the hemp conspiracy.....

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.......I don't know how I missed this article over the years, but it is definitely worth reading (a side note: when he says that hemp is the only plant that is male and female he is incorrect, the holly plant also has separate genders)(the one thing that hemp does that is unique is that it gives off heat and can be seen through infrared scanners):

And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land.

-- Ezekiel 34/29



The real reason Cannabis has been outlawed has nothing to do with its effects on the mind and body

MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.

The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.

Where did the word 'marijuana' come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant...as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years:

* All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s; Hemp Paper Reconsidered, Jack Frazier, 1974.

* It was LEGAL TO PAY TAXES WITH HEMP in America from 1631 until the early 1800s; LA Times, Aug. 12, 1981.

* REFUSING TO GROW HEMP in America during the 17th and 18th Centuries WAS AGAINST THE LAW! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769; Hemp in Colonial Virginia, G. M. Herdon.

* George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers GREW HEMP; Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.

* Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow's export to England; Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer.

* For thousands of years, 90% of all ships' sails and rope were made from hemp. The word 'canvas' is Dutch for cannabis; Webster's New World Dictionary.

* 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc. were made from hemp until the 1820s with the introduction of the cotton gin.

* The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross's flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp; U.S. Government Archives.

* The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons. Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th Century; State Archives.

* Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.

* Rembrants, Gainsboroughs, Van Goghs as well as most early canvas paintings were principally painted on hemp linen.

* In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs; Department of Agriculture

* Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935; Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

* Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

* Hemp called 'Billion Dollar Crop.' It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars; Popular Mechanics, Feb., 1938.

* Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.' It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th Century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

The following information comes directly from the United States Department of Agriculture's 1942 14-minute film encouraging and instructing 'patriotic American farmers' to grow 350,000 acres of hemp each year for the war effort:

'...(When) Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850, all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable...

...Now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese...American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries...

...the Navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When that is gone, American hemp will go on duty again; hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for victory!'

Certified proof from the Library of Congress; found by the research of Jack Herer, refuting claims of other government agencies that the 1942 USDA film 'Hemp for Victory' did not exist.

Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that hemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution. From Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938:

'It has a short growing season...It can be grown in any state...The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves, 8 to 12 feet above the ground, chokes out weeds.
...hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.'

In the 1930s, innovations in farm machinery would have caused an industrial revolution when applied to hemp. This single resource could have created millions of new jobs generating thousands of quality products. Hemp, if not made illegal, would have brought America out of the Great Depression.

William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst's grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, Dupont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. Dupont's Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of Dupont's business.

THE CONSPIRACY

Andrew Mellon became Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury and Dupont's primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: 'marihuana' and pushed it into the consciousness of America.

MEDIA MANIPULATION

A media blitz of 'yellow journalism' raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst's newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marihuana. The menace of marihuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.

Films like 'Reefer Madness' (1936), 'Marihuana: Assassin of Youth' (1935) and 'Marihuana: The Devil's Weed' (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed.

Examine the following quotes from 'The Burning Question' aka REEFER MADNESS:

a violent narcotic.
acts of shocking violence.
incurable insanity.
soul-destroying effects.
under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax.
more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (heroin, cocaine) is the menace of marihuana!

Reefer Madness did not end with the usual 'the end.' The film concluded with these words plastered on the screen: TELL YOUR CHILDREN.

In the 1930s, people were very naive; even to the point of ignorance. The masses were like sheep waiting to be led by the few in power. They did not challenge authority. If the news was in print or on the radio, they believed it had to be true. They told their children and their children grew up to be the parents of the baby-boomers.

On April 14, 1937, the Prohibitive Marihuana Tax Law or the bill that outlawed hemp was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. This committee is the only one that can introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. The Chairman of the Ways and Means, Robert Doughton, was a Dupont supporter. He insured that the bill would pass Congress.

Dr. James Woodward, a physician and attorney, testified too late on behalf of the American Medical Association. He told the committee that the reason the AMA had not denounced the Marihuana Tax Law sooner was that the Association had just discovered that marihuana was hemp.

Few people, at the time, realized that the deadly menace they had been reading about on Hearst's front pages was in fact passive hemp. The AMA understood cannabis to be a MEDICINE found in numerous healing products sold over the last hundred years.

In September of 1937, hemp became illegal. The most useful crop known became a drug and our planet has been suffering ever since.

