohol abuse each year. This is a lot more death than the three thousand people allegedly killed by terrorists on September 11^th, 2001. And we invaded two countries to avenge that atrocity.

  So why is Cannabis Hemp illegal?

  Hemp is illegal because a group of rich industrialists felt directly threatened by the superior natural quality of this versatile plant. These men had major investments in the paper and chemical industries. They knew that Hemp paper and the whole menu of Hemp products would be better than their synthetic versions and would last longer and could be produced in a more environmentally friendly way.

  They knew that the Hemp plant could put them out of business. Especially since a new machine had just been developed (in the 1930’s) that could process the raw material in Cannabis Hemp many times faster and better than the previous work-intensive method. These Rich Robber Barons waged a media war against Hemp and used their friends in high government offices -- that they bribed or bought -- just like today. Suddenly we had the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act.  

  This conspiracy of Industry and Government is very easy to understand since it’s so prevalent today in George W. Bush’s administration, where the number of corporate lobbyists has quadrupled since George W. took office. In this administration, the corporations and lobbyists are writing the Laws and bribing the Congress to pass them. The Tobacco Industry is so brazen that they passed out campaign checks on the floor of Congress just before an important Tobacco Bill was being voted on. (In 1995, Congressman John Boehner House Majority handed out campaign checks from the tobacco industry to members on the House floor at a time when lawmakers were considering eliminating a tobacco subsidy.) Today, we have lots of congressmen going to jail for accepting bribes from powerful lobbyists so things haven’t changed much since the Conspiracy against Marijuana began in the 1930’s. 

  The blending of Corporate Power and Government is so prevalent in this country today that government officials and corporate officials are interchangeable, in fact, that’s exactly what’s happening. It’s a revolving door between corporations and the government agencies that are supposed to be regulating their respective industries. That’s why the head of an agency like the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is always the former head of a major drug company. You can bet when these guys make important decisions, they have the industry’s interests in mind and not the American People. It’s the same thing for our judges. They were all corporate lawyers so they usually rule with the corporate side in most cases.

  Some people call it Fascism when government and industry combine their power to oppress the citizens. Lots of knowledgeable people are saying we are being ruled by a Fascist Dictatorship NOW! People like ex-Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner and Former Nixon Chief of Staff James Dean. Both of these are Republicans so I’m not spouting any left-wing propaganda here.

  Just like today, there were corrupt politicians in Congress in the1930’s ready to do the bidding of the highest bidder/briber. The conspiring industrialists were William Randolph Hearst of the Hearst Newspaper Empire and Hearst Paper Manufacturing Company, and the DuPont Family Chemical Company. Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh was the chief financial backer of the DuPont Company. He was also President Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury. He appointed his future nephew in law, Harry J Anslinger, to be the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD). 

  Anslinger testified in Congress in 1937 that, “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” He told the congressional committee that 50% of all violent crimes committed in the USA were being committed by Spaniards, Mexican-Americans, Latin-Americans, Filipinos, African-Americans and Greeks. And these crimes could be traced directly to Marijuana. (FBI statistics show that from the 1930’s until the present, 65-75% of all murders in the USA were actually related to alcohol.)

  Anslinger read into the Congressional Record stories of white women being raped by reefer crazed Negroes. His overt racism didn’t seem to bother the congressmen. He would describe Negroes with big bungy lips. The congressmen were horrified to think that this evil Herb (Marijuana) would cause a white woman to look at a Negro. And the thought of a white woman actually touching a Negro was just too much for these mostly Southern Congressmen on the Drug Committee to handle.

  Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, and Anslinger had two well placed allies in politics. The powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Robert L Doughton and the General Counsel to the Treasury Department, Herman Oliphant were recruited to cut the red-tape and push the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act through Congress.

  They were helpful when objections were raised by farmers and doctors who wanted to know why such an important resource was being taken away from them. They dismissed all criticism as nothing but an, “Excuse so that people can smoke pot.” 

