Cannabis Sativa is the proper name for both marijuana and hemp. From 1619 until outlawed as "Marihuana" in 1937, Cannabis Sativa was the US' largest legal industry.
On October 2, 1937, the US Federal government passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which put a prohibitive tax on production of the "drug menace." To grow Cannabis Sativa legally, a citizen of the
United States would need to purchase a Special Tax Stamp. Citizens were required to possess Cannabis Sativa when trying to buy the stamp. However, because of the rules of the Marihuana Tax Act, anyone who possessed marijuana without the stamp was then arrested as a drug dealer. The Federal government refused to release these Special Tax Stamps, thus ensuring that anyone who grew this ancient crop would be deemed a criminal. This was the beginning of marijuana prohibition.
The day the Marihuana Tax Act was passed, federal agents arrested Samuel Caldwell, 58, in
Denver, CO, for selling two marihuana cigarettes. Samuel Caldwell became the first American convicted under the new federal law. He was sentenced to four years in Levenworth Penitentiary, and died a year after being released.
Despite the rampant propaganda of the 1930s against "Marihuana," where newspapers and Federal agencies condemned Cannabis Sativa as "the world's most dangerous narcotic," the US Federal government began issuing the Special Tax Stamps during World War II. Following the attack on
Pearl
Harbour, with imports of coarse fibers cut off by the Japanese, the US Department of Agriculture enacted a plan to ensure a steady supply of the world's strongest natural fiber by legally allowing Americans to grow Cannabis Sativa.
In 1942, the US Department of Agriculture made a fourteen-minute film for patriotic American farmers, titled "Hemp For Victory," on how to grow and process Cannabis Sativa. Shown in this film is the Special Tax Stamp issued for the price of only one dollar which clearly reads, "Producer of Marihuana." In the first year that "Marihuana" was legalized again, the USDA authorized at least 50,000 acres to be grown to support the
US military. In 1943, the US Federal government's goal for Cannabis production was 350,000 acres, which the film even states is an "increase of several thousand percent."
The parachute used by George Herbert Walker Bush when his bomber was shot down over the Pacific in 1944 was 100% legal American "Marihuana." George W. Bush was not born until 1946. Therefore, legal "Marihuana" has saved the lives of two
US Presidents.
During the three years that the
United States was officially involved in World War II, nearly one million acres of "Marihuana" were legally grown throughout the country. For the next forty years, every Federal Administration denied the existence of the film, "Hemp For Victory." Finally, in 1989, independent researchers discovered two copies of the film in the Library of Congress. Yet to this day, the US Federal government refuses to admit that Cannabis Sativa has any uses, whether as medicine or as a resource.
This hidden history of Cannabis legalization should be reviewed by the voting public, especially considering that billions of tax dollars are spent each year incarcerating hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding Americans for what could be supporting our troops.
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Amazing.
While I am 100% for legalisation, and while I have always destested the sneakiness of the tax stamp maneuver, after reading this I really wish they'd just kept the tax stamp prohibition going during WWII. It could have spared the world from having to deal with those two assholes. If anything this makes a good case for the real potential dangers of Cannabis.
"Cannabis Sativa" - "HEMP" is "KING". The non-THC version "HEMP" has many uses from Nutritional (protien, the perfect balanced Omega 3-6-9 oil, fiber, essential amino acids), biofuel (compare to switchgrass; reversing global warming), plastics, clothing, and many more. I appreciate your insite in the history of HEMP in America but you left out information such as that this crop can be produced without harmful pestisides that leach into rivers and water supplies. The list goes on and on why this plant is "KING". I encourage anyone for or against to educate themselves about this plant. POWER by truth. People make choices and want the ablility to make that choice. "Cannibis Sativa" its cousin with THC is one of many natures herbs with medicinal purposes. This plant has wonderful medicinal properties and is why it is being pushed through our legal system state by state for medical needs. It is only a matter of time in which our federal government will abide by the will of the people. Because of the wide variety of uses for medicinal needs, adults will be able to get there prescription to self medicate as needed.
Luckily its still legal here (Holland)
Greetz,
MrLunk
webmaster
http://www.koffieshopbirdy.nl
Shame the rest of the world doesn't follow suit. Spent many a night in The Greenhouse and De Rokery. Grey Area does some great weed too.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
There is quite a bit that wasn't mentioned about the uses of Cannabis Sativa. According to the US Department of Agriculture's Bulletin #404, written in 1916 by Lyster Dewey and Jason Merrill, one acre of Cannabis hemp could supply more than four times as much paper as an acre of average pulp land, completely ending global deforestation.
Also, when we legalize "Marihuana" to support our troops again, we could make all of our gasoline out of Cannabis through a process called pyrolysis. According to the book, "Energy Farming in America" by Lynn Osburn, dedicating as little as six percent of US soil to growing industrial hemp could supply all of America's energy, without war for oil in the Middle East.
Not only can "Marihuana" make all of our gasoline, but "Marihuana" can make all of our cars, too. Here is a thirty-second film clip from the early 1940s on Henry Ford's plastic car made from hemp: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4rgDyEO_8cI
If plastic cars can be made out of Cannabis hemp, then plastic computers can be made out of hemp, too. So, not only can "Marihuana" make all of our computers, but "Marihuana" grown as a biomass fuel can make the electricity to power our computers, too.
And if we use hemp for paper, like the USDA suggested in 1916, then we could leave the trees in the ground to take in excess CO2 from the atmosphere and quickly begin to reverse the Greenhouse Effect.
"A diplomatic review of the past thirty-five years will show that petroleum has played a larger part in the external relations of the United States than any other commodity."
- US State Department spokesman, 1945