How pot became illegal...good read

[1991Brougham 10+ year member]

Found this bit of info today. It was a corporate thing!

The history of marijuana prohibition in this country goes back to the 1930s, when Henry Anslinger, Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition ( precursor to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ) signed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. While the bill didn't prohibit marijuana, it did call for a tax equaling one dollar ( an exorbitant tax at the time ) on anyone commercially dealing with hemp, marijuana, and cannabis. Anslinger was married to Martha Denniston, the niece of Andrew W. Mellon, who was then Secretary of the US Treasury.

Mellon was also a banker who had a vested interest in the DuPont chemical company and media mogul William Randolph Hearst's logging business. DuPont and Hearst were working on a paper-making deal together, and at the time, hemp was a legal US crop that offered an alternative way of making paper, rather than using timber. But it wasn't as profitable for someone like Hearst, who owned a ridiculously large amount of land for logging.

In 1938, DuPont patented a process for making paper from wood pulp, and Hearst's newspapers began running all sorts of sordid stories about "crazy" marijuana users and the dangers of hemp, often using the words "marijuana" and "hemp" interchangeably ( although marijuana and hemp both come from the cannabis plant, hemp doesn't contain enough THC - the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana - to intoxicate anyone ).

Still, propaganda films like Reefer Madness ( which was financed by a church group and originally titled Tell Your Children ) began to circulate in schools, along with lectures about how marijuana caused people to steal, ****, kidnap, kill, become prostitutes, etc. In 1952, possession and consumption of marijuana officially became illegal in the United States with the Boggs Act of 1952, bolstered by the Narcotics Control Act of 1956.



Trees take decades to grow. Hemp takes half a year or so. Guess who wins that race? No wonder the timber interests were up in arms against a competing source! I wonder how much more forest land we would have in the US had the events of 1937 gone down differently?

Rick

Click to read more...

 

[CRXBMPN 5,000+ posts]

interesting. if that were the case and weed was the norm, what would be the "hardcore drug of choice"? Still the same thing (coke, meth, etc etc) or would we have found or made something more potent //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

 

[Jameseypoo 5,000+ posts]

Are you sure you're grounding to bare metal? You may need to scrape away some paint.

 

[Johnny Drama 5,000+ posts]

We would have less forest land douche canoe. Think about it...Timberland = forest that regrows each cycle.

No timberland while using Cannabis plants means that more forest land can be cleared for farming, homes, and whatever else...Hell, I bet northern California would be cleared out today cause of this.

And finally...You failed when you copy/pasted with out your source. IB he got it from some gey website like willienelson'sconspiracytheory.com

 

[tyler_fitz 10+ year member]

i was wondering when another weed thread would pop up. good read, interesting stuff.

 

[1991Brougham 10+ year member]

We would have less forest land douche canoe. Think about it...Timberland = forest that regrows each cycle.
No timberland while using Cannabis plants means that more forest land can be cleared for farming, homes, and whatever else...Hell, I bet northern California would be cleared out today cause of this.

And finally...You failed when you copy/pasted with out your source. IB he got it from some gey website like willienelson'sconspiracytheory.com

Douche canoe...now that's a new one!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

It was part of an article I found on NORML's website this morning.

Your logic on the timberland escapes me though

Rick

 

[Johnny Drama 5,000+ posts]

Douche canoe...now that's a new one!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif
It was part of an article I found on NORML's website this morning.

Your logic on the timberland escapes me though

Rick

I own about 300 acres of timberland that is not clear cut every 10 years or whatever...Insead it is cut in portions in cycles every 3 years. During this time we lease out the land to a hunting club that offers wildlife tours and hunts. Its a win/win situation.

Even warehouser the largest timber company in the south does this...

If the timber wasnt needed I bet warehouser would just clear cut the bitch and sell the land to developers...I know I would.