Congress banned hemp because it was said to be the most violence-causing drug known. Anslinger, head of the Drug Commission for 31 years, promoted the idea that marihuana made users act extremely violent. In the 1950s, under the Communist threat of McCarthyism, Anslinger now said the exact opposite. Marijuana will pacify you so much that soldiers would not want to fight.

Today, our planet is in desperate trouble. Earth is suffocating as large tracts of rain forests disappear. Pollution, poisons and chemicals are killing people. These great problems could be reversed if we industrialized hemp. Natural biomass could provide all of the planet's energy needs that are currently supplied by fossil fuels. We have consumed 80% of our oil and gas reserves. We need a renewable resource. Hemp could be the solution to soaring gas prices.

THE WONDER PLANT

Hemp has a higher quality fiber than wood fiber. Far fewer caustic chemicals are required to make paper from hemp than from trees. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable. The plant grows quickly to maturity in a season where trees take a lifetime.

ALL PLASTIC PRODUCTS SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP SEED OIL. Hempen plastics are biodegradable! Over time, they would break down and not harm the environment. Oil-based plastics, the ones we are very familiar with, help ruin nature; they do not break down and will do great harm in the future. The process to produce the vast array of natural (hempen) plastics will not ruin the rivers as Dupont and other petrochemical companies have done. Ecology does not fit in with the plans of the Oil Industry and the political machine. Hemp products are safe and natural.

MEDICINES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. We should go back to the days when the AMA supported cannabis cures. 'Medical Marijuana' is given out legally to only a handful of people while the rest of us are forced into a system that relies on chemicals. Pot is only healthy for the human body.

WORLD HUNGER COULD END. A large variety of food products can be generated from hemp. The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature. ALSO: They have two essential fatty acids that clean your body of cholesterol. These essential fatty acids are not found anywhere else in nature! Consuming pot seeds is the best thing you could do for your body. Eat uncooked hemp seeds.

CLOTHES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. Hemp clothing is extremely strong and durable over time. You could hand clothing, made from pot, down to your grandchildren. Today, there are American companies that make hemp clothing; usually 50% hemp. Hemp fabrics should be everywhere. Instead, they are almost underground. Superior hemp products are not allowed to advertise on fascist television. Kentucky, once the top hemp producing state, made it ILLEGAL TO WEAR hemp clothing! Can you imagine being thrown into jail for wearing quality jeans?

The world is crazy...but that does not mean you have to join the insanity. Get together. Spread the news. Tell people, and that includes your children, the truth. Use hemp products. Eliminate the word 'marijuana.' Realize the history that created it. Make it politically incorrect to say or print the M-word. Fight against the propaganda (designed to favor the agenda of the super rich) and the bullshit. Hemp must be utilized in the future. We need a clean energy source to save our planet. INDUSTRIALIZE HEMP!

The liquor, tobacco and oil companies fund more than a million dollars a day to Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other similar agencies. We have all seen their commercials. Now, their motto is: It's more dangerous than we thought. Lies from the powerful corporations, that began with Hearst, are still alive and well today.

The brainwashing continues. Now, the commercials say: If you buy a joint, you contribute to murders and gang wars. The latest anti-pot commercials say: If you buy a joint...you are promoting TERRORISM! The new enemy (terrorism) has paved the road to brainwash you any way THEY see fit.

There is only one enemy; the friendly people you pay your taxes to; the war-makers and nature destroyers. With your funding, they are killing the world right in front of your eyes. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY TOBACCO. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY ALCOHOL. NO ONE HAS EVER, EVER DIED FROM SMOKING POT!! In the entire history of the human race, not one death can be attributed to cannabis. Our society has outlawed grass but condones the use of the KILLERS: TOBACCO and ALCOHOL. Hemp should be declassified and placed in DRUG stores to relieve stress. Hardening and constriction of the arteries are bad; but hemp usage actually enlarges the arteries...which is a healthy condition. We have been so conditioned to think that: Smoking is harmful. That is NOT the case for passive pot.

Ingesting THC, hemp's active agent, has a positive effect; relieving asthma and glaucoma. A joint tends to alleviate the nausea caused by chemotherapy. You are able to eat on hemp. This is a healthy state of being.

{One personal note: During the pregnancy of my wife, she was having some difficulty gaining weight. We were in the hospital. A nurse called us to one side and said: Off the record, if you smoke pot...you'd get something called the munchies and you?ll gain weight.' I swear that is a true story}.

