Who wants to be branded a marijuana head in our drug testing economy? No one that I know. It is an expensive label derived from a stereotype of cannabis abusers, but who generally do not believe they are.
The mental construction of the ‘evil drug’ placed in cannabis officially dates back only 81 years in the United States. One man, Harry Anslinger, made it possible.
The birth of the drug wars
In 1930, Harry Anslinger became the first commissioner in the US of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which we now know as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The story goes that he did not initially oppose marijuana at all, saying, “There is no more absurd fallacy” regarding harm to people and its provocation to violence. (1) That is … until he became a commissioner.
Alcohol prohibition would soon end, and so it appears Anslinger chose to add marijuana to heroin and cocaine for the sake of his job security, holding the position for a record 32 years.
In a radio speech, he stated, regarding what was then known as “Indian hemp”, that young people would become “slaves to this narcotic, continuing the addiction until they deteriorate mentally, go crazy, turn to violent crime. and murder. “
Despite little scientific evidence for his claims at the time, he craftily sensationalized marijuana and disparaged African Americans and Latinos, in particular, as those leading the way. Anslinger managed to scare away the begeebers of the Americans.
Commissioner Anslinger’s efforts created the context for the film Reefer Madness in 1936, to further terrorize the American population. As the person who wrote the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, (2) his dramatic testimony before Congress certainly influenced its passage.
Additionally, Anslinger found an important ally in William Randolph Hearst of Hearst’s media empire, who easily provided the platform and gave voice to Anslinger’s anti-Indian hemp campaign. (3) Some say Hearst partnered with Anslinger to protect its own interests in the logging company against potential competition from industrial hemp.
The medical marijuana challenge continues
To this day, cannabis is a Schedule I drug along with heroin and others that are claimed to “have no currently accepted medical treatment use in the US.” However, this official statement runs counter to the government’s own understanding of the plant’s evidence: benefits based. Pure hypocrisy.
How is that? In 2003, US Patent No. 6,630,507 was granted to the US Department of Health and Human Services. (4) It is a patent for the potential use of plant cannabinoids found in cannabis sativa that do not they are psychoactive, and for the stated purpose of protecting the brain in the event of degenerative disease and damage.
Although 29 states and Washington DC have legalized medical marijuana, there are many restrictions, some states are cannabidiol (CBD) only and others have no provisions for the use of cannabis at all. When you get the chance, watch this video, The Life You Deserve: Medical Marijuana, created by the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC.
What more evidence could there be than the amazing recovery of the girl in the video? Cannabis is a plant, for crying out loud. Here’s what Willie Nelson has to say about it:
“I think people need to be educated about the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and wants it to grow, what does he give the government the right to say that God is wrong? “
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“The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937: Statement of Harry J. Anslinger”. Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
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Text complete: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm
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Martin A. Lee. Smoke signals. Scribner. 2012.