Posts Tagged ‘russ belleville’
On this day of remembrance of the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many news outlets will provide highlights or even the full text of his landmark 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech at the Nation’s Capital. It is a remarkable oration of a man dedicated to the most American of principles – that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Yet even as Dr. King’s four little children and all black children live this day in a nation where they are increasingly not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, they suffer much of the same discrimination, incarceration, disenfranchisement, and terrorism Dr. King fought to rid this country of five decades ago. Only this time the judgment is not overtly by the color of their skin, but by the functional racism of our drug law enforcement.
The statistics show how our drug law enforcement is maintaining a “Jim Crow”-like status for black people. In California, a black person is ten times more likely to be imprisoned for a marijuana offense than a white person. In Florida, almost one in five black men can’t vote because of felony convictions, often because three-quarters of an ounce of pot is a felony there. In New York, nine out of ten people busted for misdemeanor marijuana possession are black or Latino. (For a full treatise on this subject, please read Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”.)
However, we mustn’t confuse equality with justice in our drug laws. Lately, the demographics of our drug war has shifted toward imprisoning more whites by proportion, but the problem isn’t that we lock up too many black and Latino people for using drugs, it is that we lock up any people for using drugs, period. That our drug laws are used disproportionately against the poor and the powerless only reflects their nature as tools of oppression. In order for all to be treated equally, we must all be treated justly.
For we live in a nation where making the choice that provides you a livable life can cost you your precious liberty. In two-thirds of these United States a jail cell awaits for the patients using marijuana as medicine just to alleviate suffering or debilitation. Even in the sixteen states that have medical marijuana laws, patients using marijuana as medicine face a virtual “No Medical Marijuana Patients” sign in many “Help Wanted” ads, hotels, and apartment listings just as surely as Dr. King saw “Whites Only” signs in those places half a century ago. In most of the 16 states, these citizens are required to register with the government annually and pay a fee to avoid arrest and forfeit of their belongings. For this privilege they must adhere to restrictions no other medicine is subject to. (For examples, an Oregon patient seen by a cop smoking a joint on the beach has violated the “no public view” provision of the medical marijuana law, loses protection of the card, and the 29-gram bag of weed in his pocket is now a class B felony worthy of a possible 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. A Montana patient who visits Washington has no protection from arrest. A California patient caught at Yosemite National Park by a federal ranger will be arrested.)
We live in a nation where, in any state, those who are blessed with good health can lose their liberty if they make the choice to pursue happiness by using marijuana . In the workplace and at school citizens are frequently judged not by the content of their character, but by the content of their urine. On the highways and byways our citizens are not even judged for their character by a human’s mind, but by the content of aroma in a dog’s nose. Careers are ruined, families are shattered, and lives are forever altered in a disgusting, quixotic attempt to enforce morality.
This assault on liberty is made more revolting by its contrast to the accepted drugs in this nation. Movie franchises and television sitcoms celebrate the glories of alcohol excess, paid for by the advertisements of more alcohol and the “good” drugs, pharmaceutical medications. No student or employee fears discrimination, expulsion, or termination for their use of pharmaceuticals and alcohol, so long as they are of legal age or have legal prescription and their use didn’t affect their work. However, the even the valedictorian and the Employee of the Year can be out on the streets if their urine shows evidence of marijuana use, regardless if it was smoked last night or last weekend.
In his speech, Dr. King spoke of “the fierce urgency of now.” Fifteen years ago, we began chiseling away at the wall of ignorance that is our nation’s drug laws with California’s Prop 215, legalizing the use of marijuana as medicine under a doctor’s supervision. As hopeful as that day was and as many people as it has helped, it has provided too little justice to too few people. Like Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Prop 215 brought us the beginning of justice, but it did not bring justice. It has left us with but one out of twenty-five gaining only the illusion of justice and a system of Jim Crow second-class citizenship that gets more restrictive with each new state that enacts a medical marijuana law.
Yet many in our movement who claim to fight for justice believe this medical marijuana system is the path to the equality for the cannabis consumer. They fight to expand the definition of “medical” to be so broad as to cover anyone who chooses to use cannabis for personal reasons. I believe this is a mistake. This is like the light-skinned black who’s favored to work in the master’s house telling the darker field slaves to just bleach their skin so they can escape the master’s backbreaking cotton fields and enjoy the relative luxury of working the master’s kitchen and the laundry. The antidote to oppression is not a kinder, gentler oppression; the antidote is freedom.
