marijuana documentary

[lordsmurf]

I just watched something on HISTORY CHANNEL, I thought was interesting...

Pretty much, prohibition is the reason drugs became big. Had alcohol never been outlawed, drugs would have likely been far less known and less used. People prefer to drink, or at least did.

And then the only real reason they are outlawed was because Hearst (infamous yellow journalist, think "FOX" of the early 20th) made all these "truthful" BS editorials based off fiction and heresay (no facts whatsoever).

And then bureaucrats pushed for laws because of the hype. Those same bureaucrats tended to be friends of Hearst or outrght spooked by the BS. They are also the ones that pushed out shows like "Reefer Madness".

The medicinal purposes were often even acknowledged by early anti-marijuana laws.

How interesting. And how sad.

[lumis]

[republican response]

damn hippies, trying to confuse people with facts & truth.. its just, well its just unamerican!

/end

a few months/years ago i heard that they recently found a government film that supported hemp.. mainly for its commercial use.. and if i remember correctly some other industry with a competing product was really trying to get weed killed off so that the hemp industry would go away and they could be left to make some money.. i think the tagline of the film was something like "hemp for the war!" or something along those lines..

[lordsmurf]

http://www.archive.org/details/Hemp_for_victory_1942

US government propaganda film made during WWII touting the virtues of hemp. The film was aimed at farmers at a time when the miltary was facing a shortage of hemp, it shows how hemp is grown and processed into rope and other products.

You can find more information regarding this film on its IMDb page.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367837/

Plot Outline: An informational film produced to encourage farmers to grow hemp for the war effort during WW2. The film details the many industrial uses of hemp, including cloth and cordage, as well as a detailed history of the plant's use.

[bigmicka]

the crop that you mentioned is cotton.

apparently cotton farmers pettitioned for the removal of hemp and promoted the refer madness doctrine.

well thats what i can remember anyway.

its like the story about the oil industry buying the railway in california.

im not sure if its true or not but i heard it somewhere.

mic

[lordsmurf]

its like the story about the oil industry buying the railway in california.

im not sure if its true or not but i heard it somewhere.

mic

J. Rockefeller, Standard Oil, railroads, and the monopolies
I'd had to have a quick refresher before I got into more details, but that'd be the info to start with.

[BJ_M]

canada grows a lot of hemp, a lot of it is exported to the usa (legally) , though at times it is stopped at the border .. There are several hemp farms around here ..

canada also grows a lot of pot, that is another story ...

[thecoalman]

the crop that you mentioned is cotton.

apparently cotton farmers pettitioned for the removal of hemp and promoted the refer madness doctrine.

Dupont + Nylon = Hemp bad, Plastic good. :P Boycott Dupont!!!!

Edit: Seems to be a little bit of both, Nylon was invented in 1935. But Dupont also invented another process for paper at that time which according to this puts Hearst and Dupont in bed together. Seems to be a combination of things with Dupont at the center of it, it was always my assumption that Nylon killed it here in the US. The tax act below was enacted in 1937, two years after nylon???


http://www.geocities.com/medicalmarijuana2003/fact32.htm

Today we use paper made by a process called "chemical pulping". Before this, trees were processed by mechanical pulping instead, which was much more expensive. At about the same time as machines to brake hemp appeared, the idea of using hemp hurds for making paper and plastic was proposed. Hemp hurds were normally considered to be a worthless waste product that was thrown away after it was stripped of fiber. New research showed that these hurds could be used instead of wood in mechanical pulping, and that this would drastically reduce the cost of making paper. Popular Mechanics Magazine predicted that hemp would rise to become the number one crop in America. In fact, the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was so unexpected that Popular Mechanics had already gone to press with a cover story about hemp, published in 1938 just two months after the Tax Act took effect.

But wait, there's more, 'Chemical pulping' paper was invented at about this time by Dupont Chemicals, as part of a multi-million dollar deal with a timber holding company and newspaper chain owned by William Randolph Hearst. This deal would provide Hearst with a source of very cheap paper, and he would go on to be known as the tycoon of 'yellow journalism, (so named because the new paper would turn yellow very quickly as it got older.) Hearst knew that he could drive other papers out of competition with this new advantage. Hemp paper threatened to ruin this whole plan. It had to be stopped, and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was the way they did it. As a drug law, the Tax Act really was not a very big step, it did not really accomplish much at all and many historians have caught themselves wondering why the bill was even written. Big business interests took advantage of the political climate of racism and anti-drug rhetoric to close the free market to hemp products.

[BJ_M]

yes racism played a very big part in it

[offline]

umm.. Drugs are kind of a world wide problem, not
just the US of A. I doubt the US cotton farmers or the
US prohibition had anything to do with the vast
majority of people on this planet and their drug
habits.

[BJ_M]

it did in the case of weed actually .. this is well known, well documented history ..

[lordsmurf]

Yeah. A big reason they wanted to do away with marijuana in the deep south was because of racism reasons (some economic, some were BS scapegoat reasons). It served as a good excuse to deport Mexicans.

