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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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