Ancient Egyptian goddess Seshat from a wall mural at Luxor circa 2000 BC. She was also named Sefkhet-Abwy (She of the seven points). Seshat was the goddess of libraries, knowledge, and geomancy,
among other things.
CHAPTER 10 ~ MYTH, MAGIC & MEDICINE:
A LOOK AT THE SOCIOLOGY OF CANNABIS USE THROUGHOUT WORLD HISTORY
Contrary to popular perception,” marijuana” is not a phenomenon
rooted in the 1960s.
Cannabis hemp is part of our global heritage and was the
backbone of our most stable and longest surviving cultures.
Recent psycho-pharmacological studies have discovered that THC
has its own unique receptor sites in the brain, indicating man and marijuana
have a pre-cultural relationship—indeed, human culture could very well prove to
be the blossom of our symbiosis with cannabis. (See Appendix)
WHAT’S IN A NAME? (PART 2)
The following is derived from the 1913 USDA Agriculture Yearbook
section on hemp by Lyster Dewey, p. 283-293:
The name “hemp,” from the Old English “hanf,” came into use in
Middle English by 1000 A.D. and still belongs primarily to cannabis sativa. It
is also used to designate the long fiber obtained from that plant: the
earliest, best-known and, until recently, the most widely used textile fiber on
Earth.
It has long been regarded as the standard among long fibers. As
such, its name has come to be used as a generic term for all long fibers,
whereas Indian hemp or true hemp denotes cannabis hemp. Now, commodity markets
list names like “Manila hemp,” abacá; “sisal hemp,” sisal and henequen;
“Mauritius hemp,” for Furcraea fiber; “New Zealand hemp,” phormium; “Sunn
hemp,” Crotalaria; and “India hemp,” for jute. All these plants are unlike true
hemp in appearance and in economic properties.
Curiously, the name hemp is never applied to flax, which is more
nearly like hemp than any other commercial fiber. True hemp is known in
different languages by the following names: cannabis, Latin; chanvre, French;
cañamo, Spanish; canhamo, Portuguese; canapa, Italian; canep, Albanian;
konopli, Russian; konopi and penek, Polish; kemp, Belgian; hanf, German;
hennup, Dutch; hamp, Swedish; hampa, Danish; tai-ma, dai-ma and tse-ma,
Chinese; asa and taima, Japanese; nasha, Turkish; kanabira, Syrian; kannab, Arabic.
FIRST KNOWN CANNABIS USERS
Ancient and modern historians, archaeologists, anthropologists,
and philologists cite physical evidence (artifacts, relics, textiles,
cuneiform, languages, etc.) indicating that cannabis is one of mankind’s oldest
cultivated crops. The weaving of hemp fiber as an industry began 10,000 years
ago, at approximately the same time as pottery-making and prior to metal
working.*
.
*Columbia History of the World, Harper & Row, New York,
1981.
.
By the 27th century B.C., the Chinese cultivated “Ma” (cannabis
hemp) for fiber, medicine and herbal use. Approximately 3,700 years later
(circa 1000 A.D.), China called cannabis “Tai-Ma,” or “great hemp,” to
differentiate it from the minor fiber plants, which were now grouped under the
generic fiber term “Ma.” Their pictogram for true or great hemp is a large
“man,” indicating the strong relationship between man and hemp.
From at least the 27th century B.C. until this century, cannabis
was incorporated into virtually all cultures of the Middle East, Asia Minor,
India, China, Japan, Europe and Africa.
BETWEEN 2300 B.C. & 1000 B.C.:
Nomadic tribes, probably from central Asia and Persia (Iran and
Iraq), referred to in legend as “Aryans,” invaded and overran virtually the
entire Mediterranean and Middle East and spread out over the Caucasus and west
into Europe.
In the course of these movements and invasions, the nomads
introduced cannabis and its various uses north and west through Greece, Europe,
the Middle East, to Egypt and Africa, as well as south and east over the
Himalayas to India.
Hemp was incorporated into the cultures of the Middle East and
India for its vast food, oil, fiber, medicinal and drug uses. Not only was hemp
a staple of everyday life; hemp medicines and drugs were a ritual link to the
gods.*
*Generally, those who grew and/or used hemp for everyday
industrial uses did not know and were not taught (by religious
law/threat/taboo) that their priest/shaman/witch doctor/etc. used different
extractions from different parts of the exact same plant for sacrament,
medicine, unguent, and as a commune with the gods.
HEMP & THE SCYTHE
Cannabis was undoubtedly used by the Scythians for many reasons.
For example, the ancient Scythians grew hemp and harvested it with a hand
reaper that we still call a scythe. Cannabis inhalation by the Scythians in
funeral rituals was recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus in the early 5th
century B.C. The nomadic Scythians introduced the custom to other races such as
the Thracians.
(Emboden, W.A., Jr., Flesh of the Gods, Praeger Press, NY,
1974.)
From at least the 27th century B.C. up until this century,
cannabis was incorporated into virtually all the cultures of the Middle East,
Asia Minor, India, China, Japan, Europe, and Africa for its superior fiber, medicines,
oils, food and for its meditative, euphoric, and relaxational uses.
THREAD OF CIVILIZATION
Hemp was one of our ancestors’ most important overall
industries, along with tool making, animal husbandry and farming.
HEMP TO ENFORCE THE LAW
The hemp plant has had a curious relationship with the world’s
legal codes throughout the ages. As noted before, it has been illegal to grow
hemp at different times. But hemp has also played a direct role in law
enforcement.