The stereotype for a pothead is similar to a drunk, bubble-brain. Yet, the truth is one?s creative abilities can be enhanced under its influence. The perception of time slightly slows and one can become more sensitive. You can more appreciate all arts; be closer to nature and generally FEEL more under the influence of cannabis. It is, in fact, the exact opposite state of mind and body as the drunken state. You can be more aware with pot.


The pot plant is an ALIEN plant. There is physical evidence that cannabis is not like any other plant on this planet. One could conclude that it was brought here for the benefit of humanity. Hemp is the ONLY plant where the males appear one way and the females appear very different, physically! No one ever speaks of males and females in regard to the plant kingdom because plants do not show their sexes; except for cannabis. To determine what sex a certain, normal, Earthly plant is: You have to look internally, at its DNA. A male blade of grass (physically) looks exactly like a female blade of grass. The hemp plant has an intense sexuallity. Growers know to kill the males before they fertilize the females. Yes, folks...the most potent pot comes from 'horny females.'

The reason this amazing, very sophisticated, ET plant from the future is illegal has nothing to do with how it physically affects us?..

POT IS ILLEGAL BECAUSE BILLIONAIRES WANT TO REMAIN BILLIONAIRES!



ps: I think the word ?DRUGS? should not be used as an umbrella-word that covers all chemical agents. Drugs have come to be known as something BAD. Are you aware there are LEGAL drugstores?! Yep, in every city. Unbelievable. Each so-called drug should be considered individually. Cannabis is a medicine and not a drug. We should DARE to speak the TRUTH no matter what the law is.

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two more interesting articles (sorry Mickulz but the second one-which I have to post as a new reply, blames Freemasons for the illegalization of hemp......once again you can't blame a whole group of people for what the leaders/elite of an organization do.....but you can disagree and fight it):

MARIJUANA
- A Medicinal Marvel
Cannabis, or marijuana, has proven medical benefits and few, if any, toxic side-effects. Why, then, has it been a prohibited medicine for over fifty years?
Dr Lester Grinspoon interviewed by Jana Ray © 1996 by Jana Ray For further information, contact: c/- B.C. Anti-Prohibition League PO Box 8179 Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3R8 Canada

Medicinal cannabis, also known as medical marijuana, is beginning to receive attention worldwide. Unfortunately, scare tactics and misinformation surrounding the international 'war on drugs' continue to dominate in the political and medical arenas, leaving many unwilling or unable to think for themselves. Despite this, more people are discovering the ability of marijuana, or cannabis, to relieve symptoms surrounding many medical conditions.
One of the pioneers of medicinal cannabis research is Dr Lester Grinspoon, a professor at Harvard Medical School. In the last 30 years Dr Grinspoon has researched and written many articles along with two books on the cannabis controversy. Marihuana Reconsideredand Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine introduced many to the positive uses and benefits of one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world.

In this interview with Dr Grinspoon, many topics are discussed concerning the role of medicinal cannabis use in today's society.

J. Ray: What got you interested in marijuana/cannabis?

Dr Grinspoon: In 1967, I had some unexpected time so I thought I would look into marijuana to see what all the fuss was about. I was convinced at the time that marijuana was a terribly dangerous drug. I didn't understand why young people were ignoring the government's warnings about its danger in using it. So, I spent the next three years doing research and looking into it. I learned I had been brainwashed just like so many other citizens in the United States.

While marijuana is not harmless, it is so much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco that the only sensible way to deal with it is to make it legally available in a controlled system. We can see this with alcohol which is legally available to people over the age of 21 in the United States. I put all this together in a book called Marihuana Reconsidered. It was published in 1971 by Harvard University Press and was quite controversial at the time. It has just been republished as a classic with a new introduction, 25 years later.

JR: In your research you found marijuana/cannabis to be less harmful than tobacco or alcohol?

Dr G: I think cannabis is not harmless. There is no such thing as a harmless drug. Cannabis is, by any criterion, less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco. For example, tobacco costs the US about 425,000 lives every year; alcohol, perhaps 100,000 to 150,000 lives, not to speak of all the other problems caused by alcohol use. With cannabis there has not been a single case of a documented death due to its use. Now, of course, death is not the only toxicity. It is the most profound one and certainly a permanent one. If you look at it from the point of view of other toxicities, again it comes out much better than either alcohol or tobacco. In fact, the subject of our latest book, Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine, looks at cannabis from the point of view of a medicine. When cannabis regains the place it once had in the US Pharmacopoeia it will be among the least toxic substances in that whole compendium.