As far as "rest of the planet" ... they pretty much followed the USA lead on drugs. Although their are still PLENTY of hold-outs.

[offline]

..did in the case of weed actually .. this is well known, well documented history ..

You girlfriend Vietnam??!

-edit-

In case you don't get it, it's a quote from Full Metal Jacket
and a sneaky reference to the use and cultivation of
said subject in Vietnam for thousands of years.
Even the Egyptians had weed. Yeah.. dude where's my Sun God?
The sociopolitical treatment of weed worldwide was not down to
The USA.

[AlecWest]

a few months/years ago i heard that they recently found a government film that supported hemp.. mainly for its commercial use.. and if i remember correctly some other industry with a competing product was really trying to get weed killed off so that the hemp industry would go away and they could be left to make some money.. i think the tagline of the film was something like "hemp for the war!" or something along those lines..

"Hemp For Victory!" - 1942 - 13 minutes, 51 seconds, MPEG2 (776 megs):

http://www.archive.org/download/Hemp_for_victory_1942/Hemp_for_victory_1942.mpeg

Here's what one reviewer said about it:

Is was Hearst Publications that you can thank for the orignal propaganda that eventually led to the ruling that hemp should be a controlled substance. As you may know, Hearst ran basically all journalism/newspapers across the control at the turn of the century. Since he needed paper to print, he had a large stake in the lumber industry. Seeing the impact that an annual and renewable crop could have on his lumber holdings he created what is known as "red journalism" to convince the public of the evils of hemp (and pot). Hearst was a very powerful person in his day and had many high-level ties in the government - therefore is wasn't too hard to get the bill passed outlawing hemp as a cash crop. Thank you to the big money-hungry corporations for the destruction of our national forests when we could be growing hemp...which is not of smoking grade anyway. But try to convince the public otherwise now would be virtually impossible.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Canada also grows a lot of pot, that is another story ...

You sure that's not weed you smokin' on yo avatar dude? 8)

[BJ_M]

they grow WHAT in them there hills in Ecuador? :P

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

And it's some good quality shit!.... lol!

[JohnnyCNote]

I just watched something on HISTORY CHANNEL, I thought was interesting....

Was it this one, Grass, narrated by Woody Harrelson? If not, I highly (no pun intended) recommend it...

[lordsmurf]

No, I don't think so.

[JohnnyCNote]

It's well worth seeing.....

[lordsmurf]

This was it:

History Alive
episode "Marijuana"

Tune In: Monday, June 27 @ 11pm ET/PT

In a series investigating the history of drug use, we begin our trip tracing the rise of marijuana and synthetic amphetamines. Marijuana, from the Indian hemp plant, has been used worldwide as a source of rope, cloth, and paper; its medicinal qualities were first documented 4,000 years ago in China. But it's best known as the drug of choice of the 1960s. During WWII, U.S. troops were given an estimated 200 million amphetamines to fight drowsiness and battle fatigue, and they're still used to fight depression. TVPG cc

[JohnnyCNote]

It's crazy they won't allow industrial hemp to be grown. It makes so much more sense to use it to make paper than trees, considering how fast it grows. Most likely the tree pulp lobby, among others, has something to do with this...

[BJ_M]

they (the usa) use it and import it -- canada exports tonnes of seed oil and hemp, raw and products, yearly ... its a big export item to the usa (im only talking about legal products)

[rhegedus]

And then the only real reason they are outlawed was because Hearst (infamous yellow journalist, think "FOX" of the early 20th) made all these "truthful" BS editorials based off fiction and heresay (no facts whatsoever).

I was told by a professor of pharmacognosy (plant medicines) that the reason why marijuana was banned was because it was so useful and readily available that drug companies could not improve on it to make money, so they had it banned and introduced their alternate products.

[JohnnyCNote]

That's pretty much what I read. Marijuana consists of several hundred cannabinoids in varying proportions. This is why one type of weed can produce a different effect from another.

It's too difficult to synthesize this in a lab, so the drug companies would rather oppose its legalization entirely than allow it to be used, regardless of how helpful it may be. In other words, if they can't make money off it, they don't want anyone to be able to use it at all. Pretty typical, I'd say.

I had a bout of glaucoma in 2001 after some eye surgery and sure could have used some, but I didn't have anywhere to get it. The medication I was given had weird side effects, including causing a kidney stone! I've know LOTS of people who've smoked weed over the years and not one of them developed a kidney stone because if it.....

[rhegedus]

I had a bout of glaucoma in 2001 after some eye surgery and sure could have used some, but I didn't have anywhere to get it. The medication I was given had weird side effects, including causing a kidney stone! I've know LOTS of people who've smoked weed over the years and not one of them developed a kidney stone because if it.....

Were you using acetazolamide?

[JohnnyCNote]

I was using Diamox, which is acetazolamide. It made regular Cokes taste like diet ones that had been in the can a few years. It was the strangest stuff I've ever been prescribed. I guess not everyone has the same side effects, but it brought on a kidney stone. My doctors said they'd never had a patient get one, but it is listed as a side effect....