It's Time to Face the Facts Instead of Myths
by BushBGone04
Oct. 06, 2003

Where will the Democrats get the money to get the budget deficit under control without appearing soft on national security, without raising taxes and still expand Medicare and fund other necessary programs?

One way would be to finally end a myth perpetrated by William Randolph Hearst's Paper Manufacturing Division, Kimberly-Clark, Dupont, and other big industrialists sixty-five years ago. Legalize marijuana and tax it like cigarettes. It's time for the massive propaganda campaign to demonize the world's most versatile and valuable crop to be exposed.

Let's look at hemp as a crop and a list of its uses. Hemp requires no chemicals and has few insect enemies, which makes it environmentally friendly. Fifty percent of the chemicals used in agriculture are used to grow cotton. With the invention of George Schlichten's "Decorticator" in 1937, the stripping of the hemp fibers from the cannabis was no longer labor intensive and tedious. That meant hemp fabric could challenge the cotton industry because hemp cloth is warmer, stronger, more water resistant than cotton and has three times more tensile strength than cotton. The earliest known fabric was made of hemp around 8,000 BCE, and our first flag, sewn by Betsy Ross, was made of hemp fabric.

Hemp based newsprint used by Benjamin Franklin allowed the colonies to have a free press during the American Revolution without having to depend on England to obtain newsprint. Paper made from hemp is superior to wood pulp paper, can be produced at half the cost, can be re-cycled seven times as opposed to three times for pulp paper and doesn't destroy our forests. You can imagine how nervous this made Heart with his vast timberland holdings once the decorticator promised to do for hemp what the cotton gin did for cotton. Hearst and other industrialists such as Dupont, who had just patented processes to produce plastic and synthetic fabrics from oil and coal and a new way to process paper from wood knew that the projected boom in commercial hemp could cost them billions and bankrupt them.

The numerous uses of hemp would severely threaten many industries that contribute quite generously to both political parties and have powerful Washington lobbies. Besides the textile, cotton, and pulp mill industries that would be unable to compete with a less expensive, superior product, hemp seed is used to produce paints and varnish, rope, medicine, and is a source of food.

Perhaps most important at this time, when war and the projected depletion of the earth's oil in the near future, threaten all of us, is the use of hemp as a fuel source. Hemp is one of the best sources of biomass energy. Biomass can be converted to methane and gasoline at much lower costs than oil, and instead of causing smog and polluting our air, biomass produces oxygen! We cannot afford to ignore this sustainable, renewable source of energy that would drastically reduce our dependence on oil imports. Is it any wonder that the oil companies support the continuation of the "marijuana myth"?

The pharmaceutical companies represent another industry that couldn't compete with the many medical uses of marijuana, a few of which are:

~ treatment of about 80% of asthma patients

~ reducing ocular pressure in about 90% of glaucoma patients

~ control of the nausea associated with chemotherapy and AIDS medications

~ treatment of many forms of epilepsy

~ treatment of insomnia

~ relieving migraine headaches and other forms of pain

~ stimulating the appetite


Federal funds were withdrawn and the research at the Medical College of Virginia was shut down when marijuana was shown to reduce many forms of cancerous tumors. All of these successful treatments are accomplished without the toxic side effects of the synthetic "legal" pharmaceuticals. New discoveries for the medical uses of marijuana have been forestalled by the propaganda induced ban, but the potential seems to be endless. Right in step with all of the other lies surrounding marijuana, it has been declared a Schedule I Substance, an illegal drug with no known medical usage.

To alleviate food shortages, companies have been researching and producing genetically altered food products. Hemp seed is a good natural source of protein that contains all of the essential fatty acids with almost no saturated fat. Hemp seed protein is extremely easy to digest and the essential fatty acids found in hemp seed oil are known to reduce the risk of heart disease.

The method Hearst used to demonize marijuana was immensely effective. Indeed, its effectiveness pervades even in the thinking of many people today. As the owner of the nation's largest newspaper chain, Hearst was in a position to influence people's thinking by offering whatever lies he chose to publish as news and therefore fact. He published stories daily calling marijuana the "devil's weed" and cited fictionalized stories of "reefer madness" that drove black men to rape white women, and drove its users into a sexual frenzy capable of unspeakable acts. Much of Hearst's propaganda was racist oriented.

While the lies published by the Hearst empire convinced the public, it was a man named Harry Ainslinger and his lies that convinced Congress to ban marijuana and all aspects of hemp. He was a man in the mold of J. Edgar Hoover, Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Attorney General John Ashcroft. He was single-minded to the point of obsession in his determination to stamp out marijuana and concocted false impressions presented as fact. Ainslinger was appointed to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics by his uncle-in-law, Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon. Mellon was also the owner of The Mellon Bank, one of only two banks used by Dupont since 1928. Without consulting any facts or figures, Ainslinger told Congress that 50% of crime was committed by blacks and Latinos on marijuana. After Hearst had laid the groundwork, the gullible politicians believed the lies even more strongly because they now came from an “official” source. The corporations were safe. They had achieved their objective and the promise hemp had offered was killed.

Despite research, scientific studies and commissions that have consistently shown that marijuana does not cause aggression, lead to crime, the use of harder drugs or cause any residual mental, physical or psychological damage, the myths and prejudice continue. Marijuana possession accounts for about 15% of state and federal drug inmates and the cost of imprisoning them runs in the vicinity of $1.5 billion tax dollars every year. About seven billion of the $19.2 billion budgeted in this year's national budget for the War on Drugs will be spent on arresting marijuana users. Ten states already treat simple marijuana possession as a non-criminal offense. The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine reaffirmed its research in 1999, which showed that decriminalizing marijuana did not result in an increase in marijuana use.

The time has come to deal with marijuana logically and scientifically instead of emotionally. We need the products derived from hemp. We cannot afford the money spent to continue the myths and prosecute people for possessing marijuana. We are in desperate need of the boost this cash crop can give the economy. As a planet, we cannot ignore the need for the source of clean biomass energy hemp can provide. It's time to put all of the sixty-five year old lies to rest. It's time.

10-06-03