In the recent months we’ve seen an increased assault by the federal government against the states with medical marijuana laws. Activists fighting for justice in our drug laws are furious and ready to fight back. But as Dr. King spoke of another oppressed group ready to fight back, “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” And I believe, for too many in our ranks, medical marijuana has become that tranquilizing drug or gradualism. I’m told that this state or that state isn’t ready for legalization of marijuana and they are accepting of medical marijuana. And I reply, “Who’s job is it to get that state ready? If those of us who believe in justice and equality for all cannabis consumers are willing to compromise that belief for the sake of political expediency, why should the oppressor take our belief seriously?”
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” Dr. King said, “[n]ow is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”
So I have a dream, too, if I may paraphrase Dr. King. I have a dream that one day in Virginia the sons of marijuana smugglers and the sons of DEA agents can sit down together with the bong of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state Florida, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed with vast fields of industrial hemp. I have a dream that in Oklahoma, with its vicious laws, with its governor having her pen signing laws that punish hash with life imprisonment; one day right there in Oklahoma, beer drinkers and cigarette smokers and marijuana tokers can all be trusted to use their substances responsibly like adults.
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all cannabis consumers, black men and white men, patients and potheads, Rastas and atheists, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Peter Tosh song, “Legalize it. Don’t criticize it!”
It’s end-of-year retrospective time! While my colleagues on the NORML Blog (go check out the new look that matches the new site) are going to bring you the biggest marijuana news stories of 2011, here at The Daily Stash Blog we’re going to bring you stories that may have fallen through the cracks of other drug policy 2011 remembrances.
Today we bring you the Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011. ”Reefer Madness”, of course, is the 1936 anti-pot propaganda film showing young people becoming crazed and violent on the effects of “reefer”. Today, we use “Reefer Madness” as shorthand to describe the hysterical warnings by the anti-drug zealots as reported unchallenged by a complacent media.
Tomorrow we’ll look at the Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011. Thursday we’ll cover the Top Ten “Stupid Stoner Stories” of 2011. Friday we’ll cover the Top Ten People in Marijuana of 2011.
Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011
10. Oregonian editorial board hypes fears of medical marijuana and teen pot smoking
(The Oregonian – “Seeing through the smoke” editorial) It’s about time someone took action on the increasing number of medical marijuana dispensaries. … Right now, anyone, including teenagers, can apply [for a medical marijuana card]. A study done by Oregon Partnership found, for example, that 35 percent of students at Wilson High School and 46 percent at Marshall High School knew someone with a card.
Unlike the Oregonian editorial board, I check sources (I work for NORML: I have to.) The survey they refer to was addressed at a Marshall High community town hall meeting. The poll was conducted by students as part of a project called “SMASH” in a “confidential, random, peer-to-peer” survey – meaning one high school kid asking another high school kid. We have no control group, no control for confounding variables, not even a mention of the survey size or the randomness of those polled (maybe the SMASH kids are more likely to “randomly” speak to their friend, for instance, or stood in the hall and talked to anyone passing by who would answer.)
But besides all the methodological issues arising from trusting the polling data of high school kids talking to their friends, it’s important to note what their survey actually said:
PERCEPTION: Students surveyed believed that 8 out of 10 students smoke marijuana
REALITY: 7 out of 10 students DO NOT smoke marijuana
Kids surveyed thought 77.3% of others were smoking marijuana. 76.07% of kids never smoked marijuana, another 12.27% smoked it once or twice a month. So, kids think 3 out of 4 other kids smoke pot when 3 out of 4 kids actually don’t. Where, oh, where could the kids be getting the message that youth cannabis smoking is out of control, when, in fact, Oregon’s 12th grade monthly cannabis use rates have declined 14% (before | after) since 1999, when medical marijuana got underway in Oregon?
9. Papa John’s Pizza supports driver who reported medical marijuana patient to police
You would think that pizza delivery companies would understand who their customers are and that a great number of them smoke marijuana. If you’re a pizza delivery company in Colorado, you’d understand that many of the marijuana smokers in your delivery area may be legally using cannabis for medicinal purposes. But apparently Papa John’s pizza in Colorado doesn’t care too much about its drivers violating the privacy of its customers who are medical marijuana patients.
