Why was cannabis made illegal?

I am asking, not telling, but here is my side.

This Good book says it all......we knew it, way back then!
The Emperor Wears No Clothes
There is more to this story than just pot. (read it please)

Nixon knew before the war on drugs that cannabis had medicinal effects!

1975 medical evidence!




Thirty years ago the United States came to a critical juncture in the drug war. A Nixon-appointed presidential commission had recommended that marijuana use not be a criminal offense under state or federal law. But Nixon himself, based on his zealous personal preferences, overruled the commission's research and doomed marijuana to its current illegal status.

This newly revealed information comes from declassified tapes of Oval Office conversations from 1971 and 1972, which show Nixon's aggressive anti-drug stance putting him directly at odds against many of his close advisors. Transcripts of the tape, and a report based on them, are available at www.csdp.org.

Congress, when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, temporarily labeled marijuana a "Schedule I substance" -- a flatly illegal drug with no approved medical purposes. But Congress acknowledged that it did not know enough about marijuana to permanently relegate it to Schedule I, and so they created a presidential commission to review the research and recommend a long-term strategy. President Nixon got to appoint the bulk of the commissioners. Not surprisingly, he loaded it with drug warriors. Nixon appointed Raymond Shafer, former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, as Chairman. As a former prosecutor, Shafer had a "law and order," drug warrior reputation. Nixon also appointed nine Commissioners, including the dean of a law school, the head of a mental health hospital, and a retired Chicago police captain. Along with the Nixon appointees, two senators and two congressmen from each party served on the Commission.

The Shafer Commission -- officially known as the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- took its job seriously. They launched fifty research projects, polled the public and members of the criminal justice community, and took thousands of pages of testimony. Their work is still the most comprehensive review of marijuana ever conducted by the federal government.

After reviewing all the evidence, these drug warriors were forced to come to a different conclusion than they had at first expected. Rather than harshly condemning marijuana, they started talking about legalization. When Nixon heard such talk, he quickly denounced the Commission -- months before it issued its report.

As a result of Nixon's public rebuke, Shafer met with the President. The Commission was upset, and the purpose of the meeting was to reassure them. But Nixon didn't budge. Instead, he warned Shafer to get control of his commission and avoid looking like a "bunch of do-gooders" who are "soft on marijuana." He warned Shafer that the Commission would "look bad as hell" if it came out with recommendations different from the direction of Congress and the President.

During their meeting, Shafer reassured the President that he would not support "legalization," even though there were some on the Commission who did. He told Nixon they were looking for a unanimous recommendation. Nixon warned Shafer that he "had very strong feelings" on marijuana. Nixon and Shafer also discussed Shafer's potential appointment to a federal judgeship.

But in the end, the Shafer Commission issued a report that tried to correct the "extensive degree of misinformation," to "demythologize" and "desymbolize" marijuana. They reported finding that marijuana did not cause crime or aggression, lead to harder drug use or create significant biochemical, mental or physical abnormalities. They concluded: "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

The most important recommendation of the Commission was the decriminalization of possession or non-profit transfer of marijuana. Decriminalization meant there would be no punishment -- criminal or civil -- under state or federal law.

Nixon reacted strongly to the report. In a recorded conversation on March 21, the day before the Commission released its report, Nixon said, "We need, and I use the word 'all out war,' on all fronts ... we have to attack on all fronts." Nixon and his advisors went on to plan a speech about why he opposed marijuana legalization, and proposed that he do "a drug thing every week" during the 1972 presidential election year. Nixon wanted a "Goddamn strong statement about marijuana ... that just tears the ass out of them."

Shafer was never appointed to the federal court.

Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."

He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that was destroying the United States, and claimed that Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug education was just as simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've got to scare them."

Unfortunately, Nixon did more than just "scare them," whoever they were. His marijuana war rhetoric led to a dramatic increase in arrests. One year after his "all out war" comments, marijuana arrests jumped to 420,700 a year -- a full 128,000 more than the year before. Since then, nearly 15 million people have been arrested for marijuana offenses.