For example: The most serious punishment/rehabilitation meted
out in many African tribes for capital crimes was forcing the transgressor to
smoke or consume massive amounts of dagga (cannabis) non-stop for hours on end
in a small, enclosed hut until he passes out literally unconscious from
inhaling the fumes. The equivalent of a year or two’s supply for a heavy
American smoker is consumed in just an hour or so. Does it work? African users
say the rate of repeat criminal offenses after dagga treatment is virtually
non-existent.
European and American cultures used hemp to enforce their laws
in a more terminal form of capital punishment: the hangman’s noose* of hempen
rope.
.
*”Merry boys are we…As e’re did sing… In a hempen string… Under
the gallows tree.” John Fletcher Rollo, Duke of Normandy; Act III, sc. 3; 1639.
“We’re bound to stop this business, or hang you to a man… For we’ve hemp and
hand enough in town to hang the whole damn clan.” From a horse thief‘s
tombstone in Rapid City, SD, 1877: Shushan, E.R.; Grave Matters; Ballantine
Books, NY, 1990. Also see Hemp for Victory, USDA film; 1942.
CANNABIS HERBAL MEDICINES
The secret art of hemp medicine was found effective as wound
healer, muscle relaxant, pain reliever, fever reducer and unparalleled aid to
childbirth, not to mention hundreds of other medicinal applications.
Two Egyptian Papyrus medical texts, circa 1600 BC, copies from 3100 BC scrolls. The above translates as: “Remedy for toe-nail (or fingernail). Ingredients honey, ochre
cannabis, and [other ingredients which have not yet been translated]”
“Cannabis is pounded [ground] in honey and administered into her vagina. This is a contraction.”
(Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839-1972, Medi-Comp Press, Oakland, CA, 1973; Shultes, R.E., Harvard Botanical; Ency. Brittanica; Abel, Ernest, Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years;. Plenum Press, 1980; Vera Rubin, Cannabis and Culture, Institute for the Study of Man, 1968-1974 and second studies 1974-1976; et. al.)
The division of information about this sacred herb and its
industrial hemp uses were strictly maintained by the priests for thousands of
years, up until the last few centuries. Those outside the priestly class who
possessed drug knowledge were considered (by the priests, of course) to be
witches/soothsayers/outlaws and the ilk, and were often condemned to death.
Ancient hemp painting found in a cave in Kyushu, Japan.
THE MYSTIC PHILOSOPHERS
Cannabis legend and consumption are fundamental aspects of many
of the world’s great religions. For example:
SHINTOISM (Japan) ~ Cannabis was used for the binding together
of married couples, to drive away evil spirits, and was thought to create
laughter and happiness in marriage.
HINDUISM (India) ~ The God Shiva is said “to have brought
cannabis from the Himalayas for human enjoyment and enlightenment.” The Sadhu
Priests travel throughout India and the world sharing “chillum” pipes filled
with cannabis, sometimes blended with other substances. In the Bhagavad-Gita,
Krishna states, “I am the healing herb” (Ch.9:16), while the Bhagarat-Purana
Fifth Canto describes hashish in explicitly sexual terms.
BUDDHISM (Tibet, India and China) ~ from the 5th century B.C. on
ritually used cannabis; initiation rites and mystical experiences were (are )
common in many Chinese Buddhist Sects. Some Tibetan Buddhists and lamas
(priests) consider cannabis their most holy plant. Many Buddhist traditions,
writings, and beliefs indicate that “Siddhartha” (the Buddha) himself, used and
ate nothing but hemp and its seeds for six years prior to announcing
(discovering) his truths and becoming the Buddha (Four Noble Truths, the
Eightfold Path).
Regarding the ZOROASTRIANS or Magi (Persia, circa 8th to 7th
Centuries B.C. to 3rd to 4th Centuries A.D.), it is widely believed by many
Christian scholars, commentators, etc., that the three “Magi” or Wise Men who
attended the birth of Christ were cult references to the Zoroastrians. The
Zoroastrian religion was based (at least on the surface) on the entire cannabis
plant, the chief religious sacrament of its priest class, and its most
important medicine, (e.g., obstetrics, incense rites, anointing and christening
oils), as well as lighting or fire oils in their secular world. The word
“magic” is generally considered derived from the Zoroastrians “Magi.”
The ESSENES (ancient Israeli sect of extreme Hebrewites, approx.
200 B.C. to 73 A.D.) used hemp medicinally, as did the:
THERAPUTEA (Egypt), from whom we get the term “therapeutic.”
Both are believed by some scholars to be disciples of, or in a brotherhood
with, the priests/magicians of the Zoroastrians.
EARLY JEWS As part of their holy Friday night services in the
Temple of Solomon, 60-80,000men ritually passed around and inhaled 20,000
incense burners filled with kanabosom (cannabis), before returning home for the
largest meal of the week (munchies?).
SUFIS OF ISLAM (Middle East) ~ Moslem “mystical” priests who
have taught, used and extolled cannabis for divine revelation, insight and
oneness with Allah, for at least the last 1,000 years. Many Moslem and world
scholars believe the mysticism of the Sufi Priests was actually that of the
Zoroastrians who survived Moslem conquests of the 7th and 8th Centuries A.D.
and subsequent conversion (change your religion and give up liquor or be
beheaded).