(9News) The man was smoking medical marijuana just before the pizza arrived on Friday evening. The delivery driver smelled the marijuana and called the cops. The Papa John’s employee, who was not identified, was concerned because the customer’s 9-year-old daughter was in the house.
8. The annual scaremongering about marijuana-laced Halloween treats begins now
L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Glen Walsh said parents should definitely inspect the candy their children bring home after trick-or-treating.
Walsh said a pungent smell or an odd taste can serve as indicators on whether the food contains marijuana. As for the potency of the marijuana-laced prodcuts, Walsh said the level of THC, the chemical found in marijuana, can vary from zero to over 90 percent.
OK, so watch closely, parents. You don’t want your kid getting a candy with 0% THC in it. But if you find any of that 90% THC stuff, you can send it my way for proper disposal.
How stupid is this? First off, if there is a person out there who would intentionally hand THC-laden treats to children, they are a criminal. They’d be just as likely to poison Halloween treats or put pins or razor blades in them.. which is an urban legend with no truth to it whatsoever.
Second, if you are a person who uses THC-laden treats for medical or recreational purposes, why are you handing out a $20 “Buddafinger” when you could pass out a 20-cent “Butterfinger”? You want to be so sure some kid you don’t know and won’t see gets high that you’ll spend 10 times more on Halloween candy?
7. Portland Reporter Anna Canzano: A medical marijuana-hating sheriff’s best friend
[Oregon Sheriff's Association President] Tom Bergin said at the rate Oregon is going, he believes Oregon is three times sicker than California. Why? Well, more than 90 percent of cardholders say they’re using pot to treat pain — not glaucoma or cancer — as the bill was initially marketed.
Here are the facts from the state’s medical marijuana program registry:
- There are 49,220 medical marijuana patients
- There are 44,756 patients who indicate chronic pain as a qualifying condition
So Canzano, Bergin, and every prohibitionist who scoffs at people in serious pain treating it with a non-toxic herb pull out their calculators and exclaim “90% of cardholders are using it for pain, not glaucoma or cancer!” (The number is actually 90.9%.)
What Canzano distorts lies in the word “not”. Under Oregon law, a registry cardholder can qualify under more than one condition. The state even puts “A patient may have more than one diagnosed qualifying medical condition” right there on the website where you got the numbers to crunch. Are we to believe people with cancer and glaucoma don’t suffer chronic pain as well?
6. Florida Woman Sues Over Being Arrested for Sage
A woman in Florida who was arrested for felony marijuana possession is suing for wrongful arrest. She might just have a case, she was charged with marijuana possession even though the bag they caught her with turned out to be Sage. 49 year old, Robin Brown says a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy caught her while she was bird watching back in March of 2009. He used his field kit on the herb she had in a bag, and said that in the field it tested positive for marijuana. The deputy sent the 50 grams of substance to a state crime lab.
Her lawsuit says that she was arrested before the test was performed. Her arrest was ordered by the Assistant State Attorney, Mark Horn, in June of 2009. She was arrested at her place of business, Massage Envy in Weston. She said that she was arrested in front of co-workers and her customers and subjected to a full body cavity search during her overnight stay in jail. When her lawyer discovered the herbs had not been tested a second time, he used the courts to force the tests which determined what Ms. Brown was contending all along, her sage was completely marijuana free.
5. Teen dies after plastic fumes scar lungs, media blames synthetic pot
The boy smoked the fake marijuana out of a plastic PEZ candy dispenser. The chemicals in the drugs caused extensive damage to his lungs. Brandon was put on a respirator in June and had a double lung transplant in September.
So, we’re to assume here it was the K2 that scarred the boys lungs and not the freakin’ fumes from the melting plastic of a PEZ dispenser?!?
Tonya Rice told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper Brandon was put on a respirator in June after smoking Spice fake cannabis, which is said to be ten times more dangerous than cocaine.
Not to be cruel or insensitive about the boy’s death, but he didn’t suddenly die from the acute effects of K2 use. He used it in June, fell very ill, was given a double lung transplant, and died from an infection because of his lowered immune system in October. So, to compare, we have cocaine, which can give you a heart attack by overdose and kill you the minute you snort / smoke / inject it, versus a synthetic cannabinoid smoked through plastic, requiring a double lung transplant, leading to a fatal infection four months later in the hospital that kills one boy. We’re not trying to say K2 is safe – it isn’t – but it’s not “ten times more dangerous than cocaine”.
