Nesta
Well-Known Member
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but we should not ignore how cannabis became illegal in the 1930's. That is - hysteria, fear & racism; without any logic or one bit of scientific evidence.
It's puzzling & disturbing to look back at the way MJ prohibition began. It's amazing, really, that people believed the lies but they were naive (ignorant!) & more trusting of their leaders. But the propaganda those leaders unleashed was so powerful that nearly 100 years later their lies are still taken as unquestioned truth by many. And it's the folks that fear MJ that need to hear how it was banned in the first place.
http://greenflowermedia.com/blogpos...stigma-of-cannabis-formed-in-the-first-place/
Here are some excerpts:
-Interestingly, Harry Anslinger – destined to become the father of the nation’s long drug war – did not initially envision cannabis within the scope of the FBN.
As Johann Hari outlines in his recent book, Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs: “Harry had long dismissed cannabis as a nuisance that would only distract him from the drugs he really wanted to fight. He insisted it was not addictive, and stated ‘there is probably no more absurd fallacy’ than the claim that [cannabis] caused violent crime.”
However, much more dangerous substances like heroin and cocaine were not problematic enough to warrant attention and funding for the FBN from the higher-ups. So Anslinger, in a bid for increased revenue during the Great Depression, launched an attack against 'marihuana'.
-Anslinger didn’t stop there. As Sullum writes, he “warned that ‘marihuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes’ and estimated that half the violent crimes in areas occupied by ‘Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana'."
A lot of the myths surrounding the herb have proven to be unsubstantiated, but they are laughable compared to this contemptible racist genesis of the movement leading to federal cannabis prohibition.
It's puzzling & disturbing to look back at the way MJ prohibition began. It's amazing, really, that people believed the lies but they were naive (ignorant!) & more trusting of their leaders. But the propaganda those leaders unleashed was so powerful that nearly 100 years later their lies are still taken as unquestioned truth by many. And it's the folks that fear MJ that need to hear how it was banned in the first place.
http://greenflowermedia.com/blogpos...stigma-of-cannabis-formed-in-the-first-place/
Here are some excerpts:
-Interestingly, Harry Anslinger – destined to become the father of the nation’s long drug war – did not initially envision cannabis within the scope of the FBN.
As Johann Hari outlines in his recent book, Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs: “Harry had long dismissed cannabis as a nuisance that would only distract him from the drugs he really wanted to fight. He insisted it was not addictive, and stated ‘there is probably no more absurd fallacy’ than the claim that [cannabis] caused violent crime.”
However, much more dangerous substances like heroin and cocaine were not problematic enough to warrant attention and funding for the FBN from the higher-ups. So Anslinger, in a bid for increased revenue during the Great Depression, launched an attack against 'marihuana'.
-Anslinger didn’t stop there. As Sullum writes, he “warned that ‘marihuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes’ and estimated that half the violent crimes in areas occupied by ‘Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana'."
A lot of the myths surrounding the herb have proven to be unsubstantiated, but they are laughable compared to this contemptible racist genesis of the movement leading to federal cannabis prohibition.