For thirty years, the United States has taken the path of Nixon's prejudice and ignored the experts. We now have the largest prison population in world history, and drug problems are no closer to solved. Indeed, plenty of evidence indicates that drug-related problems are worse than ever.

It did not have to be this way. At the same time that the Shafer Commission issued its report, the Bain Commission in Holland issued a report that made similar findings and recommendations. In Holland, they followed the advice of their experts. Thirty years later Holland has half the per-capita marijuana use as the U.S., far fewer drug-related problems and spends much less on drug enforcement. With statistics like that, it's no wonder that most of Europe is going Dutch. Just last week a British Commission issued a Shafer-like report, indicating that the U.K. is moving in the Dutch direction.

It is not too late for the U.S. to move to a more sensible path. We are approaching three quarters of a million marijuana arrests annually. Every year that the U.S. fails to adopt a policy based on research, science and facts we destroy millions of lives and tear apart millions of families.

Where will we be in another thirty years if we don't change course and make peace in the marijuana war? Now that we know the war's roots are rotten -- and after we've lived through the decades of damage and failure it has produced -- we should face the facts. The thirty-year- old recommendations of the Shafer Commission are a good place to start.

Let's hear your story. (fair debate please)

Thanks
shag

it all started when the owner of a pulp/paper mill was losing business cause hemp was better for paper....he got into politics and labelled hemp bad,it was illegal shortly after

Pot activist Jack Herer's book The Emperor Wears No Clothes is the prime source for the hemp-conspiracy theory. It alleges that in the mid-1930s, "when the new mechanical hemp fiber stripping machines to conserve hemp's high-cellulose pulp finally became state of the art, available and affordable," Hearst, with enormous holdings in timber acreage and investments in paper manufacturing, "stood to lose billions of dollars and perhaps go bankrupt." Meanwhile, DuPont in 1937 had just patented nylon and "a new sulfate/sulfite process for making paper from wood pulp" -- so "if hemp had not been made illegal, 80 percent of DuPont's BUSINESS would never have materialized."

Herer, a somewhat cantankerous former marijuana-pipe salesman, deserves a lot of credit for his cannabis activism. He was a dedicated grass-roots agitator for pot legalization during the late 1980s, perhaps the most herb-hostile time in recent history. Despite a substantial stroke in 2001, he soldiers on; he's currently campaigning to get a cannabis-legalization initiative on the ballot in Santa Barbara, California. The Emperor -- an omnivorous conglomeration of newspaper clippings and historical documents about hemp and marijuana, held together by Herer's cannabis evangelism and fiery screeds against prohibition -- has been a bible for many pot activists. Unearthing a 1916 Department of Agriculture bulletin about hemp paper and a World War II short film that exhorted American farmers to grow "Hemp for Victory," Herer more than anyone else revived the idea that the cannabis plant was useful for purposes besides getting high. Unfortunately, he's completely wrong on this particular issue. The evidence for a "hemp conspiracy" just doesn't stand up. It is far more likely that marijuana was outlawed because of racism and cultural warfare.

fatburt said:

it all started when the owner of a pulp/paper mill was losing business cause hemp was better for paper....he got into politics and labelled hemp bad,it was illegal shortly after

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Yup!
Evidence to this in the book!

184 - countries signed on the doted line

184 - countries signed on the doted line

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs

In part, due to Hoover administration (FBI), there's was a paranoia exacerbated within the administration. Angslinger was Narcotic Bureau Chief..."reefer madness" spread like wild fire....great propaganda tool. And the rest is history.

Thank goodness, people are seeing there is a positive side to cannabis. outlawing it is not the answer.

