10-21-2002, 02:27 PM
Quote:I'm voting for the Libertarian so I don't really care. I know it will be a wasted vote. But I just can't support any of these big government douche-bags.
RIGHT ON! Mad, you rule! Too bad more people don't feel this way.
Jays, just because your experience with weed was not positive doesn't mean that you have to condemn those who use it responsibly and who are productive members of society. Such as this country's founding fathers. Yup, Jefferson, Washington, etc. were all stoners, they grew hemp and weed. But that was before the paper, cotton and plastic industries held the government ear (and wallet) to make hemp illegal...even though it has almost no THC in it, you need an acre to get high.
Quote:By the beginning of the 20th century Cannabis Hemp medicines were very common. From 1842 through the 1920’s resinous hemp extracts were the second and third most used medicines for Americans, from birth through old age.[iv] Then in the 1930’s everything turned upside down.( <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thehempevolution.org/history/history.htm">http://www.thehempevolution.org/history/history.htm</a><!-- m --> )
For thirty years American business mogul and newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst had fed the public racist attacks on the Mexicans, caricaturing them as lazy “marihuana” smokers (an Americanized version of the Mexican term). This was probably because in the Spanish American war in the late 1800s, Pancho Villa and the marijuana smoking Mexican army had seized 800,000 acres of Hearst’s land.[v] Fortunately for Hearst, his newspaper empire served him with plenty of audience for his lies and propaganda. In those days there was no Internet and this served as mass communication. Hearst newspapers were a major factor in shaping public opinion.[vi]
The money William Randolph Hearst made came from more than just newspapers. His empire extended to many sectors of business and industry, including the production of paper. Alongside this a chemical company named DuPont had just developed a process for using chemicals to better manufacture paper products, and was also looking to forge a strong empire with synthetic fibers like nylon and rayon. These industries were about to be overthrown. New farming machines were going to make hemp more easily cultivated, and cannabis was about to become the number one crop in the country. The synthetic fibers DuPont patented could be easily replicated and replaced by Hemp products. DuPont and Hearst stood to lose millions of dollars. Their companies would be decimated.
For twenty years Hearst had proclaimed resinous cannabis the “killer weed” from Mexico. Now Hearst newspapers began to proclaim crazed Negroes were raping white women after getting high on “marihuana.” (Previously the press had made the same accusations and claimed it was from cocaine.) White people who smoked resinous cannabis were supposedly subject to moral lapse and would perform unspeakable and vile acts. The newspapers said that resinous cannabis led to “Voodoo-satanic” music, or “jazz,” and that the music was somehow anti-white. Hearst told the public (and was summarily believed) resinous cannabis led to “blood-lust” and violence.
Into the picture stepped Harry J. Ainslinger. The new head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (we call them the Drug Enforcement Agency now), in 1931 he began a thirty year campaign against resinous cannabis. He spent the 1930’s touring the country preaching the evils of the herb, filling Americans with blatant lies about the drug. He would often say, “if the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright.” Concerned mothers and citizens began to rally behind the anti-cannabis movement. Films like “Reefer Madness,” and “Marijuana-Assassin of Youth,” further destroyed the truth. Ainslinger lied with no abandon and the public was swayed.
I don't understand how people can have no compassion towards those dying of cancer, AIDS, etc. who can only find solace from the pain from a little bit of bud. It helps nausia and helps them eat a bit more. Furthermore, in states where medical marijuana gets passed by the people, the federal government still steps in over and above states rights and arrests people who are licensed to grow medical marijuana and destroy their crops.
Remember what Nixon said kids, "alcohol just makes you drunk, weed gets you high." That's why it's bad....mmmkay.
<center>In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.</center>