JR: It was in the US Pharmacopoeia in the early 1900s?

Dr G: That is correct. Cannabis was a very much used drug up until 1941 when it was dropped from the US Pharmacopoeia. This was after the passage of the first of the draconian US anti-marijuana laws in 1937, the Marihuana Tax Act. This Act made it so difficult for physicians to prescribe cannabis that they just stopped using it.

JR: Cannabinoid receptors were recently discovered in the human brain. Are these cannabinoid receptors related to cannabis and its medical uses?

Dr G: Very definitely. Some years ago it was discovered by Dr Solomon Snyder that there are endogenous opioids; that is to say, substances like opium that we produce in our bodies. It followed from that, that there would be opioid receptors in our brains. It wasn't long afterwards that a woman named Candace Pert discovered this. In other words, if you consider a receptor as a kind of keyhole and the ligand or the neurotransmitter as the key that opens it, the key has to fit into that receptor to open it.

With cannabis it came about the other way: the receptor sites for cannabis were discovered first. I believe this was in 1990. From this it was implied that there had to be an endogenous cannabinoid, a ligand that would turn this receptor site on. Indeed, a couple of years later, a man named W. A. Devane and his group discovered this ligand and they gave it the name "anandamide", after the Sanskrit word ananda, which means "bliss". Now there are many studies of these receptors and anandamide. It is clear that these receptors are not just located in the brain but in various other organs in the body as well.

I think we are going to see in the future that these receptors play a very important part in the medicinal utility of cannabis. Right now the clinical evidence is empirical and anecdotal but, in my view, powerful enough to be translated into a policy which would allow people to use cannabis legally for medicinal purposes.

JR: Do these recent discoveries contradict past research that warned of brain damage from cannabis use?

Dr G: In my view, that kind of thing is in the realm of myth and misinformation about cannabis. Think about it for a minute. If the brain produces its own cannabinoid-like substances, it doesn't make much sense that it would produce a substance which is going to damage the brain. Indeed, long before it was discovered that there are endogenous cannabinoids, the empirical evidence did not demonstrate that cannabis damaged the brain.

There are a few studies which were methodically unsound that the US Government and, specifically, NIDA, the National Institute of Drug Abuse, and the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, focus on.

JR: Can you tell me something about the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA?

Dr G: The predecessor agency of the DEA, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was organised in 1930 by a man named Anslinger. Anslinger undertook what he called a "great educational campaign", which actually turned out to be a great disinformational campaign. This is symbolised by one of the flagships of that campaign: the movie, Reefer Madness. If you see the movie Reefer Madness today, even a person who is not very sophisticated about marijuana will laugh at the grossness of the exaggerations dramatised in that movie.

JR: Do you think pharmaceutical drug companies have anything to do with the government's prohibitive stand against medicinal cannabis use?

Dr G: Absolutely. The Partnership for a Drug Free America has a budget of about a million dollars a day. A lot of that money comes from drug companies and distilleries. You see, these companies and distilleries have something to lose- the distilleries for obvious reasons. The drug companies are not interested in marijuana as a medicine because the plant cannot be patented. If you can't patent it, you can't make money on it. Their only interest is a negative one. It will eventually displace some of their pharmaceutical products.

Imagine a patient who requires cancer chemotherapy. Now he can take the best of the anti-nausea drugs, which would be ondansetron. He would pay about US$35 or $40 per 8-milligram pill and would then take three or four of them for a treatment. Normally, he would take it orally, but people with that kind of nausea often can't, so he would take it intravenously. The cost of one treatment for that begins at US$600 because he will need a hospital bed, etc. Or he can smoke perhaps half of a marijuana cigarette and receive relief from the nausea.

Currently, marijuana on the streets is very expensive. One can pay from US$200 to $600 an ounce. This is what I call the prohibition tariff. When marijuana is available as a medicine, the cost would be significantly less than other medications; it would cost about US$20 to $30 an ounce. You can't tax it in the US because it is a medicine. So that would translate out to maybe about 30 cents for a marijuana cigarette.

So our chemotherapy patient could get, many people believe, better relief from the marijuana cigarette for 30 cents. This, in comparison to the ondansetron which would cost at the very least US$160 a day and, if he had to take it intravenously, more than US$600 per treatment.

Well, if you multiply that by all of the symptoms and syndromes we discuss in the book, Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine, then you can see that the drug companies will have something to lose here.