Recall my ophthalmologist (eye Dr.) in the 1970's mentioning cannabis can reduce blood pressure in the eyes from glaucoma. So much to know, so much more to learn about the plants' healing properties.

fatburt said:

it all started when the owner of a pulp/paper mill was losing business cause hemp was better for paper....he got into politics and labelled hemp bad,it was illegal shortly after

Pot activist Jack Herer's book The Emperor Wears No Clothes is the prime source for the hemp-conspiracy theory. It alleges that in the mid-1930s, "when the new mechanical hemp fiber stripping machines to conserve hemp's high-cellulose pulp finally became state of the art, available and affordable," Hearst, with enormous holdings in timber acreage and investments in paper manufacturing, "stood to lose billions of dollars and perhaps go bankrupt." Meanwhile, DuPont in 1937 had just patented nylon and "a new sulfate/sulfite process for making paper from wood pulp" -- so "if hemp had not been made illegal, 80 percent of DuPont's BUSINESS would never have materialized."

Herer, a somewhat cantankerous former marijuana-pipe salesman, deserves a lot of credit for his cannabis activism. He was a dedicated grass-roots agitator for pot legalization during the late 1980s, perhaps the most herb-hostile time in recent history. Despite a substantial stroke in 2001, he soldiers on; he's currently campaigning to get a cannabis-legalization initiative on the ballot in Santa Barbara, California. The Emperor -- an omnivorous conglomeration of newspaper clippings and historical documents about hemp and marijuana, held together by Herer's cannabis evangelism and fiery screeds against prohibition -- has been a bible for many pot activists. Unearthing a 1916 Department of Agriculture bulletin about hemp paper and a World War II short film that exhorted American farmers to grow "Hemp for Victory," Herer more than anyone else revived the idea that the cannabis plant was useful for purposes besides getting high. Unfortunately, he's completely wrong on this particular issue. The evidence for a "hemp conspiracy" just doesn't stand up. It is far more likely that marijuana was outlawed because of racism and cultural warfare.

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I think I know the guy that said this...and he is on this site...can you figure out who I mean without any hints?

"The evidence for a "hemp conspiracy" just doesn't stand up. It is far more likely that marijuana was outlawed because of racism and cultural warfare."


This. Whitey be trippin'.

Operation Chipper in 1949 discovered that populations that ingest cannabis can't be brainwashed. Nixon ordered one paper destroyed. The former head of the C I A, George Bush the first ordered ALL cannabis research destroyed when he got to be president.
The White House Office of Drug Control Policy spends millions of dollars to influence the media. The DEA / Sinaola cartel collusion won't get a hearing in congress or coverage by the state influenced media. Meanwhile the nation is in the grips of a heroin epidemic like we've never seen before.

harry anslinger lol

The campaign against marijuana 1930–1937[edit]

Main article: Legal history of marijuana in the United States
Restrictions for cannabis as a drug, often called Indian Hemp in documents before the 1940s, started in local laws in New York already in 1860 and was followed by local laws in many other states and by state laws in the 1910s and 1920s.[5] The federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 regulated labeling of patent medicines with Cannabis India (Indian Hemp). In 1925 United States supported regulation of Indian hemp, Cannabis for use as a drug, in the International Opium Convention.[6] Recommendations from the International Opium Convention inspired the work with the Uniform State Narcotic Act between 1925 and 1932. Harry J. Anslinger hadn't become an active person in this process until about 1930.[7][8]

Anslinger received, as head of The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, an alarming increase of reports about smoking of marijuana in 1936 that continued to spread at an accelerated pace in 1937. Before, smoking of marijuana had been relatively slight and confined to the Southwest, particularly along the Mexican border. The bureau launched two important steps. First, the Bureau prepared a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, Anslinger ran a campaign against marijuana on radio and at major forums.[9][10]