COPTIC CHRISTIAN (Egypt/Ethiopia) ~ Some sects believe the
sacred ”green herb of the field” in the Bible (“I will raise up for them a
plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land,
neither bear the shame of the heathen any more” Ezekiel 34:29) and the Biblical
secret incenses, sweet incenses and anointing oils to be cannabis.
The BANTUS (Africa) ~ had secret Dagga Cults,* societies which restricted
cannabis use to the ruling men. The Pygmies, Zulus and Hottentots all found it
an indispensable medication for cramps, epilepsy and gout, and as a religious
sacrament.
*These “Dagga” cults believed Holy Cannabis was brought to Earth
by the Gods, in particular from the “Two Dog Star” system that we call Sirius A
and B. “Dagga” literally means “cannabis.” Interestingly, the surviving
Indo-European word for the plant can also be read as “canna,” “reed” and “bi,”
“two,” as well as “canna,” as in canine; and “bis,” meaning two (bi) “Two
Dogs.”
The RASTAFARIANS (Jamaica and elsewhere) are a contemporary
religious sect that uses “ganja” as its sacred sacrament to communicate with
God (Jah).
.
“NATURAL MIND“
United States government-funded studies at St. Louis Medical
University in 1989 and the U.S. government’s National Institute of Mental
Health in 1990 moved cannabis research into a new realm by confirming that the
human brain has receptor sites for THC and its natural cannabis cousins to which
no other compounds known thus far will bind.
In order for a chemical to affect the brain it must bind to a
receptor site capable of receiving it.
(Omni, August 1989; Washington Post, Aug 9, 1990)
Although morphine fits the receptor sites of beta-endorphin
roughly, and amphetamines correspond loosely to dopamine, these drugs as well
as tricyclics and other mood altering drugs present grave danger to the subtle
balance of the nerves’ vital fluids. Omni and the Washington Post cited no
physical dangers in natural cannabis.
One reason cannabis is so safe to use is that it does not affect
any of the involuntary muscles of breathing and life support. Rather, it
affects its own specific receptor cites for motion (movement strategy) and
memory (mental strategies).
On the molecular level, THC fits into receptor sites in the
upper brain that seem to be uniquely designed to accommodate THC. This points
to an ancient symbiosis between the plant and people.
Perhaps these neuronal pathways are the product of a pre-cultural
relationship between humans and cannabis. Carl Sagan proposes evidence using
the Bushmen of Africa to show hemp to have been the first plant cultivated by
humanity dating to when he was a hunter-gatherer. Some scientist assume that
these receptor sites did not evolve for the purpose of getting high:
“There must be some kind of neuronal pathway in the brain that developed, whether there were cannabis plants or not,” speculated mystified St. Louis University pharmacology professor Allyn Howlett in 1989.
“There must be some kind of neuronal pathway in the brain that developed, whether there were cannabis plants or not,” speculated mystified St. Louis University pharmacology professor Allyn Howlett in 1989.
But, maybe not. In his book Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of
Artificial Paradise, Dr. Ronald K. Siegel, psycho-pharmacologist at UCLA
indicates the motivation to achieve altered states of consciousness or moods is
a fourth drive akin to hunger, thirst, and sex. And humans aren’t the only ones
to get high. Siegel recorded numerous observations of animal intentionally
getting intoxicated during his experiments.
Cannabis hemp is part of our cultural, spiritual, and
physiological heritage, and was the backbone of our most stable and long
surviving cultures. So, if you want to know the long term effects of marijuana
use look in the mirror!
CLOAKED IN SECRECY
The dawn or basis of religious beliefs in all races and peoples ~
Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian, Greek, Doric,
Germanic and other European tribes, as well as African and North, South and
Central American tribes arose as a result of accidental discoveries.
There were near-death experiences, deprivations ~ starvation,
fasting, breath control, thirst, fever and uncontrolled revelry due to
accidental fermentation or extraction of wine, beer, psilocybe and Amanita
mushrooms, cannabis wine (bhang) and other psychoactives ~ which, when
consumed, induced inexplicable, elevated experiences (compared to normal
brutish experience). Chemicals in these sacred plants and herbs gave our
ancestors unexpected, unprepared-for, unbelievable visions and journeys into
the far corners of incredible consciousness and, sometimes, into feelings of
universal brotherhood.
Understanding these drug-induced experiences and medications
eventually became the most wondrous, desirable and necessary spiritual
knowledge for each tribe. Healing! From which extraction? At what dose?
Holding this mystical tribal knowledge for future generations
was a priceless task. To know which plants induced which experiences, at what
levels and mixtures meant power for the bearer of such wisdom!
Thus, this “sacred store” of knowledge was jealously guarded by
the herbal doctor/priest, and cryptically encoded in oral and written
traditions and myths. Plants with psychoactive powers were imbued with human or
animal attributes, for example, the Amanita Muscaria mushroom ring was
represented by faeries.
To keep their political power, the priests, witch doctors and
medicine men deliberately withheld these traditions from the “common” tribal
members (and all other tribes). This also prevented the dangerous “sin” of
accidental ingestion, concoction, or experimentation by the children of the
tribe; nor could captured tribal members give up this sacred knowledge to their
enemies.
These “old-time” drug and out-of-body religions and rituals,
dating back to pre-history, were called “Oriental Mystery Religions” by the
Romans from the Caesars’ time on.
JUDAIC LINE
Hemp was a major industry in biblical times. As in other
cultures throughout the Middle East, the Hebrew tradition of mysticism (e.g.,
Cabala) was aware of, and entwined with, regional sects using natural
intoxicants in their rituals.