  The Industrial Barons and their financial backers were afraid that the newly invented Hemp processing machines -- called Decorticators -- would be able to deliver enough raw material to the market to easily mass produce Hemp-based products. (A picture of a Decoritator can be found in Jack Herer’s book “The Emperor Wears no Clothes” on page fifteen.) William Randolph Hearst owned thousands of acres of paper-producing timber-land. He was going to loose millions or even billions of dollars if Hemp-produced paper manufacturing was allowed to continue. It didn’t matter to him that one-acre of Hemp could replace four-acres of timber. (This would save our remaining forests.) And Hemp paper production would cut toxic chemicals used in paper production by 700%! The only thing people like Hearst care about is GREED so he used all his corrosive capitalist corruption to stomp out this God-given plant.

  The other main Industrial Conspirator, the DuPont Family of Companies was just starting to make plastics and synthetic fiber from coal and oil and didn’t want any competition from Cannabis Hemp. The DuPont company was called “The Merchant of Death” for the manufacture of explosives for the American Civil War and many other wars that followed. They also supplied explosives to the Nazis in 1933 -- which was against the law. That’s right, they smuggled weapons to Hitler. They could see the huge potential for profit and they also must have had a little White\Racist thing going on.

  In 1937, just as the Hemp Decorticator was making mass produced Hemp products feasible, the DuPont Company recorded patents for making plastics from oil and also a new sulfite/sulfate process for making paper from wood pulp.  Hemp produced paper and plastics employed environmentally safe and natural technologies that threatened the lucrative financial plans of Hearst, DuPont and their greedy partners. DuPont’s scientists knew all about the superior qualities of Hemp because they were the world’s leading researchers in the process of nitrating cellulose and were the largest processor of cellulose in the nation in the early part of the 20^th century. They were extracting the cellulose out of Hemp for the manufacture of explosives.  DuPont was the USA’s largest explosive powder company and supplied 40% of the explosives for the allies in World War II.  Because of their research, DuPont’s scientists knew that hemp was the most abundant, cleanest fiber resource for paper, plastics and rayon.  

  So these Great Men, DuPont, Hearst and Andrew Mellon instituted a Conspiracy against Cannabis-Hemp. They even gave Hemp a new name -- Marijuana -- to confuse people and to disassociate the versatile Hemp plant from the evil drug that made Negroes attack white women. William Randolph Hearst used his newspaper empire to start a Crusade against Hemp. A Marijuana-related auto accident would dominate the front page of his newspapers for weeks while alcohol-related car accidents -- which outnumbered marijuana-related 10,000 to 1 -- made only the back pages.

  Hearst had previously blamed Cocaine for the majority of rapes of white women by black men in this country from 1910 to 1920. Now he had a new demon, instead of “Cocaine crazed negroes” it was “Marijuana crazed negroes” raping white women.

  Hearst also started to portray Mexicans as lazy Pot-smoking criminals after 800,000 acres of his Mexican timberland was seized by the “Marijuana smoking” army of Poncho Villa. His newspapers and other sensationalist tabloids of the era ran hysterical headlines portraying Negroes and Mexicans as frenzied beasts who smoked Pot and played anti-white “voodoo satanic” music (jazz). He accused these Reefer maddened animals of such high crimes as: stepping on white men’s shadows, looking white men directly in the eyes for three seconds or more, looking at a white women twice and laughing at a white person.”

  For these “crimes” hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Blacks spent millions of years in prisons, jails and chain gangs under harsh segregation laws that remained in effect in the US until the 1960’s.

  The wealthy Industrialists and their paid-for politicians were very effective with their campaign of lies, confusion and racism. Today, we still have a direct DuPont family member calling for the eradication of Cannabis Hemp. Dr. Robert Dupont MD -- White House Drug Chief under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford and the first Director of National Institute on Drug Abuse -- says there is still no medical benefit in Marijuana (in 2006). He also wrote an article in the January 11, 1994 edition of USA Today titled, “Don’t Lift Marijuana Ban.” He’s keeping up the old family lies. If Hemp was still legal, 80% of Dupont’s business would never have happened! The great majority of the paper-mill and plastics pollution that has poisoned our Northwestern and Southeastern rivers would never have occurred.

  Harry J Anslinger (the Head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the 1930s) wasn’t totally opposed to all Drugs. According to Anslinger’s own autobiographical book, “The Murders,” he had been supplying Morphine to Senator Joe McCarthy for years. He explained that he had given the illegal drugs to McCarthy, “So the Communists would not be able to blackmail this great American Senator for his drug dependency weakness.”

