The Truth about Reefer Madness

Marijuana has maintained quite a negative reputation in the United States. Over the years, Americans have been misinformed about the full impact marijuana can have on individuals and our society at large. The negative results from rapid industrialization and economic development are far worse than of those who use marijuana for any of its many purposes.
Marijuana’s scientific name is cannabis. Cannabis is defined as: the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa. From a timeline on drugwarrant.com it is shown that in the year 1619 during America’s early development, Jamestown Colony, Virginia actually passed a law that required farmers to grow hemp. By the 1700s hemp was the primary crop grown by George Washington and was the secondary crop grown by Thomas Jefferson. Hemp was used for many different purposes, ranging from soldiers’ clothing to ship sails.
According to Mel Frank and Ed Rosenthal found on rosebud.com, the use of hemp from the cannabis plant goes back much further than American settlers. “We don’t know when cannabis and humanity first met” they write, “the earliest cultural evidence of cannabis come from the oldest known Neolithic culture in China, the Yang-shao”. These people weaved fishing nets with hemp, used the cannabis seeds for food and eventually replaced their animal skins with hemp clothing. Marijuana was prepared and prescribed for things like malaria, beriberi, constipation, rheumatic pains, absent-mindedness and female disorders. They also made the hemp seed into oil. This oil was used for cooking, fueling lamps and making soap. After all of the oil was extracted a residue known as “hemp cake”, that contained about 30 percent protein, was used to feed animals. The Chinese also invented hemp paper which is currently used for Canadian currency and Bibles.
The cannabis plant has contributed greatly to the development of mankind overall. According to Pete Guither found on drugwarrant.com, “Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1 percent of the time that it’s been in use.” Which raises the question¬¬: why is marijuana against the law? The late comedian Bill Hicks asked his audience this very question on a video from youtube.com. He waited a minute– then replied, “It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn't the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit paranoid? ... It grows everywhere, serves a thousands different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake.” One of the Christians’ positive theories on alcohol has its origins in the documentations of Jesus turning water into wine– which is viewed by many as a divine miracle. What about the cannabis plant? From Genesis 1:29-31, (New American Standard Bible) it is written, “Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.’” These two statements make America’s criminalization of marijuana seem hypocritical and yes, even a bit paranoid. The United Sates is a nation predominantly built on Christian values yet a lot of the motives behind criminalizing marijuana involved, “racism, fear, protection of corporate profits, yellow journalism, corrupt legislators and greed.” (Guither)
“In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding influx of Mexican-Americans.” (Guither) Large farms were using cheaper “Mexican labor” and the smaller farms were ultimately suffering from it. Mexicans brought marijuana plants with them through California. This ultimately resulted in California outlawing in what Guither described as “preparations of hemp, or loco weed.”
“In the eastern states the “problem” was attributed to the combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians.” (Guither) The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was created in 1930 and a man named Harry J. Anslinger was appointed director. With opiates and cocaine already outlawed on a federal level and alcohol prohibition at its end, Anslinger needed a new task for his new government agency. So with the help of William Randolph Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers that relied on the lumber industry and was threatened by the hemp paper industry, Anslinger began to make false statements to the public about marijuana:
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
In a time of unsettled racial differences and segregation it was easy for Anslinger to lie, make his point, and get away with it. He played off the fears of the American public for the sake of personal, political, and economical gain.
Then in 1937, The Marijuana Tax Act took affect. Although there wasn’t any scientific evidence that marijuana actually had negative effects on people, the court did have a series of newspaper articles, many linked to William Randolph Hearst who was working in conjunction with Anslinger. The newspaper articles blatantly distorted the facts about marijuana. They read:
“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days … Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”– San Francisco Examiner
“Users of marijuana become stimulates as they inhale the drug and are likely to do anything. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug.”– Nationwide columns
The articles led people to believe the negative things they were being told without having valid evidence of such wrongful doings. They didn’t realize that most of the criminals were considered criminals before they inhaled any marijuana. These “criminals” were many times wrongly accused simply because of the color of their skin. The white man’s ignorance towards and fear of other races made it easy to create a distraction and problem around marijuana. When people were told that these “degenerate races” (Anslinger) were the link to all of the so called “reefer madness,” the white population began to believe it. This eventually led to the overall agreement to outlaw marijuana.