4. CASA’s Joe Califano blames marijuana for Arizona shooter
I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.
So as we continue to think about this killer and his deranged mind, we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana?
Gee, Joe, what do you think we ought to do? Make marijuana illegal? Lock up people who use it? Break down their doors at night and shoot their dogs? Use helicopters and infrared to eradicate the plant wherever it’s grown? Throw billions at American and Mexican law enforcement for armor and weapons to fight its traffickers? Train dogs to sniff it out? Drug test employees, high schoolers, even middle schoolers to detect its use?
The facts are that 1% of the population exhibits schizophrenia, whether it is 1979 and 60% of high school seniors have tried marijuana or it is 1992 and 33% have tried it. A study of 186 UK mental hospitals found no increase in schizophrenia or psychosis admissions, despite use rates of cannabis increasing greatly during that decade.
3. UK Daily Mail: Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’
Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’
Oh, dear. From zero deaths* in 5,000 years of human use to ’30,000 a year’. That sounds serious. Let’s read on…
More than 30,000 cannabis smokers could die every year, doctors warn today.
Wait, “could die”? We’ve gone from the active headline verb “kills” to the lede adverb “could”? Usually you bury that wiggle room somewhere in paragraph umpteen. Continue…
Professor John Henry, a leading authority on the drug, said the change – due to take place this summer – had undermined doctors’ efforts to highlight the risks.
He said: “Cannabis is as dangerous as cigarette smoking – in fact, it may be even worse – and downgrading its legal status has simply confused people.”
“May be” worse? Where are the wards full of cannabis smokers? Britain actually has some level of health care worthy of a civilized (civilised) people. You’d think the National Health Service would bring these figures up. It sounds like quite a cost to the government.
2. American Cancer Society says marijuana use can lead to amputation
Although it is rare, severe shutdown of blood circulation to the arms or legs has been reported in young people who smoked marijuana. In some cases, it was so severe that amputation was required.
In all my years beating back reefer madness, this is a first. I have never heard a story of someone’s marijuana use leading to amputation. I have covered stories of people who use marijuana for their already-existing amputation, since it is a superior medication for “phantom” pain, and I’ve covered one double-amputee diabetic’s eviction for her medical marijuana use, though.
1. Butt-chugging, vodka tampons, drinking bleach, and other parent-frightening urban legends
(KPHO) [School Resource Officer Chris] Thomas spends his days patrolling the halls of a Valley high school. He’s heard first hand how kids are getting tipsy.
“What we’re hearing about is teenagers utilizing tampons, soak them in vodka first before using them,” Thomas said.
“This is definitely not just girls,” Thomas said. “Guys will also use it and they’ll insert it into their rectums.”
Rather than the traditional beer bong you’d find at a college party, kids are sticking the tube elsewhere to get wasted.
They’re calling it “butt chugging.”
Rrrighttt… young teenage males, typically the most homophobic and self-conscious creatures on the planet, are dropping trou in front of their peers and inserting plastic tubes up their ass to chug beer. And the vodka tampons? Huffington Post reports that “the practice remains unverified despite multiple reports of incidents in the U.S. and elsewhere” and that a blogger “conducted her own informal trial to see whether the purported method worked“, where she notes the alcohol dissolves the glue and consistency of the tampon so much it couldn’t be inserted and that even if it were inserted, the burn you’d feel on your sensitive lady parts would not make this an enjoyable drunk. Plus, the idea that it would help teens avoid detection with no alcohol on their breath is false, as alcohol metabolizes in your breath no matter how you ingest it.
Leading up to the promotion of their new Discovery Channel reality show, Weed Wars, brothers Steven and Andrew DeAngelo appeared on the Dylan Ratigan Show (on the left-leaning MSNBC) and on The O’Reilly Factor (on the right-leaning FOX News Channel). Steven and Andrew run the world’s largest cannabis dispensary, Harborside Health Center in Oakland, CA, serving over 98,000 patients and grossing in excess of $20 million annually.
First, Dylan Ratigan asks Steven whether he would be “presumptuous in suggesting that you guys would be in favor of legalization?”
