Here is the link to the original: Source

June 4, 2010 – The answer is simple and can be summed up in three words. RACISM, GREED and LIES.

You see? It was the perfect crime under the auspices of law. ♦ Anslinger  could  justify his new high profile position within the United States Government. ♦ Hearst had the ability to widely disperse scandalous racial propaganda via his own newspaper network. ♦ Dupont wanted to eliminate it’s competition for textiles and automotive fuel. ♦ The pharmaceutical companies couldn’t identify or standardize cannabis dosages. Why would they anyway? If folks could grow their own medicine they wouldn’t have to buy it!

Throughout American history and as far back as the 1600s, hemp farming has been popular and sometimes mandatory. In 1619, the first American Hemp Law was passed at Jamestown colony in Virginia. This law made it mandatory for all farmers to grow hemp seed. In fact, if you lived in Virginia between 1763 and 1767 you could be hauled off to jail for NOT growing hemp during times of shortage. Back in those days it was entirely possible for a man to use hemp as currency and even pay his taxes using the crop. In the 200 years to come hemp remained a popular and profitable crop and wouldn”t even be recognized as a recreational drug until the 1900s.

By the early 1900s, trouble was brewing and times were tense in the American west as the Mexican Revolution was heating up just the other side of the border. This triggered a huge influx of Mexican-Americans which really pissed off a lot of small farmers as the larger farmers consistently employed cheap Mexican labor. Less than a decade later in 1910, the violence from Mexico spilled over onto American soil and created even more racial tension. In 1929, The Great Depression made matters worse. Jobs were hard to come by and there were rumors the Mexicans smoked marijuana and brought it into America via Mexico. The state of California freaked out and passed the first state law banning all preparations of marijuana and what they termed “loco weed”. It’s important to note that there is no distinction between marijuana and hemp,  guilty by association I presume.

About this time the eastern part of the country had it’s own rebellious uprisings to deal with. Authorities conveniently blamed these issues on black jazz musicians since they were known to smoke marijuana. One newspaper editorial written in 1934 states:

“Marijuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”

In 1930 Harry J. Anslinger was named the director of the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics who soon collaborated with wealthy American newspaper baron William Randolf Hearst who had plenty reason of his own to support the war on marijuana.

First off,  Hearst had sunk tons of dough into the timber industry up to this point and he needed this industry to support his ever-growing newspaper empire. Secondly, there was new machinery designed to process hemp paper cheaply. This was a huge threat and no doubt would be a formidable competitor to Hearst’s  business interests. Finally, Hearst most definitely hated Mexicans since losing almost 1200 square miles of potentially profitable timberline to Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution.

DuPont chemical company soon came on-board in support of the marijuana eradication effort. Pierre DuPont happened to be the President of General Motors in 1920 and he knew that the Hemp Breaker had  been patented. This invention would make hemp processing easier and more efficient by cutting, baling, and separating the hemp fiber from the hurd  so like Hearst, DuPont wanted to eliminate marijuana  as a competitor right from the start.

Several powerful pharmaceutical companies quickly followed suit in support of this war on marijuana. So begins the propaganda smear campaign of the century…

The following is an excerpt from the house committee that passed the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937:

Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?”

Speaker Rayburn: “I don’t know. It has something to do with a thing called marijuana. I think it’s a narcotic of some kind.”

Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?”

Member on the committee jumps up and says: “Their Doctor Wentworth came down here. They support this bill 100 percent.”

…and there you have it! A ridiculous law based on nothing but a lie!  Source

Please enjoy this propaganda film from 1966. I know I did!

1. Drug laws are unconstitutional.

Yeah, you’re reading right. Courts at every level have ruled on the fact that drug use and addiction are health issues, not legal infractions. It’s image-conscious politicians who have chosen to wilfully ignore those rulings. Yet the courts have been unwilling to hold lawmakers accountable. It’s a vicious circle – a conspiracy even.

It’s not clear how marijuana even got on the list of prohibited drugs back in 1923. It mysteriously appeared on the schedule without a debate in Parliament.

2. Drug laws are rooted in racism.

Drug use has been used to demonize whole races of people. From musings about “lazy” Hispanic migrant farm workers partaking of the weed to Chinese opium dens and the accusation by suffragist Emily Murphy – she claimed pot smoking renders users “completely insane… raving maniacs liable to kill” – the earliest drug laws were sold as solutions to a crime problem created by blacks and browns. The ripple effects are being felt today. The 1995 Commission on Systemic Racism in the Justice System identified a continued pattern of racism in drug enforcement: blacks are 27 times more likely to end up in jail to await trial on drug charges than whites, and three times more likely to be charged with trafficking than whites.