As usual, they hid this knowledge behind rituals, symbols and secret codes to protect natural sacraments like “sacred mushrooms” and mind-elevating herbs, including cannabis.
As usual, they hid this knowledge behind rituals, symbols and secret codes to protect natural sacraments like “sacred mushrooms” and mind-elevating herbs, including cannabis.
Allegro, J.M.; Sacred Mushroom & the Cross, Doubleday Co.,
1970.
.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?
Finding the encoded references to cannabis and other drugs is
made more difficult by the lack of botanical names, discrepancy in
translations, use of different “books” by different denominations, commentaries
added to original texts, and periodic priestly purges of material considered
inappropriate.
However, we find that the use of cannabis is never forbidden or
even discouraged in the Bible. Some passages directly refer to the goodness of
using herbs like cannabis and even go on to predict prohibition.
“And the Earth brought forth grass and herb-yielding seed after its kind and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after its kind: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis: Chapt. 1: Verse 12 (King James Version of the Bible, unless noted).“God makes the Earth yield healing herbs, which the prudent man should not neglect.” Sirach: 38:4 (Catholic Bible.)“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; That which cometh out of the mouth defileth a man.” Jesus, quoted: Matt. 15:11.“In later times, some shall…speak lies in hypocrisy…commanding to abstain from that which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” Paul: 1 Tim. 4:1
EARLY CHRISTIANITY
Historians, early artworks, Bibles, manuscripts, Dead Sea
Scrolls, Gnostic Gospels, letters from early church fathers, etc., indicate
that for the first 300-400 years A.D., many early Christian sects were gentle
and loving. They were usually open, tolerant and unstructured: a poor man’s or
slave’s religion.
Rome considered Christianity to be simply another bothersome
Oriental Mystery cult, like those of Mithra or Isis, then the most popular in
the Empire.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
Faced with a crumbling empire, political corruption and a series
of ruinous wars with barbarians, the old Roman Empire hovered on the brink of
disaster. The religious contortions undertaken by the ruling body in Rome to
maintain its earthly power led the political leaders to crack down on healthy
diversity in the field of individual cults and religions.
To save itself politically, the formerly pantheistic (meaning
tolerant of different worships) government of the empire changed its policy.
Starting in 249 A.D., various emperors launched a string of
bloody persecutions, which included the troublesome Christians. By 306 A.D., it
was clear that this was not working.
Emperor Constantine called off the executions and began to patronize the Christian clergy, which promptly adopted a dogma lifted from “Mithraism,” among other religions: “Royal Blood by Birth,” or the “Divine Right to Rule Other Humans.”
Emperor Constantine called off the executions and began to patronize the Christian clergy, which promptly adopted a dogma lifted from “Mithraism,” among other religions: “Royal Blood by Birth,” or the “Divine Right to Rule Other Humans.”
The ambitious Constantine saw that while underground, the church
had developed into an intolerant, tightly-knit hierarchy; a well organized
network second in influence only to his own. By combining church and state,
each was able to double its power and seek out the crimes/sins of all its
political rivals and enemies with the full support/blessing of the other.
Columbia History of the World, Harper & Row, NY, 1981.
Constantine soon converted to Christianity and declared one
mandatory, monistic, state-empowered religion: the Roman Catholic Church
(R.C.Ch.); literally, the Roman Universal Church (“catholic” is Latin for
“universal”). This was now the absolute and official religion of the empire. In
one sweep, all secret societies were outlawed which might have threatened his
(and Rome’s) mandate to rule the known world, as they had for the previous 400
consecutive years.
CHURCH/STATE ARISTOCRACY
After running from the Roman Empire’s police for almost 300
years, Christian Orthodox priests had become their bosses. Starting in the 4th,
5th and 6th centuries A.D., pagan religions and all the different Christian
sects, belief systems, knowledge, gospels, etc., such as the Essenes, Gnostics
and Merovingians (Franks), were either incorporated into or edited out of
official doctrine and hierarchy.
Finally, in a series of councils, all contrary dogmas (e.g.,
that the Earth was round, and the sun and stars were more than five to 17 miles
away) were summarily outlawed and driven underground during the Dark Ages, 400
-1000+ A.D.
By the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the 11th century
A.D., virtually all powers were placed in the hands of the Church and Pope;
first by Germanic conquerors, and later by Spanish and French kings and
powerful Italian merchants and nobles (the Borgias, Medicis and other
megalomaniacs), probably to protect their trade secrets, alliances and sources
of wealth.
All European people were forced to adhere to the “Holy” Roman
Empire policy: Zero tolerance by a fundamentalist church/police-state with
blind faith in one, unquestioned version of how to worship God…and the Pope’s
infallibility.
Political rulers aided and abetted the Church in this fraud, as
their power now rested only on their new Christian dogma, the patriarchal
“Divine right” to rule.
They enacted laws with fantastically vicious punishments for
even the slightest infraction or heresy.* Heretics were mercilessly sought out
by fanatical, sadistic inquisitors using perverted forms of torture to extract
confessions and as punishment.
*Webster’s Dictionary defines “Her-e-sy (her´e se)” as 1: a
religious belief that is opposed to church dogma. 2: any opinion (in
philosophy, politics, etc.) opposed to official or established views or
doctrines. 3: the holding of any such belief or opinion.
This system kept most of the Western world’s inhabitants in a
state of constant terror, not only for their own physical safety and freedom,
but also for their eternal spirit, with “Hell” lurking mere inches below the
surface for those excommunicated by the church.