Steven DeAngelo: “Yes, you would. I don’t believe that any psychoactive substance should be used for recreation.“
Steven DeAngelo: “Wine and cannabis… you know, I support any effort to change the cannabis laws that’s going to get the people who are in prison out of there, and if we can do it by repeal, great, if we can do it with a wine analogy, great.”
So… uh… you do support comparing cannabis to wine, a psychoactive substance, all of which you believe should not be used recreationally, but only for “health and wellness”? I’m confused… does this mean wine should be treated like medical marijuana or that marijuana should be treated as wine and both require a doctor?
Next on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly pushes the brothers on the medical aspect of California’s Prop 215, with his familiar bloviating about his “undercover report” that showed how easy it is to get a medical marijuana recommendation. He acknowledges Steven’s degenerative disc disease and Andrew’s glaucoma as serious ailments in need of cannabis treatment, but points out that cannabis in California can be recommended for anxiety and that it is ludicrously easy to find a doctor who will find you anxious enough to need a weed card. O’Reilly dangles the fish-hook of “isn’t this quasi-legalization?” and Andrew takes the bait (cue video to 3:35):
Andrew DeAngelo: “We will say right here on this show, Bill, that we do not support the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes.“
As you can imagine, a statement like this has drawn some heat. In response,Harborside has posted a clarification:
“The mission of Harborside Health Center is to advocate for full access to cannabis for purposes of health and wellness. While it is not our mission to advocate the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes, we do feel criminal penalties for cannabis are unjust and should be repealed.”
Did that clarify anything? OK, so people who use cannabis for “health and wellness” ought to granted full access. People who use cannabis for recreational purposes should not be criminally penalized. So, does that mean cops leave all pot smokers alone, but only ones who claim “health and wellness” uses get to shop at Harborside? And what do you call it when there are no criminal penalties for recreational marijuana use, other than legalization?
It doesn’t get any clearer when you read Steven’s latest treatise, “Wellness, not Intoxication“:
Rather than positioning recreational cannabis as being in opposition to medical cannabis, my fellow activists might instead recognize that promoting recreation is one of the many health and wellness benefits provided by cannabis. Recreation itself has long been recognized in America as an essential ingredient for health and wellness….
The soccer moms of America are never going to buy the argument that their kids need one more thing to get high on, no matter how safe or natural that thing is. But they might vote in favor of allowing adult citizens to make their own health and wellness decisions. Legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes–a strategy that emphasizes cannabis as an intoxicant– plays right into the hands the prohibitionists, who are itching for another opportunity to portray cannabis users as decadent hedonists. And at this time, in this place, the legalization strategy is not merely misguided-it is dangerous.
…Instead, advocates of legalization should recalibrate their understanding of medical cannabis from the illness model to the wellness model; and focus their energies on expanding the umbrella of medical cannabis to include all users of the plant.
…Instead of accepting the limitations and inaccuracy of the illness model of medical cannabis; our movement should ensure that all legislation embraces the wellness model of medical cannabis, and is therefore expansive enough to bring all adults under its protection.
So, cannabis promotes recreation, recreation is good for wellness, all adults who want to use it for recreation as part of their wellness should be entitled to do so, so long as they don’t call the use recreational?
Apparently it is only “misguided” and “dangerous” to be campaigning for recreational use of marijuana in 2011. In 2010, on the other hand…
Steven DeAngelo: “As someone who has dedicated his life to the cause of medical cannabis, Prop 19 is going to advance the cause of medical cannabis and not set us back.”
Now I truly believe that Steven and Andrew DeAngelo think deep inside that cannabis should be as legal for me to access as anybody. But $2.5 million in tax attacks from the IRS and threats of raids and prison time growing more real, combined with the spotlight of Weed Wars, have the DeAngelos parsing “legalization”, “recreational”, “medical”,and ”wellness” to a degree Bill Clinton would applaud.
And that, my friends, is the real misguided and potentially dangerous mistake for our movement – blowing any shred of credibility we may have with the general public. Medical support does still outweigh legalization support, but that medical support number has stayed constant since Prop 215 in 1996, while legalization support has doubled now to 50% in that time. But polls are also showing that a majority of Americans believe “most medical marijuana is used for something else” (52%) and thatonly 31% believe it is being used for “serious medical illnesses”.