3. Drug laws = war, corruption and terrorism.

Think the war in Afghanistan is about the Taliban and al Qaeda? You’re only half right. The war on drugs and the war on terror are often one and the same.

The propaganda fed us by the self-interested, i.e., cops and politicians, is that drug use is what fuels the drug trade. Reality check: smart policy-makers know it’s prohibition that creates the black market that makes the drug trade so lucrative. See Colombia, where the illegal cocaine trade has fuelled a five-decade civil war. And what about 9/11?

According to a report by John Thompson of the Mackenzie Institute, money from drugs is “probably the single biggest money earner” for Muslim fundamentalists.

4. Drug laws encourage the spread of disease.

Nearly two-thirds of offenders entering the federal corrections system have drug abuse problems. Sending addicts to jail on minor drug charges is a death sentence for many. The spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases like hep C only accelerates behind bars.

About 15 per cent of the jail population reports injecting heroin or cocaine behind bars. Former inmates say they’ve seen as many as 40 fellow inmates sharing one needle. If that isn’t a recipe…. The feds’ proposed mandatory minimum drug sentences would only jail more people who shouldn’t be there and increase the spread of disease, says the Canadian HIV/AIDS Network.

5. Drug laws are compromising our sovereignty.

DEA agents stationed in Canada,  U.S. drug czars threatening trade sanctions for all that BC bud making it over the border.

The U.S. propaganda machine hasn’t stopped snorting about our liberal enforcement of drug laws.

Blame our own lawmakers for pushing the big lie that we can’t reform our drug laws because international conventions keep us tied to the will of other countries (read the U.S). Canada is under no obligation to continue criminal prohibition of drug use. The stated goal of Canada’s Drug Strategy is to reduce harm. The feds have been lying to us.

6. Drug laws have been a complete failure.

Alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs and certain prescription drugs are linked to more than 47,000 deaths and many thousands more injuries and disabilities every year in Canada, according to the Health Officers Council of British Columbia paper Regulation Of Psychoactive Substances In Canada: Seeking A Coherent Public Health Approach. That’s not counting the $40 billion blown every year on what the report terms “inadequate, inappropriate and ineffective regulation.” Bottom line: we’re blowing it.

7. Drug laws are killing the economy.

The feds estimate total sale of drugs in Canada at about $18 billion annually. BC’s annual marijuana crop alone, if valued at retail street prices and sold by the cigarette, is worth more than $7 billion annually, according to a 2004 study by the Fraser Institute. That’s bigger than mining, logging, manufacturing, construction and agriculture in that province. Do the math. Canada spends $2.3 billion on enforcement every year and another $1.1 in health care costs directly related to illegal drug use – when $1 spent on treatment will achieve the same reduction of flow of cocaine as $7.3 spent on enforcement.

8. Drug laws amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

Sending people to jail for the relatively benign act of taking drugs, a victimless “crime,” only exposes them to physical and other forms of abuse behind bars. Now the Harper Tories want to introduce new mandatory minimum sentencing that will only fill prisons with more small-time addicts. Prison admission trends for drug offences are showing dramatic increases. Ontario’s crime rate is comparable to Quebec’s, but our incarceration rate is about one-third higher.

9. Drug laws are not reducing drug use.

Governments are slowly coming around to the view. Portugal’s experiment with decriminalization, which started almost a decade ago, has resulted in decreased drug use among teens and a marked reduction in HIV/AIDS infections caused by the sharing of contaminated needles. Portugal’s rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 is now the lowest in the EU: 10 per cent. The EU seems to be coming around on decrim. More than a dozen countries have agreed on a draft resolution urging the UN and its member states to establish a “system for the legal control and regulation of the production, sale and consumption of substances which are currently illegal.”

10. The majority of Canadians oppose drug laws.

Calls to end prohibition aren’t just coming from weed advocates. The Globe and Ottawa Citizen called for the decriminalization of drugs more than a decade ago. The right-wing Fraser Institute has advocated legalization, calling the war on drugs a “complete failure.” A majority of Canadians support the legalization of pot, according to an Angus Reid poll last year. More than 90 per cent believe it should be legal for medical purposes. The powers that be are messing with the will of the people.  By Enzo Di Matteo.  Source.