THE POLITICS OF PAPER
The masses of people, “the commons,” were kept in check through
a dual system of fear and enforced ignorance. All learning except the most rudimentary
was controlled and strictly regulated by the priests.
The commons (about 95% of the people) were forbidden to learn to
read or write ~ not even an alphabet ~ and often were punished or put to death
for doing so.
The people were also forbidden to learn Latin, the language of
the Bible. This effectively enabled the few priests who could read to interpret
the scriptures any way they pleased for about 1,200 years, until the
Reformation in Europe, circa 1600.
To prohibit knowledge, people were literally kept in the dark,
without a piece of paper to write on. The monasteries preserved and guarded
hemp’s secrets. They saw that cannabis held two threats to this policy of
absolute control: papermaking and lamp oil.
Something had to be done.
CANNABIS MEDICINES FORBIDDEN
While embracing wine as a sacrament, and tolerating beer and
hard liquor, the Inquisition outlawed cannabis ingestion in Spain in the 12th
century, and France in the 13th. Many other natural remedies were
simultaneously banned. Anyone using hemp to communicate, heal, etc. was labeled
“witch.”
Saint Joan of Arc, for example, was accused in 1430-31 of using
a variety of herbal “witch” drugs, including cannabis, to hear voices.
CHURCH SANCTIONED LEGAL MEDICINES
Virtually the only legal medical cures allowed the people of
Western Europe by the Roman Catholic Church Fathers at this time were:
1.(a.) Wearing a bird mask for plague.(b.) Setting fractured bones or cleaning burns.
2. Bleeding pints and even quarts of blood from all flu, pneumonia or fever patients (victims) which was the most used treatment in Europe and America by doctors until the beginning of the 1900s. It does not work! And did not work no matter how much blood they took.3. Praying to specific saints for a miraculous cure, e.g., St. Anthony for ergotism (poisoning), St. Odilla for blindness, St. Benedict for poison sufferers, and St. Vitus for comedians and epileptics.
4. Alcohol for a variety of problems.
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII singled out cannabis healers and
other herbalists, proclaiming hemp an unholy sacrament of the second and third
types of Satanic mass. This persecution lasted for more than 150 years. Satanic
knowledge and masses, according to the Medieval Church, came in three types:
•To summon or worship Satan;•To have Witch’s knowledge (e.g., herbalists or chemists) of making, using or giving others any unguent or preparation including cannabis as medicine or as a spiritual sacrament;•The Mass of the Travesty, which can be likened to “The Simpsons,” “In Living Color,” rap music, Mel Brooks, “Second City-TV,” “Monty Python,” or “Saturday Night Live” (Father Guido Sarducci-type group) doing irreverent, farcical or satirical take-offs on the dogmas, doctrines, indulgences, and rituals of the R.C.Ch. mass and/or its absolute beliefs.
Because medieval priest bureaucrats thought they were sometimes
laughed at, ridiculed and scorned by those under their influence ~ often by the
most learned monks, clerics and leading citizens ~ ingesting cannabis was
proclaimed heretical and Satanic.
CONTRADICTIONS
Despite this centuries-long attack by the most powerful
political and religious force in Western civilization, hemp cultivation
continued in Northern Europe, Africa and Asia. While the church persecuted
cannabis users in Europe, the Spanish Conquistadors were busy planting hemp
everywhere around the world to provide sails, rope, oakum, clothes, etc.
YET, HEMP ENDURED
The sadistic Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and, in the 16th
century A.D., tried to outlaw cannabis ~ because Egyptian hemp growers along
the Nile were leading tax revolts.
In 1868, Egypt became the first modern (?) country to outlaw
cannabis ingestion, followed in 1910 by white South Africa to punish and stop
the blacks practicing their ancient Dagga cults and religions.
The Turks complained that cannabis use caused Egyptians to laugh and be disrespectful to their Sultan and his representatives.
.
Arnaut Blowing Smoke at the Nose of His Dog by Gerome (Please enlarge thumb)
In Europe, hemp was widely used both industrially and
medicinally, from the Black Sea (Crimean) to the British Isles, especially in
Eastern Europe. The papal ban on cannabis medicines in the Holy Roman Empire in
1484 was quite unenforceable north of the Alps, and to this day the Romanians,
Czechs, Hungarians and Russians dominate world cannabis agronomy.
In Ireland, already world famous for its cannabis linen, the
Irish woman who wanted to know whom she would eventually marry was advised to
seek revelation through cannabis.
Eventually, the hemp trades once again became so important to the
empire builders who followed (in the Age of Discovery/Reason, the 14th to 18th
centuries) that they were central to the intrigues and maneuverings of all the
world’s great powers.
THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
The 18th century ushered in a new era of human thought and
civilization. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!” declared the
colonists in America. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” replied their French
cousins. The concepts of modern constitutional government, which guaranteed
human rights and separation of church and state, were unified into a policy
designed to protect citizens from intolerant and arbitrary laws.
In his landmark essay, On Liberty, Ogden Livingston Mills, whose
philosophy shaped our democracy, wrote that “Human liberty comprises, first,
the inward domain of consciousness in the most comprehensive sense: liberty of
thought and feeling, scientific, moral or theological, …liberty of tastes and
pursuits.”
Mills asserted that this freedom of thought or of “mind” is the
basis for all freedoms. Gentleman farmer Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words, “I
have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of
tyranny over the mind of man,” are engraved into the marble of his Memorial in
Washington D.C.