  We just had our modern day equivalent of this pathetic story. Rush Limbaugh, the Far Right-Wing Hate Monger and Propagandist for the War Criminal Republican Party, has also been exposed as a Drug Addict. He’s been buying illegal drugs (Oxycontin) that are just as powerful as morphine. I got this from the FDA’s web-site; “OxyContin contains oxycodone, a very strong narcotic pain reliever similar to morphine.”

  In 1988 -- after reviewing all evidence brought forth in a lawsuit against the government's prohibition of medical Marijuana -- the DEA's own administrative law judge (Judge Francis Young) wrote: "The evidence in this record clearly shows that Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the Drug Enforcement Administration to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence." Judge Francis Young of the Drug Enforcement Administration went on to say: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. In strict medical terms, Marijuana is safer than many foods we commonly consume." Judge Young recommended that the DEA allow Marijuana to be prescribed as medicine, but the DEA has refused.

  We’re not allowed to grow Medical Marijuana -- or Industrial Hemp -- while our government (USA) is planting uranium munitions and fertilizing it with the blood of innocent men, women and children in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. We have also used these weapons in the former Yugoslavia and on the Puerto Rican Island of Vieques. They call it Depleted Uranium or DU but this stuff is still 60% radioactive and has a half-life of 4.6 BILLION years. Our Department of Defense says these weapons are not radioactive but when friendly-fire hit our own troop carriers with it in the First Gulf War, soldiers in HazMat suits buried those trucks under thirty feet of desert sand!

   I have to repeat this because it sounds so unbelievable. Planting the seed of the most versatile plant known to man is a crime while planting radioactive (DU) seeds of destruction that will mutate and kill for thousands of years is OK. This is truly a backwards world. In my world, Cannabis Hemp would be legal and the use of Uranium Munitions would be a WAR CRIME! The only explanation for this insanity is that the world is being ruled by the Devil. And George Bush is his Minister of War Crimes.

  The weapons that use Depleted Uranium are the tank busting rounds and the Bunker-Busters. DU is extra dense so it goes through tanks like a knife through butter. When it hits the tank, it gives off radioactive dust. If this gets in your lungs, you’re dead. This weapon also causes cancers and birth defects. Since its use, cancers and birth defects are increasing exponentially in the areas where it’s been deployed. Even our own soldiers are experiencing birth defects in their offspring. Children are being born without mouths or limbs because of this hellish weapon.

  The former Secretary General of the United Nations -- Kofi Anon -- declared that Depleted Uranium Munitions are “Illegal Weapons of Mass Destruction.” So there are Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the only problem is, We Brought Them !!

  And just recently we learned that we’re also using Phosphorus bombs against Iraqi civilians. This is an outlawed Chemical Weapon! When Saddam used it on his own people we called him a War Criminal. Now we just call it an incendiary weapon when we use it to melt whole families to the inside walls of their houses.  

  Every time George W. Bush says he’s a Christian I want to puke. I remember when he was campaigning; he said Jesus was his favorite philosopher and he would have a more humble foreign policy. When he was elected, I saw some idiot at a political rally shout at him, “It’s great that God is back in the White House.” George said, “Thanks.” This is Heresy and Blasphemy of Biblical proportions.   Bush says he believes in the sanctity of life and that no federal money should be spent on death. I agree! But try telling that to the Iraqi people. They’ll laugh in your face.

  According to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Bush told him: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.” I think Bush was listening to a spirit from the other end of the spectrum.

  The Christian President George Bush should know these words, straight from the Bible (Galatians 6:7), “You reap what you sow.” He is sowing death and destruction on a Biblical Scale. In the summer of 2006 he gave the Israelis the green light to invade Lebanon -- again. American-made weapons killed innocent Lebanese citizens and destroyed their country. They were still rebuilding from the last round of Israeli destruction.

  I have a friend in St Martin who’s from Lebanon. The last time I saw him, he said he was returning to his country because the civil war was over and the country was rebounding. He was proud to tell me that he was going to help rebuild Lebanon. He told me it would be a jewel on the Mediterranean. I just hope he’s still alive.

* For the Authoritative Historical Reference of the Conspiracy against Marijuana, read the Cult Classic, “The Emperor Wears No Cloths” by Author Jack Herer. This book gives a much more in-depth history of the Cannabis – Hemp plant. In fact, I used it for a reference (with permission) for this chapter and most of the facts and information contained here comes from this excellent book.