History of Marijuana

Form what I have seen, everyone who opposes legalizing marijuana does not know anything about its history. Mostly, people have been caught in the drug hysteria created by our government and/or oppose it strictly because our government has said its bad and it kills.

Cannabis is an indigenous plant to central and south Asia. First use of cannabis can be dated back to pre-Jesus times and the Chinese first referenced it's medical uses in the Pen Ts'ao. The author of the Pen Ts'ao, Shen-Nung, was considered the "Father of Chinese Medicine" and he prescribed cannabis for the treatment of absentmindedness, constipation, malaria, beriberi, rheumatism, and menstrual problems. A Chinese surgeon used  an anesthetic composed of cannabis resin and wine to perform, for that era, dangerous surgeries (Bennett 18). As the Chinese welcomed the gift nature gave them, cannabis use spread out to the middle east. Here, it was not only used as a medicine but also used for religious purposes. A Caucasian tribe, the Scythians, who scholars believe spread the knowledge of cannabis, used cannabis as a way to honor the dead. In Mesopotamia cannabis was used because its "aroma was pleasing to the Gods." The Mesopotamians also used cannabis as a topical medication to treat diseases of the chest, stomach problems, skin lesions, lice, and swollen joints. There is also references to cannabis in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament. Cannabis use can be dated back to several thousand years ago, so how come its illegal today?

The cannabis prohibition we know of today stemmed for the anti-Asian riots and the prohibition of opium that followed these riots. In 1907 Vancouver was faced with an economic depression. Protesters blamed the Chinese and Japanese communities and marched down to Chinatown where they destroyed buildings and beat up innocent by-standers. The Chinese community asked for compensation and the government sent William Lyon Mackenzie King to investigate. King stated in his report that a couple of the stores were opium dens and the government should not compensate. He then sparked fear and hysteria in the public by stating "The habit of smoking opium was making headway, not only among white men and boys, but also among women and girls." King then wrote and helped pass into law the Anti-Opium Act of 1908, which banned opium sales by Chinese people (Levine 29). He then went to work for Rockefeller Institute, which helped close herbal medicine schools in the US. Before the close of these, experiments were being done on cannabis and its use in medicine (Levine 30). First laws against cannabis were established in states and towns near the Mexico border. William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper writer, stopped using the words cannabis and hemp in his newspapers when his ranch in Mexico was taken over by Pancho Villa's men. Hearst then started a propaganda campaign against marijuana which he said was "the favored relaxant of Villa's men," (Levine 31). Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930, used the angle of racism and drug use. "In 1937, Anslinger would select lurid newspaper stories from his famous 'gore file' and read them aloud while testifying to the House Ways and Means Committee: 'Negro raped a girl eight years of age. Two Negroes took a girl fourteen years of age and kept her for two days in a hut under the influence of marihuana. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis...Colored students at the University of Minnesota partying with female students (white) smoking and getting sympathy with their stories of racial persecution. Result-pregnancy,'" (Levine 31). In 1937, because there was no more herbal medicine schools to campaign for marijuana, the Marijuana Tax Act was signed into law. Rockefeller did a good job at eliminating any opponent to his multi-billion dollar oil company including his natural opponent, hemp (Levine 31).

Today sponsors of anti-cannabis ads like "The Partnership for a Drug-Free America" have donors in the big pharmaceutical industry as well as companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil, Hearst, and DuPont who donate   $30,000 to $100,000 yearly. Chase Manhattan and Citibank, owned by Rockefeller, donate up to $15,000 a year (Levine 33). With big pharmaceutical companies and businesses, owned by someone who helped close schools that could have provided valuable research, donating to sponsors of anti-cannabis ads, no wonder marijuana is still illegal.