JR: Do you see this as a big obstacle in changing drug policy here in North America?

Dr G: Well, it is certainly playing a part. It is indirectly playing a part in the Partnership for a Drug Free America ads. To say they are inaccurate is an understatement.

JR: Are we also talking about DARE, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program we see in many schools at this time?

Dr G: Oh yes, that is a terrible program. Again, it is mis-educating children about drugs. It has now been established in a major study that it doesn't do a bit of good. We're all worried about youngsters doing drugs, but now DARE has been demonstrated not to do any good.

JR: In your book, Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine, there are many references to the medicinal uses of cannabis. What are some of the medical problems you have seen medicinal cannabis help?

Dr G: The most common cancer treatment in the last couple of decades is with the cancer chemotherapeutic substances. A big problem with some of these is the severe nausea and vomiting. It is the kind of nausea that anybody who has not experienced it can only imagine. It is very important that this nausea be defeated so patients can be reasonably comfortable with this treatment. As I have mentioned, there are conventional drugs available; it is just that cannabis is often the best.

Then there is glaucoma which is a disorder of increased intraocular pressure in the eyes. If that pressure is not brought down, glaucoma can eventually lead to blindness. There are conventional medicines that work pretty well; but, for some people, cannabis works better and with fewer side-effects.

Epilepsy is a disorder which has been treated by cannabis for centuries. About 25 per cent of people in the US who have various forms of epilepsy don't get good relief from the conventional medicines. Many of them do get relief from one of the oldest anti-epileptic medicines, cannabis.

Multiple sclerosis affects more than two million people in the US, and one of its distressing symptoms is muscle spasm. It is very painful. Anybody who has had a cramp while swimming will know what muscle spasm pain is all about. Cannabis is very effective for the muscle spasms of not only multiple sclerosis but also of paraplegia and quadriplegia.

Furthermore, cannabis helps people with MS who may have trouble controlling their bladders. Cannabis is very helpful in reducing this kind of loss of control. Not long ago I was in London doing a TV debate on the topic of medicinal cannabis use. There was a woman in the audience who said she had come down from Leeds, two-and-a-half hours on the train, to be in the television audience. She has MS. The part that was so distressing for her was the social embarrassment of losing control over her bladder. Well, she said cannabis has restored her bladder control and she could now make the two-and-a-half-hour trip from Leeds with no trouble.

Cannabis has been used for centuries in the treatment of various kinds of chronic pain. It was used on the battlefields of the Civil War as an analgesic medicine until morphine displaced it. Morphine was much quicker for the pain and a much more powerful pain-reliever than cannabis. Cannabis cannot defeat very powerful pain. The price of using morphine was that many people suffered from what was then called "soldier's disease", which was addiction to morphine.

Cannabis is very useful in the treatment of migraine headaches. Sir William Osler, in his last textbook on medicine, describes cannabis as the best single medicine for the treatment of the pain of migraine.

The list is longer than that but I don't think you want me to go on and on about this. One of the amazing things about cannabis is its versatility. It has many uses. It is also remarkably non-toxic and it will be quite inexpensive when it is not a prohibited substance. In my opinion, cannabis will be seen as a wonder drug of the 1990s, much as penicillin was in the 1940s.

JR: In your first book on cannabis, Marihuana Reconsidered, you mentioned that the international drug-control treaties, specifically the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, were not a serious obstacle to the legalization of cannabis. Do you still go along with this?

Dr G: There is no question about it. There is no serious obstacle. Treaties can be changed and I think the push to do that will come from Europe. The interest in this is growing much more rapidly in Europe than in the US. In fact, there is so much new information regarding medicinal cannabis use that Yale University Press has asked us for a second edition of Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine. This book has been translated into 10 languages, including Japanese.

Late in 1995 we received a letter from our German publisher congratulating us on our seventh printing. They said our book has begun a "robust debate on the medicinal use of marijuana in Germany". So, the Europeans are way ahead of us, and I think the pressure will probably come from them to make the necessary legal changes so cannabis can be used as a medicine without interference. The present situation is just awful. These poor people who use it as a medicine already have some degree of anxiety regarding their disease. Another layer of anxiety is imposed on them by their government; namely, they might get arrested or have their homes confiscated because they use cannabis as a medicine.

JR: Do you think these international treaties are what keep the 'war on drugs' alive?

