In my research into trying to make sense of why cannabis is illegal, I realized that I might as well be searching for the holy grail or the fountain of youth, because the criminalization of cannabis makes no sense at all…
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America is a country who’s original declaration of independence was written on hemp, but yet hemp is illegal.
America is a country that was built on the hemp industry, but if you get caught with it, you go to jail.
What’s most ridiculous to me is, is that the American Government will deny the fact that hemp has medicinal properties, yet HOLDS PATENTS for the medical use of cannabis.
Now if you are getting confused with the interchanging of the words “hemp”, “cannabis”, or even “marijuana” – let me help you out: They Are The Same Thing.
Hemp refers mainly to the stalks of the plant, that up until the 1930’s was a huge aspect of the American economy. It was also completely legal. So let’s talk about the word “marijuana”.
Read: Researchers prove marijuana doesn’t affect your intelligence
In the early days of the American colonies, hemp was actually a required crop in some places. The reason that hemp had economic viability was because of slaves. It is an extremely tough plant to process, and after the end of slavery in the 1860’s the hemp industry went to the wayside in light of easier products to process now that there was no slave labor. Hemp was still used, and completely legal, but just not in the same concentrations. The cotton gin made the need for hemp fibers even less necessary.
Then, in the 1930’s a machine was invented called the Decorticator that made processing hemp much easier. There was a renewed interest in hemp because it was now economically viable again. The first people to take notice of this were the guys that owned the paper mills. As the government moved towards a new pro-hemp stance, news paper owners (who would now have to spend millions to start using hemp instead of trees for paper) started printing stories about this new drug called “marijuana”, and how it was, as Joe Rogan puts it “making blacks and Mexicans rape white women.” Congress outlawed marijuana not realizing that they were outlawing hemp.
I wish I was making that up. It’s literally that stupid.
Read: Alaska Will be the First US State to Allow Public Use of Legal Marijuana
I guess it makes sense considering the time at which it occurred considering that the news paper was how people got their news. Yet, here we sit, 80 years later with the same antiquated laws staring us in the face. In reality, marijuana has NOTHING to do with hemp, it’s pretty much a made up word. Marijuana was originally a word to describe a wild form of Mexican tobacco.
So the hemp industry aside, now we have the word “cannabis”, which is used more to describe the buds and leaves of the hemp plant. Cannabis is actually comprised of over 160 different compounds called cannabinoids. ONE of these cannabinoids is responsible for the “high” people get from ingesting it: THC. The other 159 or so have no psychotropic properties.
What they do have is medicinal properties. The cannabinoid CBD, most notably has been PROVEN to treat epilepsy in children, among other things. With no side effect.
SO WHY IS CANNABIS ILLEGAL AGAIN?
Simple, Money. Think about how much money the pharmaceutical companies would lose if there was a naturally occurring, easy to grow, easy to produce cure for an ever-increasing list of maladies? “Big Pharma” is exactly the villain people have made them out to be. Guess what the Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars on? Politicians. Coincidence?
Now I am edging close to a rant here, so I’ll just pump the brakes and provide you with some information, and you can make your own decisions:
This video, done by Ben Swann, explains cannabinoids (CBD oil) and their usage in medicine. Try not to look away at the footage of a mother comforting her child who is having one, of an average of 300 seizures a week. It’s heart breaking, I know, but it’s also amazing to learn that after being treated with cannabis oil, that she only has one seizure a week on average now.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
This article from Ben Swann explains how the US government holds patents on medical uses for cannabis, but says that it’s not medicinal.
Thankfully there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the usage of CBD oils, because many states are finally passing laws to legalize CBD oil.
Read: 5 of the Most Ridiculous Arguments Against Marijuana Leagalization
Stay tuned, because I am going to write more about this topic in the future. Awareness and information are the only things that facilitate change. Read, Listen, and Open Your Eyes.