It is too much to expect the world to completely redefine their concept of “medical” to fit uses of marijuana that are clearly recreational. As every other state after California has shown, “medical” means restrictive condition lists, doctors harassed by medical boards, ridiculously low possession limits, and dispensary monopolies with tight government security and controls. We have a world that understands and supports recreational use of alcohol. Won’t it be easier to convince someone an adult can be trusted with an intoxicant safer than alcohol than to convince them the Prop 215 area at the Cypress Hill show is something “medical”? Instead of “Wellness, not Intoxication”, how about “Honesty, not Euphemisms”? A path of “health and wellness” always leads to a place where someone gets to decide if I’m not sick enough to keep out of a prison cell. A path of full legalization includes all medical (and all spiritual and all industrial) uses along with recreational.
Seventy years ago today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a day President Roosevelt said, “would live in infamy”. The next day, Congress declared war* and America, which had been reticent to get involved with foreign wars just a generation after “the Great War”, was at war in the Pacific, and days later, in Europe as well.
My grandfather was a part of that “Greatest Generation” and fought in the Pacific. He’s passed on years ago, but I always remember him when this day comes around. As a child, I saw his sergeant’s uniform, clean and pressed, hanging in a plastic bag in his closet. That was as much as I knew about his involvement in World War II; unlike some men who never see war, he didn’t talk about it much.
My friends often kid me that I can find a marijuana angle in any news story. Today is no different. On December 7, 1941, cannabis had been federally prohibited for four years already. Most states had begun eradicating and prohibiting cannabis even before 1937. A nation founded by hemp farmers, whose first hemp plantations were sewn in 1611, had criminalized hemp farming for the first time in its history. It hadn’t much effect; American farmers had long since switched to corn, wheat, soy, and other more profitable crops. Hemp was cheap enough to get from overseas farmers and plenty of modern new synthetic fibers made from bountiful and cheap petroleum were too much competition for hemp in most cases.
Except warfare. Ocean warfare require battleships and they require rigging that withstands rot, seawater, and is extremely strong, something only hemp robe and canvas can provide. It was just a few months after Pearl Harbor that the Japanese had captured the Philippines, and with it, our primary source of illegal-to-produce-in-America hemp, so desperately needed for ships engaged in the Pacific theater. So in the summer of 1942, America mustered up a little Hemp for Victory!
The tale of the first US Hemp for Victory mill in Polo, Illinois:
The hemp mill program was assigned to the Department of Agriculture. The program for planting and processing the hemp plant was directed by the Commodity Credit Corporation. There were to be forty-two mills in the Midwest, eleven of which were to be in Illinois. The plant in Polo, Illinois, was to be the pilot mill for the entire program. It was the first of its kind.
The Polo Hemp Mill, which began operation on November 20, 1943, consisted of mill buildings, a dryer, storage buildings, and a boiler house. The overall cost was $350,000.
At first, farmers were reluctant to raise hemp because they knew nothing about it. They feared a labor shortage at harvest time and also feared that hemp prices would be lower than those of corn prices. To acquaint the farmers with raising hemp, meetings were held at the Polo High School. The farmers were reassured that the necessary equipment would be provided for every one hundred acres of hemp. The farmers in the area then joined in the attempt to produce the fiber crop, something entirely new to the area’s agriculture.
The first carload of Kentucky hemp seed arrived in Polo in April 1943. Farmers were soon busy planting. The hemp seed was drilled into prepared ground between oats and corn planting. Soil which is suitable for growing corn is usually suitable for raising hemp.
Of course, after World War II, there was no more need for Hemp for Victory. Oil was still cheap and plentiful and so was overseas hemp. It’s sad that it takes something of the magnitude of a world war to return us to our hemp heritage. Let’s hope it doesn’t take climate catastrophe to bring back the next return.
And thanks, Grandpa, for your service.
* Remember that quaint little part of the Constitution?
Someday we will look at the American Cancer Society’s stance on cannabis like we look at medieval barbers’ thoughts on bloodletting.
Seriously, American Cancer Society, you’re publishing this Reefer Madness on your “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” data sheet in medical marijuana?
Many researchers agree that marijuana contains known carcinogens, or chemicals that can cause cancer.
All researchers agree that water contains a known explosive, hydrogen, a volatile element that can ignite with as little as a static electricity spark. That doesn’t mean water can cause explosions. Chemistry matters. Yes, cannabis smoke — all smoke — contains carcinogens. But cannabis smoke also contains THC, which has been shown to have anti-tumoral effects and inhibits cancer cell growth through apoptosis (cell “suicide”).