Dr G: I think the Single Convention is not a big obstacle, frankly. I think lots of people use that as an excuse, that we can't do anything because of the Single Convention. I'm not an expert on it, but the international lawyers I've talked to say this is not the problem. I think the war on drugs is a much bigger thing than our discussion of medicinal cannabis use. The 'war on drugs' is a much more complicated problem. If we stick to the narrow agenda of medicinal cannabis use, I think putting pressure on our government representatives and other people in powerful positions is the way.

People are learning about cannabis as a medicine. Anybody who knows a person with AIDS who is dealing with the wasting syndrome probably knows someone who has discovered that cannabis not only retards his weight-loss but maybe helps him to regain weight. People who know patients with multiple sclerosis, migraine, glaucoma who are using cannabis, begin to see that it is a very useful medicine and they begin to wonder what all the fuss is about. So I think people are getting educated.

The other thing that is happening that I think is very hopeful is that doctors are getting educated. You see, doctors usually get their drug education from drug companies or from pharmaceutical company sales people who go around to doctors' offices, as well as from journal articles, advertisements and promotional campaigns from these drug companies. There are no drug companies interested in cannabis, so doctors don't learn much about it. In my view, doctors have not only been mis-educated like so many other people, but they have also been agents of that mis-education. What is happening now is doctors are learning from patients. This is a new way for doctors to learn about a new medicine. They learn lots of things from their patients, but generally not about new medicines.

An example of this would be an AIDS patient who started using cannabis for his wasting syndrome. Imagine him going into his doctor's office and getting on the scales. The doctor knows he's been losing weight all along and nothing that the doctor has given him has helped. Suddenly, the doctor sees his patient has gained weight since the last visit and he asks, "What's going on?" The patient says, "It is the cannabis I've been smoking: it has helped me put on some weight." This makes a powerful impression on a doctor who has been struggling to help his patient gain weight. Once this happens to a doctor, his attitude begins to change.

JR: How can the average person work for changes in the drug laws?

Dr G: Well, right now in the US, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts has introduced a bill to do just this; to make it possible for people to use cannabis as a medicine. He needs co-sponsorship and support for this bill. People who are interested in this can contact Barney Frank or even their own representatives and ask them to support HR 2618, the Bill for medical cannabis use for those in medical need.

JR: Is this a similar bill to what Newt Gingrich and others had introduced into Congress in the early 1980s?

Dr G: It's the same bill. It is the McKinney bill. I had suggested to Congressman Frank to expand the number of symptoms and syndromes for which cannabis can be used. We know more about it than we did in 1982, but it is the same bill. Gingrich supported it then, but not now.

JR: In February 1994 you and James Bakalar wrote, "The War on Drugs: A Peace Proposal", published in The New England Journal of Medicine. In it you talk about harm-reduction strategies in the Netherlands and other countries. What do you think is holding back these governments in North America from making the changes necessary for a truce in the drug war, specifically in regards to medicinal cannabis use?

Dr G: Unfortunately, it is attitudes and fears that are unwarranted. Take one harm-reduction approach; namely, clean needles. Now, we've been saying for years that clean needles will reduce the spread of AIDS among drug users. The IV drug users are the group spreading it the most. There are people who are afraid of needle-exchange programs because they think it will cause an increase in the use of intravenous drugs. I would say this has been going on now for four or five years. Now the data is overwhelming. It clearly demonstrates that exchanging needles does cut down the spread of AIDS and it does not cause an increase in the use of these drugs. It is so convincing that some local municipalities have gone ahead with needle exchanges, but the Federal government and President Clinton are all dead set against it. We could have saved a lot of people from AIDS by instituting this policy of clean needles early on. Even now we are dragging our feet because of this misapprehension about giving needles out. Ignorance and fear are not always corrected by data. The data on needle exchange is compelling whether it's from Australia, New Haven or wherever. There is no question. You would think when you have this kind of data it would be translated into social policy, considering the cost of AIDS in human suffering. But we're having an awful tough time persuading the authorities that we should go full steam ahead with needle exchange.

There is an attitude here in the US that the only way to treat anyone using a drug not approved of is to treat them as a criminal. Many of these people even go to jail. The costs of criminalizing these people have been extreme. Since I started my work on marijuana in 1967, more than 10 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the US. In 1994, the year for which we have the latest FBI data on this, 483,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges. That is just extraordinary when you consider that cannabis imposes less harm on the individual and on society than either alcohol or tobacco.

JR: What kind of feedback did you receive from your June 1995 article, "Marihuana as Medicine", in JAMA?

