Ahh, drugs, the cornerstone of American culture. Throughout time we have found many ways to turn off our brains, the most popular being of course, weed.
Hemp, Mary Jane, bud, pot, reefa, hash, ganja. Whatever you call it you got a love it.
But seriously, for like 50 years the man has been oppressing the sweet bud. Why is that you may ask, well it’s a very complicated history involving such favorites as
* Racism
* Fear
* Protection of Corporate Profits
* Yellow Journalism
* Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
* Personal Career Advancement and Greed
It however is not illegal out of danger or brain damage. In fact, weed has never, ever, ever killed someone. Also it can't cause cancer as THC inhibits the growth of cancer.
So, where does the story start? Well it starts about 8000 years ago when the first fabric was woven out of hemp (the original name for cannabis). Then at some point during history, someone was probably burning hemp and the smoke got him buzzed. Then through the wonders of human ingenuity, it was bred to produce more "buds" (the reproductive organs) which hold the majority of the THC. Thus cannabis was born.
So with hemp being used as industrial fibers and cannabis being used as drugs by the Mexicans, time passed. Then during the 1900's when for the same reason the Mexicans bother us now (coming in to Cali, and taking up all the hard manual labor), they bothered us then. Soon the African and Latina immigrants learned of the good times the Mexicans were having and followed suit.
Once the roaring 20's came and jazz, and love and free spiritedness were going across the nation, the white people decided this was bad because the people they didn't like were happier than they were. So with the white majority, hash became a "foreign drug" that “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.” The name "marijuana" is actually just some gibberish that sounds Spanish so it seems foreign. So after years of hate and ganja being labeled as the reasons for domestic violence and homosexuality, hashish was outlawed in 1937 using the Spanish name.
It’s incredibly ironic as the deciding votes were done by big hemp farmers that soon realized that there cash crop was now illegal. So, now that you know that the true reasons of one of the most unjust laws in history, please promote the medical and industrial use of our friend the cannabis plant.
Also for more information on why weed is illegal please visit http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/
For more of the positive aspects of the hemp plant you can watch the GOVERNMENT SPONSERED video on the benefits of hemp
http://www.archive.org/details/Hemp_for_victory_1942
Also, for those of you that use as cannabis as a medical plant, I hope that weed is helping you and that whatever you are using it for will go away. For those of you taking advantage of the system or using pot as a recreational drug please understands that weed makes you happy with doing nothing. While this is nice, please only use it in moderation and as a delicacy (like baklava- which btw, mixes with ganja very nicely).