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 is still in affect today. That’s 72 years marijuana has suffered from oppression without people understanding all aspects of the topic. Alcohol prohibition lasted through the years of “1919-1933.” (drugwarrant.com) Alcohol only suffered 14 years of oppression. Today alcohol related deaths continue to climb. People die daily from drunk-driving related car accidents, alcohol poisonings and domestic homicides among many other awful tragedies. These cases have been put into numerous statistics, researched and evaluated, discussed and documented. Still alcohol can be purchased at the local grocery or convenience store near you. It’s safe to say many of our government’s finest politicians drink like a fish.
The government has also refused to analyze the economical benefits of replacing many of our economically destructive industries with hemp crops. Hemphasis.net says, “Compared to cotton, hemp textiles are stronger, more durable, use one third the amount of water, and require no crop chemicals.” It sounds like a good solution when 25-30% of the world’s toxic crop chemicals come from cotton plantations. Hemp can also influence the making of building materials, “including caulking, cement, fiberboard, flooring, insulation, paneling… plaster, plywood… and biodegradable plastic.” (hemphasis.net) Hemp cement or “hempcrete” has flexible insulation characteristics that enable homes to breath, as well as keep the heat in. The hempcrete technique produces natural carbon which can help reverse the damages greenhouse gasses have had on our environment. Hemp seed oil can also be used for fuel. The biomass that hemp produces can be made into “sulfur-free charcoal” (hemphasis.net) to make power such as electricity and fuel without releasing an overwhelming amount of carbon dioxide into nature’s balance as well as help decrease our dependency on foreign oil.
It’s general knowledge within the scientific community that one cannot die from inhaling or eating the cannabis plant. Although some researchers believe that inhaling marijuana may ultimately cause stress on the lungs, Lester Grinspoon, MD states in an article “Puffing is the Best Medicine,” Los Angeles Times that, “There is very little evidence that smoking marijuana as a means of taking it represents a significant health risk… Although cannabis has been smoked widely in Western countries for more than four decades, there have been no reported cases of lung cancer or emphysema attributes to marijuana.”
I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. I tried many pharmaceutical narcotics to maintain my extreme mood-swings and depression. One medication, Abilify, almost gave me permanent muscle spasms that could have later lead to seizures. I am thankful today that I no longer take any form of pharmaceutical drugs. I take a little dose of marijuana and my moods are as stable as can be. I also use marijuana when I experience menstrual cramping as well as when I am ill. I find it relaxes my muscles and eases any pain. It also relaxes my mind during periods of stress. Donald Abrams, MD reports in “Short-term Effects of Cannabinoids in Patients with HIV-1 Infection,” Annals of Internal Medicine that, “Patients receiving cannabinoids [smoked marijuana and marijuana pills] had improved immune function… they also gained four pounds or more on average”. There is a dire need for medical marijuana to be readily available for those who suffer from certain disorders, diagnoses and diseases.
We cannot afford to go about our lives in the same manner any longer. We need to overcome the racial emphasis and stereo-types associated with marijuana. We need to open our eyes to the needs of our powerful yet fragile environment. We also need to have some compassion for those that would prefer to eat banana bud bread or smoke a joint rather than inject or consume medications that can ultimately result in side-effects that are just as harmful as the initial cause of illness. I believe somewhere during America’s industrial-boom we lost touch with ourselves, what it truly means to be alive and our perception of humanity in general. It’s amazing to see what a difference one small change could do for us and this planet. Utilizing the hemp plant could be mankind’s first step towards a more intellectually developed society rather than an industrial one. We just have to acknowledge and accept the truth. It is not the few negative aspects of the cannabis plant that the United States should be focusing on, it is the positive economical, political and moralistic aspects that should make it legal and accepted.