Some of his critics [11] allege that Anslinger and the campaign against marijuana had a hidden agenda, DuPont petrochemical interests and William Randolph Hearst together created the highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor. Indeed, Anslinger did not himself consider marijuana a serious threat to American society until in the fourth year of his tenure (1934), at which point an anti-marijuana campaign, aimed at alarming the public, became his primary focus as part of the government's broader push to outlaw all recreational drugs.[12] Members of the League of Nations had already implemented restrictions for marijuana in the beginning of the 1930s and restrictions started in many states in the U.S years before Anslinger was appointed. Both president Franklin D. Roosevelt and his attorney general publicly supported this development in 1935.[12][13]

By using the mass media as his forum (receiving much support from William Randolph Hearst), Anslinger propelled the anti-marijuana sentiment from the state level to a national movement. Writing for The American Magazine, the best examples were contained in his "Gore File", a collection of quotes from police reports, by later opponents described as police-blotter-type narratives of heinous cases, most with no substantiation, linking graphically depicted offenses with the drug. Anslinger sometimes used the very brief and concise language in many police reports when he wrote about drug crimes:

"An entire family was murdered by a youthful addict in Florida. When officers arrived at the home, they found the youth staggering about in a human slaughterhouse. With an axe he had killed his father, mother, two brothers, and a sister. He seemed to be in a daze… He had no recollection of having committed the multiple crime. The officers knew him ordinarily as a sane, rather quiet young man; now he was pitifully crazed. They sought the reason. The boy said that he had been in the habit of smoking something which youthful friends called “muggles,” a childish name for marijuana."[14]
Anslinger has been accused [11] to be responsible for racial themes in articles against marijuana in the 1930s.

“By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”[15]

"Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy"[16][17]
"Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis."[17][18]
"The first Federal law-enforcement administrator to recognize the signs of a national criminal syndication and sound the alarm was Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics in the Treasury" (Ronald Reagan 1986)[19]

When Anslinger was interviewed in 1954 about drug abuse (see below), he did not mention anything about race or sex. In his book The Protectors (1964) Anslinger has a chapter called "Jazz and Junk Don't Mix" about the black jazz musicians Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker, who both died after years of heroin and alcohol abuse:

"Jazz entertainers are neither fish nor fowl. They do not get the million-dollar protection Hollywood and Broadway can afford for their stars who have become addicted – and there are many more than will ever be revealed. Perhaps this is because jazz, once considered a decadent kind of music, has only token respectability. Jazz grew up next door to crime, so to speak. Clubs of dubious reputation were, for a long time, the only places where it could be heard. But the times bring changes, and as Billy Holiday was a victim of time and change, so too was Charlie Parker, a man whose music, like Billie's, is still widely imitated. Most musicians credit Parker among others as spearheading what is called modern jazz." (p. 157)
Anslinger hoped to orchestrate a nationwide dragnet of jazz musicians and kept a file called 'Marijuana and Musicians'.[20]

The La Guardia Committee[edit]
The La Guardia Committee, promoted in 1939 by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was the first in depth study into the effects of smoking marijuana. It systematically contradicted claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department that smoking marijuana results in insanity, and determined that the practice of smoking marihuana does not lead to addiction in the medical sense of the word.[21] Released in 1944, the report infuriated Harry Anslinger who was campaigning against marijuana and he condemned it as unscientific.[22]

Along with W.R. Hearst's interests being threatened by losses because of hemp being used for paper, there was also this.

The DuPont Co., of Wilmingington, Delaware, had just invented a new product which they believed would revolutionize the modern world... (and it did)..
They had just invented "Nylon" in the 1930's....
It used to be that rope, canvas, canvas straps, canvas tents and countless other items were made with Hemp as the main ingredient...
DuPont wanted to sell thier new invention that would replace the use of hemp in the manufacture of rope and canvas...

DuPont, along with Hearst used their money to influence Gov't. entities to make Hemp illegal... The racist thing was NOT the reason to outlaw, it was just one of the methods employed to change the publics view on hemp...

By the way, everyone knew what "hemp" was back in those days. People knew it was a valuable resource, as so many products were made from it...
So, how does the gov't convince people that "hemp" is bad, so they can outlaw it?
Start calling it by it's Mexican name, Marihuana..., and then start the propaganda about the "Reefer Madness" and all the other tecniques they used.