Dr G: Well, that article caused a lot of fuss. It was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This organization has been steadfast in its opposition to marijuana for 50 years-since an editorial published in 1945. Although the AMA doesn't say so officially, I think publishing our article signals a growing change in physicians' attitudes towards medicinal cannabis. There were physicians who wrote me nasty letters. More impressive were the many physicians who shared their stories about how they learned about cannabis from seeing how it helped a particular patient. Several of them said we ought to have an organization, a physicians' organization, for the medical use of marijuana. The article created a stir not just in this country. I think JAMA is published in 33 languages. It was no small wonder that there was a lot of mail from other parts of the world as well.

JR: Was the feedback mostly positive?

Dr G: Absolutely. By far, most of it was positive. There were some nasty letters, but I have received those from the time I first published Marihuana Reconsidered. The first letter I received was a very nasty letter. As the years go on, though, the mail gets much more positive.

JR: What do you see for the future of medicinal cannabis use?

Dr G: It strikes me that there are a lot of parallels with the discovery of penicillin. Penicillin was discovered by a man named Alexander Fleming in 1928. He had gone off for summer vacation and left a Petri dish out in his laboratory. When he came back, the Petri dish was just covered with Staphylococcus, except for an area surrounding what looked like a little island of mould. He looked into it and found that the mould was giving off a substance which he called "penicillin". It was killing the Staphylococcus. Yet his discovery was ignored until 1941. For over a decade his publication was ignored, until the pressure of World War II highlighted the need for antibacterial substances other than sulphonamides. Then a couple of investigators did a study with just six patients and demonstrated it was a good antibiotic.

Penicillin became very inexpensive to produce. It was clear that penicillin was not toxic and it was very versatile as a drug. It was used in the treatment of many different kinds of infectious diseases. It became the wonder drug of the 1940s.

When cannabis can be produced as a medicine it will be very inexpensive. I have already listed some of the reasons why it can be said to be versatile, and, the government position notwithstanding, it is remarkably non-toxic. It has exactly the same three characteristics that made penicillin a wonder drug. These are some of the reasons I believe that, in the late 1990s, cannabis is going to be recognized as a wonder drug.

References
Grinspoon, Lester, M.D., Marihuana Reconsidered, Quick American Archives (a division of Quick Trading Company, PO Box 429477, San Francisco, CA 94142, USA), 1994 (ISBN 0-932551-13-0), first published by Harvard University Press, 1971.
Grinspoon, Lester, M.D. and James B. Bakalar, Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993 (ISBN 0-300-05435-1 [cloth], ISBN 0-300-05994-9 [paperback].
Grinspoon, Lester, M.D. and James B. Bakalar, "The War On Drugs: A Peace Proposal", New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 330, no. 5, 3 February 1994.
Grinspoon, Lester, M.D. and James B. Bakalar, "Marihuana as Medicine: A Plea for Reconsideration", Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), vol. 273, no. 23.

For more information on the DARE school programs, here is a list of articles and world wide web addresses:
Harmon, Michele Alicia, "Reducing the Risk of Drug Involvement Among Early Adolescents: An Evaluation of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)", Institute of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA, April 1993.
Web address: turnpike.net/~jnr/dareeval.htm

"Studies Find Drug Program Not Effective", USA Today, 11 October 1993. See web site: turnpike.net/~jnr/dareart.htm.

"A Different Look at DARE", Drug Reform Coordination Network Topics, in-depth series. Web site address: drcnet.org/DARE.

About the Interviewee:
Dr Lester Grinspoon is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. He has published over 140 papers and 12 books. His major area of interest has been 'illicit' drugs. His first book, Marihuana Reconsidered, was published in 1971 by Harvard University Press and republished in 1994 as a classic. He has written books on amphetamines, cocaine and psychedelic drugs. In 1990 he won the Alfred R. Lindesmith Award of the Drug Policy Foundation for "Achievement in the field of drug scholarship". Marihuana, The Forbidden Medicine, Dr Grinspoon's latest book, written with James Bakalar, has been translated into 10 languages. A second edition is now in press.