Abraham Lincoln was an avowed enemy of prohibition. His wife was
prescribed cannabis for her nerves after his assassination. Virtually every
president from the mid- 19th century up until prohibition routinely used
cannabis medicines (See Chapter 12: 19th century use).
Close acquaintances of John F. Kennedy, such as entertainers
Morey Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon* say the president used cannabis regularly to
control his back pain (before and during his term) and actually planned on
legalizing “marijuana” during his second term ~ a plan cut short by his
assassination in 1963.
*As reported directly to this author by Eddie Gordon, renowned
harmonica virtuoso, member of the Harmonicats, and the number-one harmonicist
in the world, who smoked with Kennedy and performed numerous times for him.
More recently, former President Gerald Ford’s son, Jack, and
Jimmy Carter’s son, Chip, admit to having smoked pot in the White House. George
Bush’s Vice President Dan Quayle* had a reputation for smoking grass and using
drugs in college. Ronald and even former First Lady Nancy “Just Say No” Reagan
are reported to have smoked pot in the California Governor’s mansion.
*”Smoke Screen: Inmate Sues Justice Department Over Quayle-Pot
Cover-up,” Dallas Observer, August 23, 1990. Kelley, Kitty, Nancy Reagan: The
Unauthorized Biography, Doubleday Co., NY, 1991.
ED: Other infamous smokers of today: Robert Altman, Jennifer Aniston, Louis Armstrong, Jack Black, Michael
Bloomberg (NY mayor), Sonny Bono, James Brown, George W. Bush, Johnny Cash,
Tommy Chong, Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Denver,
John Denver, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Dylan, Richard Feynman (scientist), Carrie
Fisher, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Harrison Ford, Art Garfunkel, Newt Gingrich,
Al Gore, Larry Hagman, Woody Harrelson, Whitney Houston, Chrissie Hynd, Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar, Sir Mick Jagger, Thomas Jefferson, John F Kennedy, Steven King,
John Lennon, Bill Maher, Norman Mailer, Bob Marley, Linda McCartney, Sir Paul
McCartney, Matthew McConaughey, George Michael, Robert Mitchum, Bill Murray,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Willie Nelson, Jack Nicholson, Conan O'Brian, Sinead
O'Connor, Sting, Luke Perry, Pablo Picasso, Brad Pitt, Ross Rebagliati, Keanu
Reeves, Carl Sagan, William Shakespeare, Paul Simon, Wesley Snipes, Alan
Sorkin, Oliver Stone, Margaret Trudeau, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Ted Turner,
Dionne Warwick, George Washington, Neil Young, Montel Williams
GENERAL
FOOTNOTES/BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Hindu Vedas; Shen Nung Pharmacopoeia Herodotus; Abel, Ernest,
Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years; Plenum Press, 1980; Dead Sea Scrolls; High
Times Encyclopedia; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Pharmacological Cults;” Roffman,
Marijuana and Medicine, 1982; Ohio State Medical Society, 1860; British Indian
Hemp Report, 1894; Ungerleider UCLA, 1982; U.S. Army, Edgewood Arsenal,
Maryland (Multiples); Shultes, Harvard Botanical; EmBowden, UC Northridge;
Michael Aldrich, Ph.D.; Vera Rubin, Institute for the Study of Man; Wasson, R.
Gordon, SOMA, Divine Mushroom of Immortality, Roffman, Marijuana and Medicine;
etymologist Jay Lynn; Allegro, J.M., Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, Doubleday &
Co., 1970, et al.; “How Heads of State Got High,” High Times, April, 1980 (see
Appendix).
ECONOMICS:
THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN INQUISITION
For cannabis-related knowledge, or hundreds of other “sins” ~
owning a devil’s tool (dinner fork), reading a sorcerer’s book or speaking in
tongues (foreign language), having a different faith, having the witch’s habit
(taking a bath or falling into a river), etc. ~ from 10% to as many as 50% of
the people in Western Europe were tortured or put to death without trial during
the medieval Roman Catholic Church’s 500-year Inquisition (12th to 17th
centuries).
While most suffered, some profited handsomely. The Pope could
declare anything “heresy,” and use it as an excuse to legally rob, torture and
kill his enemies or anyone else accused. For over 300 years, inquisitors
divided up the property forfeited to them by suspected witches and heretics.
Whoever denounced you got 1/3 of your property, 1/3 went to the government and
1/3 went to the Papal hierarchy.
“Beware the scribes which…devour widows’ houses.” Jesus quoted:
Luke 20:46
This perverted prosecution-for-profit model, used almost exactly
in the same way today by state and federal drug Nazis ~ and just as
self-righteously, was given to us at the insistence of President Ronald Reagan
in 1984 and was written for Congress by then Congressman Dan Lungren, once
California Attorney General. In actuality, once the government seizes a
property, more than 90% are never returned by the courts. Everyone from
informant, to the police and the prosecutor now share in the bounty of
forfeited goods.
In fact, while British common law is the basis for our modern
legal system, forfeiture law relies on the medieval concept of the cursed
object “Deodand” (from the latin “deo” god, and “dand” give; meaning that any
object causing human death was forfeited to the crown). This is the basis for
American laws of seizure and confiscation of property, rather than penalties
only against persons. Why? Simple. People have guaranteed legal rights; property
does not!
.
.
.
CHAPTER
11 ~ THE (HEMP) WAR OF 1812
UNITED STATES VS. GREAT BRITAIN
NAPOLEON INVADES RUSSIA…
This is a piece of history that you may have been a bit hazy on
when you were taught about it in school.
