By Jeff Rayno
What do Betsy Ross' flag, early drafts of the U.S. Constitution and an experimental car by Henry Ford have in common?They were all made with hemp. Yes, marijuana's twin cousin.
Have you ever wondered why marijuana is illegal? Is it because it makes people high? Is it because it causes smoke? What would you think if we could pinpoint the lawlessness of marijuana to corporate giants who were more concerned about hemp? More on that later.
Legalization deserves a fully open and honest debate. I think anyone arguing that you should be able to smoke any place, any time is misguided. Nobody should be driving high. Just like alcohol, reasonable restrictions and common sense should apply. The workplace should be drug free. I will never be convinced inhaling any smoke in your lungs is good for your body, but that is a personal choice like smoking a cigarette. Law enforcement and researchers will continue to say pot is a gateway drug. Is it that, or is it medicine?
My questioning about how marijuana became illegal led me to a California woman, Cheri Sicard, who is dubbed on the internet (courtesy of The Daily Beast) as the "Martha Stewart of Weed". She had written an article in Senior Stoner called "The Unholy Trinity: Anslinger, Hearst and Rockefeller," which highlighted exactly what had happened. The genesis of the drug war on marijuana was hemp.
The newspaper giant at the time was William Randolph Hearst. He had invested heavily in forestry to provide the pulp necessary to create paper for his journalistic endeavors. Hemp production after the Civil War became cost prohibitive because of forced labor disappearing, but an Italian farmer named Benagozzi in 1861 invented a device called a decorticator, which harvested hemp and processed it rapidly. Having no investments in hemp, Hearst feared he would lose great amounts of money in production costs.
Another corporate giant was concerned. John D. Rockefeller Jr's money was tied up in petroleum. Hemp could be used to create bio-fuel to run diesel engines, and this would have cost his industry millions of dollars in losses.
The corporations had a friend in Henry Jacob Anslinger who headed the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics, making him the first "Drug Czar." He and Hearst hated Mexican immigrants, so "yellow journalism" was imbedded into news reports of wild and crazy people crossing the Southern border high on "marihuana." It was implied that nobody would be safe.
In 1936, a propaganda film called "Reefer Madness" burst upon the American scene and told the untrue story of three dealers luring high school students into the dangerous marijuana world and warned that the infusion of jazz music would lead the children into rape, manslaughter, suicide or eventual madness. Since hemp and marijuana were cousins in the same plant family, and government officials didn't know the difference, everything got thrown in together. The drug war was on.
With the nation whipped into a fury, politicians did what they do best: They legislated. Despite cries from the American Medical Association not to outlaw marijuana, the legislators moved forward not only to outlaw that, but hemp as well, much to the delight of the industrialists. The 1937 "Marihuana" Tax Law meant powerful corporations would continue making money with their products regardless of what the U.S. citizens wanted.
The environmental damage caused by this decision has plagued us for decades. Instead of producing toilet paper using hemp, which produces four times more pulp per acre than paper and grows in five months, we slash down trees. Instead of building lighter, stronger cars that would increase gas mileage, we build heavier ones made of steel, which burn more fuel. The rise of plastics with the Dupont Corporation replaced things hemp once covered. Our landfills got full. The rich got richer, and the farmers lost out.
We now have reinstated hemp as a usable product via the Farm Bill of 2018. Georgia needs hemp as a cash crop. It is the essence of biofuel, paper, sustainable development, replacement for steel, medicine and much more.
When corporations and the U.S. government crawl into bed together to control markets that feed the coffers of the wealthy, the net result is the manipulation of the American people through laws, media control and intimidation. Our jails across the nation are filled with the carnage of the war on pot – and for what logical reason?
The most dangerous sign of the times is when that thing called personal choice or freedom goes up in smoke. Maybe a flag made of hemp with a big leaf on it is the thing this divided nation needs.
Jeff Rayno is a recovering politician who now works as a Realtor, works with the local Homeless Authority and peddles his opinions on his Podcast, "Wake Up Savannah." He was the co-founder of Stop Taxing Our People.
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