Posted on May 10, 2010.
Unfortunate history of marijuana prohibition in the U.S. Most Americans associate marijuana use with the hippie movement of the 1970s. Little does know, marijuana is very important for this country when it was founded. In 1610, the Jamestown colony required that all households cultivating Indian hemp. They used to make clothing, fibers, fabrics, and medicine. In fact, the Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776 on hemp paper. In 1850, the Census Bureau estimated 8327 plantings nationally grew hemp. It took all the way until the early 1900s the United States suddenly a problem with plants.
Southern California and Texas were flooded with immigrants from Mexico in 1910. After long days of arduous often they smoke marijuana to relax. The United States abolished slavery in 1865, but equal rights for non-whites were still far from being realized. Consequently, the public began associating unfairly marijuana with Mexican immigrants, which they disliked, because they looked different. El Paso was the first to prohibit marijuana in 1914 because of a bar brawl attributed to "loco weed." First Texas law against marijuana read: "All Mexicans are crazy, and that sort of thing is what he did for them." After marijuana was prohibited, it was only a matter of months before the government enacted the Harrison Act of 1914, followed five years later the prohibition of alcohol in 1919. These access laws effectively stealing the taxpayers substances that have been legal since the beginning of time .
Fearing the spread of this terrible " Mexican drug crazy "the government has begun to put a massive propaganda to prevent the spread of marijuana use. Marijuana use has been a conflict of interest in our government because they did tax revenues cocaine prescribed by the doctor, heroin and morphine. They feared that the Americans get marijuana use as a substitute for these substances and they could get their hands on taxpayer money. Early campaigns were launched immediately, and the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics proclaimed, "Marijuana is a drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."
During the Great Depression, massive unemployment increased public resentment and fear of Mexican immigrants, escalating public and governmental concerns about the use of marijuana. This instigated a wave of research that has linked marijuana use to violence, crime and other antisocial behaviors, primarily committed by racially inferior or communities subclass. In 1931, 29 states have banned marijuana.
The hemp industry was obviously disappointed at this turn of events unfolded. To make matters worse, because of the industrial revolution it was becoming less expensive for industry to import hemp instead of producing it locally. With international politics increasingly tense, the United States has been cut off from most of its imports of hemp East around 1942. The government needs more rope to his ships and World War II so that the Government has begun huge hemp farms in the Midwest for the manufacture of rope. In one year, U.S. farmers harvested 375,000 acres of hemp hemp. In 1944, the New York Academy of Medicine published an extensive research report said contrary to popular belief, the use of marijuana does not cause violence, insanity or sex crimes, or lead to addiction or new drug.
It was becoming increasingly obvious to the public that marijuana might not be so dangerous after all, so of course the government stepped in and imposed emergency rule Boggs 195.