You might well have asked,” What the heck were they fighting about, anyway?”
You might well have asked,” What the heck were they fighting about, anyway?”
Here we present the events that led up to the Battle of New
Orleans, which, due to slow communications, was accidentally fought on January
8, 1815, two weeks after the War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24,
1814 by the signing of a peace treaty in Belgium.
TIME:
1700S AND EARLY 1800S
Cannabis hemp is, as it has been for thousands of years, the biggest business and most important industry on the planet. Its fiber (see Chapter 2, “Uses”) moves virtually all the world’s shipping. The entire world’s economy uses and depends upon thousands of different products from the marijuana plant.
1740 ON…
Russia, because of its cheap slave/serf labor, produces 80% of
the western world’s cannabis hemp and finished hemp products, and is, by far,
the world’s best-quality manufacturer of cannabis hemp for sails, rope, rigging
and nets.
Cannabis is Russia’s number-one trading commodity – ahead of its
furs, timber and iron.
1740 TO 1807
Great Britain buys 90% or more of its marine hemp from Russia; Britain’s navy and world sea trade runs on Russian hemp; each British ship must replace 50 to 100 tons of hemp every year or two.
There is no substitute; flax sails, for example, unlike hemp
sails, would start rotting in three months or less from salt air and spray.
1793 TO 1799 ON…
The British nobility is hostile toward the new French government
primarily because the British are afraid that the 1789-93 French Revolution of
commoners could spread, and/or result in a French invasion of England and the
loss of its Empire and, of course, its nobility’s heads.
1803 TO 1814
Britain’s navy blockades Napoleon’s France, including Napoleon’s
allies on the Continent. Britain accomplishes the blockade of France by closing
its (France’s) English Channel and Atlantic (Bay of Biscay) ports with its
navy; also, Britain controls absolute access to and from the Mediterranean and
Atlantic, by virtue of its control of the straits of Gibraltar (see map on
following page).
1798 TO 1812
The fledgling United States is officially “neutral” in the war between France and Britain. The United States even begins to solve its own foreign problems by sending its navy and marines (1801-1805) to the Mediterranean to stop Tripoli pirates and ransomers from collecting tribute from American Yankee traders operating in the area. “Millions for Defense ~ not a penny for Tribute” was America’s rallying cry, and the incident came to be memorialized in the second line of the Marine Corps’ hymn: “… to the shores of Tripoli.”
1803
Napoleon, needing money to press war with Great Britain and
pursue control of the European continent, bargain-sells the Louisiana Territory
to the United States for $15 million, or roughly two-and-a-half cents per acre.
This area is about one-third of what are now the 48 contiguous
states.
1803 ON…
The Louisiana Purchase gives rise to some Americans’ ~ mostly
Westerners’ ~ dreams of “Manifest Destiny.” That is, the United States should
extend to the utmost borders of North America: From the top of Canada to the
bottom of Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific (see map on page 81).
1803 TO 1807
Britain continues to trade for and buy 90% of its hemp directly
from Russia.
1807
Napoleon and Czar Alexander of Russia sign the Treaty of Tilset,
which cuts off all legal Russian trade with Great Britain, its allies, or any
other neutral nation ship acting as agents for Great Britain in Russia.
The treaty also sets up a buffer zone, the Warsaw Duchy
(approximately Central Eastern Poland) between Napoleon’s allies and Russia.
Napoleon’s strategy ~ and his most important goal with the
treaty ~ is to stop Russian hemp from reaching England, thereby destroying
Britain’s navy by forcing it to cannibalize sails, ropes, and rigging from
other ships; and Napoleon believes that eventually, with no Russian hemp for
its huge navy, Britain will be forced to end its blockade of France and the
Continent.
1807 TO
1809
The United States is considered a neutral country by Napoleon,
as long as its ships do not trade with or for Great Britain, and the United
States considers itself to be neutral in the war between France and Great
Britain.
However, Congress passes the 1806 Non-Importation Pact: British
articles which are produced in the U.S., but which could be produced elsewhere,
are prohibited. Congress also passes the 1807 Embargo Act, to wit: American
ships could not bring or carry products to or from Europe.
These laws hurt America more than Europe; however, many Yankee
traders ignored the law anyway.
1807 TO 1814
After the Treaty of Tilset cuts off their Russian trade, Britain
claims that there are no neutral countries or shipping lanes.
Hence, any ship that trades with Napoleon’s “Continental System”
of allies is the enemy and is subject to blockade.
On this pretext, Britain confiscates American ships and cargo
and sends sailors back to the United States at American ship owners’ expense.
Britain “impresses” some American sailors into service in the British
navy. However, England claims that they only “impress” those sailors who are
British subjects ~ and whose American shipping companies refused to pay for the
sailors’ return fares.
1807 TO 1810
Secretly, however, Britain offers the captured American traders a “deal” (actually a blackmail proposition) when they “overhaul” ~ board and confiscate ~ an American ship and bring it into an English port.
The deal: Either lose your ship and cargos forever, or go to
Russia and secretly buy hemp for Britain, who will pay American traders with
gold in advance, and more gold when the hemp is delivered back.
At the same time, the Americans will be allowed to keep and
trade their own goods (rum, sugar, spices, cotton, coffee, tobacco) to the Czar
for hemp ~ a double profit for the Americans.
