The "War On Drugs" should more appropriately be termed "The War On The American People"!
I am a member of NORML
http://norml.org/
and LEAP (Due to long past employment experience):
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
Stop the madness!
"It's no secret there's a huge war on drugs going on everyday. You see it in the streets, cops pulling random people over and searching their cars, drug dogs at their heels. Now if you're like me, you're asking yourself, how can they make such a big deal over something as harmless as cannabis? I mean there has been many test over cannabis and results tell us it's not harmful. In fact, it has been reintroduced as a medicine in a few states. It has been discovered that some cannabinoids help fight cancer, I'm sure you're saying, "But if it helped cancer they would make that more open to the public...right?" wrong... let me explain by telling you the real story behind cannibis being illegalized.... As you probably know the hemp plant has been used for many things through out history: food, medicine, rope, paper, fabric, and even at one point as legal tender. This goes all the way back to 7000 b.c in records . It started drawing public attention in the 1900s as a recreational drug.
In 1619 the first law was passed in Jamestown colony, virginia, ordering all farmers to grow indian hempseed or they would be jailed. Following the mexican revolution, mexicans started coming into America bringing with them marijuana plants for recreational use. The small farms and large farms grew tension because of the large farms using cheaper mexican labor.
Not only were the mexicans bringing it over, but also the mormons who visited mexico in 1910. They brought it back to salt lake city and caused the church an uproar over cannabis. Their reaction was used to fuel the first anti marijuana state law. Then Wyoming followed, then Texas, Iowa, Nevada, Oregon, washington and nebraska. These laws were passed specifically targeting Mexican- American population.
In the eastern states they were using it to fight African- Americans, stating.."Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men?s shadows and look at a white woman twice.? People started to generate fear, thinking Mexicans and blacks were snaring white children with marijuana.
Then in 1931 the story changed to marijuana causes violence ,due to Dr. A. E . Fossier who wrote this in New Orleans medical and surgical journal, "Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.?
From 1919 to 1933 they had the alcohol prohibition, with everything out in the open to distract people from drug laws silently being passed. however drugs could not completely be outlawed on a federal level, so they used federal taxes to get around it.
In 1930 a new government agency was created to find the problem and solution to drugs. Harry j. Anslinger was named director of this agency. He knew that the taxing of opiate and cocaine use weren't enough to help build his agency so he decided to include marijuana and started working on the illegalization of it. He focused on the aspects of rascism, violence and fear to feed it.
Harry had a lot of help from William Randolf Hearst to promote his stand against marijuana through Hearst's newspaper company. Why would he help? first off, he owned a newpaper company and made lots of money off stories about crazy mexicans and devil weed. Second- He owned a large timber company and was losing money because of hemp. Third he hated mexicans because he lost 800,000 acres of timber land to Pancho Villa.
Anslinger started receiving help from various companies to protect their business from hemp competition. After years of secret planning and media coverage from Hearst , Anslinger proceeded to congress with his plans and numerous articles from Hearst newspaper about ax murderers using marijuana.
Thus came the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This was the first of many powerful people who helped make marijuana illegal. So as you can see Marijuana wasn't outlawed because ," it's dangerous, or causes violence.." It was outlawed to suit the needs of rich politicians and corporate companies. So there you have it ladies and gentlemen....."
http://www.examiner.com/cannabis-rev...ally-illegal-1