Results of epidemiologic studies of marijuana and cancer risk have been inconsistent, and most recent epidemiologic studies have not found a substantial effect on cancer risk. However, some researchers caution that these studies are difficult to conduct, as some people may not be truthful about illegal habits such as smoking marijuana, and that these negative results should not be interpreted as convincing evidence of safety.
Uh… what? We do studies that can’t distinguish an increased risk of cancer from pot smoking, but folks lie about pot, so we can’t trust the studies? Well, that would mean the either the people who don’t get cancer are lying about smoking pot, or people who do get cancer are lying about not smoking pot. The former doesn’t make much sense, so the author must assume there are a whole bunch of pot smokers in cancer wards who are lying about it and blaming it on something else.
Seems quite a stretch to me, especially when Dr. Tashkin studied thousands of pot smokers for 30 years, concluding “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”
They caution that smoking marijuana may decrease reproductive function,…
Willie Nelson has seven kids. Snoop Dogg has three kids. Tommy Chong has five kids. Bob Marley has eleven kids. Just sayin’ those reproductive scares have been studied, too, and they’re bunk.
…cause lung disease, and increase the risk of cancer of the lungs, mouth, and tongue. It may also suppress the body’s immune system…
Sure, right, that’s why doctors recommend it for AIDS patients who have the most compromised immune systems of any patient. That’s why I rarely get colds and never get the flu, despite passing joints and pipes from the lips of many other pot smokers to mine own. This immune system scare is bunk, too.
…and increase the risk of leukemia in children whose mothers smoke marijuana during pregnancy. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding should not use marijuana.
Pregnancy is always a critical time for wise healthcare and women should be cautious about their use of any substances while pregnant. However, cannabis can be much safer for pregnancy-related health issues than many prescriptions commonly given to expectant mothers.
The symptoms of a marijuana overdose include nausea, vomiting, hacking cough, disturbances to heart rhythms, and numbness in the limbs.
“Marijuana overdose”? Then you admit that there is a “dose” of marijuana that would be medically acceptable? What they are describing here are the immediate effects of taking a huge bong hit, effects that diminish very rapidly.
Chronic use can also lead to laryngitis, bronchitis, and general apathy.
Yes, chronic inhalation of hot smoke of any kind can lead to laryngitis and bronchitis. But the “amotivational syndrome” – the apathy – has been long since debunked (see above Nelson, Dogg, Chong, & Marley as examples, then add in Michael Phelps, Carl Sagan, Sir Richard Branson…)
With chronic use, the ability to learn and remember new information may become impaired.
Really? I just learned and memorized bass lines and lyrics to ten new songs for my band. This month I’ve been learning the new Joomla back-end of the NORML website. Every year I am analyzing changing data and from memory can tell you last year there were 853,000 arrests for marijuana comprising 52% of all drug arrests, 15.8 million adults using marijuana monthly, and the highest recorded potency of seized marijuana came in at 37.2% in a sample taken by cops in San Jose in 2007. If I couldn’t learn and remember new information on a daily basis, I would have been unable to produce 810 daily talk radio shows.
Although it is rare, severe shutdown of blood circulation to the arms or legs has been reported in young people who smoked marijuana. In some cases, it was so severe that amputation was required.
In all my years beating back reefer madness, this is a first. I have never heard a story of someone’s marijuana use leading to amputation. I have covered stories of people who use marijuana for their already-existing amputation, since it is a superior medication for “phantom” pain, and I’ve covered one double-amputee diabetic’s eviction for her medical marijuana use, though.
Marijuana may also serve as a trigger for a heart attack on rare occasions, usually within an hour after smoking.
If you are a person with a weak heart, your risk of heart attack due to the increase of heart rate associated with marijuana smoking does increase. It increases by about the same factor as if you and your weak heart climb a flight of stairs or engage in sex. It’s like noting that your risk of being eaten by a shark greatly increases if you live in California rather than Iowa. It’s true, but it’s misleading.
Allergic reactions, some severe, have been reported.
Like peanuts or latex or bee stings? Sure, so if you find you’re allergic to those or cannabis, don’t subject yourself to them.
It is so frustrating to see the American Cancer Society in such opposition to the plant that shows the greatest promise in treating and curing cancer.
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