[seanx]

HEMP / Cannabis Marijuana was outlawed directly by the Freemasons in this country and internationally for the sole purpose of creating synthetic petrochemical and pharmaceutical alternatives that they could sell through multinational corporations they control, at highly inflated prices. Back in the 1930's Dupont had a patent on a synthetic chemical compound that breaks down wood pulp for making paper from trees. You didn't need to cut down trees to make paper because for thousands of years virtually all known paper was made from Hemp and it can be produced at 1/4 the cost, 1/5 the pollution it's 10 times stronger and lasts 10 times longer. Even the Founding Father Masons knew this. The Declaration of Independence was printed on Hemp Paper as well as the Constitution. The Flag sown by Betsy
Ross was made out of Hemp. The soldiers clothes in the Revolutionary War were made out of Hemp and so were the covered wagons of the early settlers. Canvas is Dutch for Cannabis.

BUT, when the FREEMASONS find it in their interest to get rid of something for profit and power, it doesn't matter if GOD put it there, it won't get in the way of business as usual for the FREEMASONS. Cannabis seed oil is a machine-grade lubricant which is natural and NON-PETROLEUM based. It is also FREE and doesn't need to be DRILLED OUT OF THE EARTH with expensive polluting machinery.

COTTON could never in it's wildest fantasies compete with HEMP. HEMP is far SUPERIOR. It is 26 times stronger and lasts 10 times longer than cotton. There are NO chemicals needed to produce Hemp whereas you need HALF of all the chemicals produced to grow cotton. Hemp has NO natural
enemies except the government and you need pesticides to grow cotton. The 1st levi jeans were not made out of Cotton, they were made out of HEMP / Marijuana.

By now, you're probably wondering how this all fits in with the Freemasons.

(A) Dupont's chief financial backer was Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh, in which he was the owner and largest stockholder. Mellon, in his role as Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury, in 1931 appointed his future nephew-in-law Harry J. Anslinger to be head of the newly reorganized Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, which evolved into the DEA. Anslinger was one of the main proponents of criminalization of Hemp / Marijuana. William Randolph Hearst newspaper chain promoted "yellow journalism" using racism and lies to turn the public's mind on what they called a "new drug threat". Weyerhauser (Skull and Bones) and their control of the Lumber Industry

(B) Medicine and Pharmaceuticals : In 1900 Percy Rockefeller was initiated into Skull and Bones. The Rockefeller Family has always controlled the American Medical Association (AMA) since the very beginning. When originally consulted on this issue in the 1930's the AMA was all for Cannabis Tinctures / Marijuana Medicine, but for some reason their stance changed. Anslinger had blackmailed the AMA!! Anslinger was responsible for prosecuting the doctor's that prescribed narcotic drugs for "illegal purposes". The FBN had prosecuted more than 3000 AMA doctors for illegal prescriptions through 1939. In 1939, the AMA made specific "peace" with Anslinger over marijuana and the result was that only 3 doctor's were prosecuted over the next 10 years!!

(C) Cotton : The Decorticator had just been discussed in popular mechanics in 1938 as a new method of harvesting Hemp which would promise to put cotton back in it's place as an inferior material. New technology was allowing cotton to get an edge up on Hemp at this time. Well Eli Whitney has always been famous for the "Cotton Gin" and the Whitneys again had an interest in preserving their empire. Surrounding the entirety of Marijuana Criminalization there are Freemasons in the background keeping society from progress while promoting their own personal financial agenda.

(D) Petrochemicals and Oil : Rockefeller has always been involved with the Mason groups but they are a lower-level power family. Actually, the Whitney's (BIG TIME Skull and Bones Family) were the real power behind Standard Oil. "Harry Payne Whitney (Initiated into Skull and Bones in 1894) inherited two Standard Oil fortunes from both the Payne and the Whitney families. William Collins Whitney married Flora Payne, daughter of Standard Oil Treasurer Oliver Payne. The Paynes are not in Skull and Bones, but adding the Payne piece of the Standard Oil fortune made Whitney's fortune that much larger. A quote by Lammott Dupont (President of Dupont) in the 1930's: "Synthetic plastics find application in fabricating a wide variety of articles, many of which in the past were made from natural products," ..."Consider our natural resources. The chemist has aided in conserving natural resources by developing synthetic products to supplement or wholly replace natural products". -Popular Mechanics--June 1939

[freddyv]

there's no reason that the manufacture of hemp should be illegal or that marijuana should be criminalized. I don't use, but that doesn't mean I should be able to tell someone else that they can't if they want to.

unfortunately the sheep buy into the argument that marijuana is the devil, and hemp gets caught in the cross-fire. people conveniently forget that alcohol is a drug (probably far more dangerous) and is legal, as well as nicotine (same can be said for that).