By the way, just as a side note, it is possible that "marijuana saved George H.W. Bush's life", back in WW2.
Lots of the canvas used to make the canvas strapping back then was made of hemp, so when G.H.W.Bush's plane was shot down and he parachuted to safety, it is possible the parachute harness he wore was made of HEMP...

eric holder attorney general usa; fast and furious. emails from holder showing him inviolved in sending arms to the me. sinola drug cartel. no investigation. no msm reporting.

^^https://www.google.com/webhp?source...=UTF-8#q=fast+and+furious+sinaloa+drug+cartel

afghanistan opium production up 10 times (1,000 %) since being liberated by usa.

It is well-documented that the U.S. government has – at least at some times in some parts of the world – protected drug operations.

(Big American banks also launder money for drug cartels. See this, this, this and this. Indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. And the U.S. drug money laundering is continuing to this day.)

The U.S. military has openly said that it is protecting Afghani poppy fields:

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-w...ds-to-all-time-high-heroin-production/5358053

no too big to fail bank officers ever indicted for laundering drug money despite numerous convictions.

Banks Launder Billions of Illegal Cartel Money While Snubbing Legal Marijuana Businesses

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avinash-tharoor/banks-cartel-money-laundering_b_4619464.html

ppl in charge of the system (shadow government) made it illegal so prices go up, they control the supply and profits.

kennedy and eisenhower both appealed to the ppl in speaches. eisenhower called it the military industrial complex.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

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http://truth11.com/2008/12/17/quote-jfk-shadow-government/

jfk was going to end the federal reserve and put the us back on realm money. the fed reserve literally conjurs up unlimited purchasing power by the trillions. kennedy was assasinated shortly thereafter.

^^ this is not a conspiracy theory. this is a reality theory.

we can't delve into politics or this thread gets binned.

the cabal is the drug dealer. they control who gets to mfg., distribute and then clean the dirty laundry.

fatburt said:

Despite a substantial stroke in 2001, he soldiers on; he's currently campaigning to get a cannabis-legalization initiative on the ballot in Santa Barbara, California.

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Hmmm...that would be a good trick!! He died in 2010--

anyone read the actual court transcripts? I read them a while ago.


'marijuana makes white women have sex with black men'

'we gave a dog a shot of artificial thc and it killed the dog, hence its deadly'

it was crazy stories like that. I haven't been able to find the transcripts in a while

tl;dr version of the history of why:

Every time period ever: fearmongering, profit, the spread of ignorance, and authoritarians, all in general
1934: Southern states coming up with new and creative ways for punishing niggers and spics for existing (as people in 1934 would probably word it)
1937: Anslinger's political gain, competition hemp posed to a shitload of markets corporations competed in, something Prohibitionist-minded people could attack after its repeal, also racism
1970: Nixon's political gain, his hatred of the counterculture that embraced this drug, the Red Scare, the need for an international treaty to supersede the Constitution because US v Leary
-present: Marinol, Bush Sr.'s political gain, it being cemented as the status-quo thing for Presidents to oppose

Edit: note that I use racist words only in the context of quoting or paraphrasing our ignorant past generations.

In the book THE ILLUMINATI FORMULA...

It is mentioned that cannabis is the only drug that can block mind control.

Take it for what you will.
I'm a believer.

A sliver of evidence would be nice. To play devil's advocate, JWH-018 is a full agonist of the same receptors in the brain that Δ-9 THC is a partial agonist of. Would a mix of this and Sativex (containing the secondary ingredient of cannabis which is cannabidiol) not do the same?

because the world is nuts

Jynkka said:

because the world is nuts

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Be a squirrel.

Farmers couldn't give away the last 30's hemp crops - growers would have stopped growing without the act. Did Herer ever explain how Hearst and DuPont took the conspiracy to eliminate hemp paper and rope worldwide to this day?

Crazy...