History of Marijuana
Hemp & Marijuana Facts
The establishment of the United States was a social experiment. It was
the first time in history that a government was founded to empower "the
people,' not a king or some other potentate. The deceptively simple concept
of 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people' articulated
in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution echoed around
the world. These monumental documents, like their predecessor the Magna
Carta (signed in England in 1215), and like the Communist Manifesto, sought
to dramatically improve the bves of the common people; but such changes
always have to be forced on the established powers. And even now, there
is an ongoing debate in the United States over how much power should be
invested in the central (federal) government and how much should be left
up to the states and local jurisdictions.
Sometimes, what looks good on paper doesn't quite work out as expected,
in practice. The US Constitution has evolved, due to our need to keep
it relevant to the needs of ever-changing society; a number of amendments
have been added — some good, some not so good. The 18th Amendment
banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol, but after a decade that decision
was widely recognized as a dismal failure and it was repealed. Less than
a decade later, that same failed policy was applied to marijuana and growing cannabis, and
subsequently to the cultivation and use of all Cannabis products —
and that ban has not repealed.
People familiar with the benefits of the industrial use of hemp (and,
certainly, those who appreciate its recreational uses) strongly feel that
outlawing the use of Cannabis was a monumental mistake -- even worse than
Alcohol Prohibition. That is not only the belief of tens of millions Americans,
it is fast becoming the position of hundreds of millions of people around
the world.
The problem is not that we have made a mistake; it is that we have failed
to learn from our mistakes — and we have failed to recognize America
s drug war as a mistake. It is probable that Alcohol Prohibition contributed
to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s;
if we don't rationally address the economic and other issues that relate
to hemp, there may be more trouble ahead. Hemp can reduce our dependence
on petroleum products, and hemp-based technologies are cleaner than many
in use today.
We should not be afraid of change. Change is healthy; the alternative
is stagnation. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, 'A little rebellion now
and then is a good thing.1 He also spoke of revolution as 'the medicine
necessary for the sound health of government,' and said, 'God forbid that
we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.' It is natural
for government bureaucracy to become entrenched and stagnated, and the
responsibility for keeping it a vital and useful part of society lies
entirely with the people it is entrusted to serve. (Let's just be glad
we have elections every four years, instead of bloody revolutions every
twenty years.) But government by the people requires 'the people' to stay
informed about the issues, to think through the consequences of imposed
changes, and to call for change where change is needed.
Facts About Marijuana
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