 

[1991Brougham 10+ year member]

In Oregon it was said back in the day "We'll never run out of trees!". My home area of Coos Bay was the #1 port on the planet for timber product shipments. We sold logs, chips, lumber. Paper/pulp mills were huge as were the lumber mills. Every day saw multiple ships come in and out, with tonnages equal to a World War II battlecruiser. The railroad line constantly moved the logs, chips and lumber to Eugene, where the main line was that carried the products to California and the nation. The highways were awash in trucks carrying these products while the rivers and bay were filled with log rafts.

We lived in boom times and everything was so rosey after the end of World War II. The good times seemed like they never would end, but they did. In my community college in 1976 I took a class in which a professor showed how old growth yields would end in the early 1980's at then-current consumption rates. A recession came along that stopped us in our tracks during the Carter years but we were dead men walking before that happened.

If we had not used as much timber for paper as we did and learned how to manage our natural resources better with a larger amount of old growth still around, we would be miles ahead of where we are now in Oregon. Your 300 acres in Texas is small potatoes compared to the scale of forest ops in Oregon. Also, this is not a highly urbanized heavily settled countryside. There is no need to clearcut for housing, industrial parks or agricultural uses of the land in my part of the world.

Also, by not logging as much close to streams, we enhance the rivers' capability to spawn salmon. Right now we're in some trouble out here since the salmon count is so far down that the season is suspended. That hurts the commercial troller and the charter boats who take tourists out on the Pacific Ocean for fishing. We've been dealing with problems in the fishing industry and some of that is related to the demand placed upon the forests.

Rick

 

[CJL 10+ year member]

Are you sure you're grounding to bare metal? You may need to scrape away some paint.

why yes,yes im sure.......

 

[AsK 5109 10+ year member]

I heard a similar story about William Randolph Hearst and Marijuana. I heard that one of his neighbors grew pot in their garden and it spread and wound up in his yard somehow. Apparently he was pretty pissed off about it and something with his political powers/newspaper made it illegal.

 

[duece212 5,000+ posts]

Weeds illegal because it makes people crazy and can turn them into killers!

 

[SethPhillips 5,000+ posts]

tree's **** anyway's... hippies..

 

[richierich75 10+ year member]

Douche canoe...now that's a new one!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif
It was part of an article I found on NORML's website this morning.

Your logic on the timberland escapes me though

Rick

he was exhaling when he typed it

 

[richierich75 10+ year member]

In Oregon it was said back in the day "We'll never run out of trees!". My home area of Coos Bay was the #1 port on the planet for timber product shipments. We sold logs, chips, lumber. Paper/pulp mills were huge as were the lumber mills. Every day saw multiple ships come in and out, with tonnages equal to a World War II battlecruiser. The railroad line constantly moved the logs, chips and lumber to Eugene, where the main line was that carried the products to California and the nation. The highways were awash in trucks carrying these products while the rivers and bay were filled with log rafts.
We lived in boom times and everything was so rosey after the end of World War II. The good times seemed like they never would end, but they did. In my community college in 1976 I took a class in which a professor showed how old growth yields would end in the early 1980's at then-current consumption rates. A recession came along that stopped us in our tracks during the Carter years but we were dead men walking before that happened.

If we had not used as much timber for paper as we did and learned how to manage our natural resources better with a larger amount of old growth still around, we would be miles ahead of where we are now in Oregon. Your 300 acres in Texas is small potatoes compared to the scale of forest ops in Oregon. Also, this is not a highly urbanized heavily settled countryside. There is no need to clearcut for housing, industrial parks or agricultural uses of the land in my part of the world.

Also, by not logging as much close to streams, we enhance the rivers' capability to spawn salmon. Right now we're in some trouble out here since the salmon count is so far down that the season is suspended. That hurts the commercial troller and the charter boats who take tourists out on the Pacific Ocean for fishing. We've been dealing with problems in the fishing industry and some of that is related to the demand placed upon the forests.

Rick

be careful they may start to call you an idiot and say that you are a conspiracy theorist - at least that's what they do to me

 

[duece212 5,000+ posts]

be careful they may start to call you an idiot and say that you are a conspiracy theorist - at least that's what they do to me

If the shoe fits...