1808 TO 1810
Our shrewd Yankee traders, faced with the choice of either
running British blockades ~ and risking having their ships, cargo and crews
confiscated ~ or acting as secret (illegal) licensees for Britain, with safety
and profits guaranteed, mostly choose the latter.
John Quincy Adams (later to become President), who was American
Consul at St. Petersburg, in 1809 noted:
“As many as 600 clipper ships, flying the American flag, in a
two-week period, were in Kronstadt” (the Port of St. Petersburg, once called
Leningrad in the former USSR) loading principally cannabis hemp for England
(illegally) and America, where quality hemp is also in great demand.
(Bemis, John Q. Adams and the American Foreign Policy, New York,
NY, Alfred A Knopf, 1949.)
The United States passes the 1809 Non-Intercourse Act which
resumes legal trade with Europe, except Britain and France. It is soon replaced
with the Macon Bill resuming all legal trade.
1808 TO 1810
Napoleon insists that Czar Alexander stop all trade with the
independent United States traders as they are being coerced into being illegal
traders for Great Britain’s hemp.
Napoleon wants the Czar to allow him to place…station French
agents and troops in Kronstadt to make sure the Czar and his port authorities
live up to the treaty.
1808 TO 1810
The Czar says “Nyet!” despite his treaty with France, and turns
a “blind eye” to the illegal American traders, probably because he needs the
popular, profitable trade goods the Americans are bringing him and his nobles ~
as well as the hard gold he is getting from the Americans’ (illegal) purchases
of hemp for Great Britain.
1809
Napoleon’s allies invade the Duchy of Warsaw.
1810
Napoleon orders the Czar to stop all trade with the American
traders! The Czar responds by withdrawing Russia from that part of the Treaty
of Tilset that would require him to stop selling goods to neutral American
ships.
1810 to 1812
Napoleon, infuriated with the Czar for allowing Britain’s life
blood of navy hemp to reach England, builds up his army and travels over 2,000
miles to invade Russia, planning to punish the Czar and ultimately stop hemp
from reaching the British Navy.
1811 to
1812
England, again an ally and full trading partner of Russia, is
still stopping American ships from trading with the rest of the Continent.
Britain also blockades all U.S. traders from Russia at the
Baltic Sea and insists that American traders have to now secretly buy other
strategic goods for them (mostly from Mediterranean ports), specifically from
Napoleon and his allies on the Continent who, by this time, are happy to sell
anything to raise capital.
1812
The United States, cut off from 80% of its Russian hemp supply,
debates war in Congress.
Ironically, it is representatives of the western states who
argue for war under the excuse of “impressed” American sailors. However, the
representatives of the maritime states, fearful of loss of trade, argue against
war, even though it’s their shipping, crews, and states that are allegedly
afflicted.
Not one senator from a maritime state votes for war with Great
Britain, whereas virtually all western senators vote for war, hoping to take
Canada from Britain and fulfill their dream of “Manifest Destiny,” in the
mistaken belief that Great Britain is too busy with the European wars against
Napoleon to protect Canada.
It’s interesting to note that Kentucky, a big supporter of the
war which disrupted the overseas hemp trade, was actively building up its own
domestic hemp industry.
At this time, 1812, American
ships could pick up hemp from Russia and return with it three times faster and
cheaper than shippers could get hemp from Kentucky to the East Coast over land
(at least, until the Erie Canal was completed in 1825; shortening travel time
dramatically by as much as 90%).
The western states win in Congress, and on June 18, 1812, the
United States is at war with Britain.
America enters the war on the side of Napoleon, who marches on
Moscow also in June of 1812.
Napoleon is soon defeated in Russia by the harsh winter, the
Russian scorched-earth policy, 2,000 miles of snowy and muddy supply lines ~
and by Napoleon not stopping for the winter and regrouping before marching on
Moscow, as was the original battle plan.
Of the 450,000 to 600,000 men Napoleon starts with, only 180,000
ever make it back.
1812 TO 1814
Britain, after initial success in war with the United States
(including the burning of Washington in retaliation for the earlier American
burning of Toronto, then the colonial Canadian capitol), finds its finances and
military stretched thin ~ with blockades, war in Spain with France, and a tough
new America on the seas.
Britain agrees to peace, and signs a treaty with the United
States in December, 1814. The actual terms of the treaty give little to either
side.
In effect, Britain agrees it will never again interfere with
American shipping.
And the United States agrees to give up all claims to Canada
forever (which we did, with the exception of “54-40 or Fight”).
1813 TO 1814
Britain defeats Napoleon in Spain and banishes him to Elba, but
he escapes for 100 days.
1815
Britain defeats Napoleon at Waterloo (June 18) and banishes him
to St. Helena Island off Antarctica where, in 1821, he dies and his hair and private
parts are sold to the public for souvenirs.
JANUARY 1815
Tragically for Britain, more than two weeks after the December
24, 1814 signing of the Ghent peace treaty between the United States and Britain,
Andrew Jackson defeats a huge British attack force at New Orleans (January 8,
1815) while news of the treaty slowly makes its way across the Atlantic.
20TH CENTURY
American, British, French, Canadian and Russian schools each
teach children their own, completely different versions of history with
virtually no mention of hemp in this war (nor, in the American versions, at any
other time in history).
.
AUTHOR’S
NOTE:
I wish to apologize to history buffs for all the nuances I have
left out from this outline of the 1812 Wars (for example, the involvement of
the Rothschilds, the Illuminati, stock market manipulations, etc.), but I did
not want to write “War and Peace.” It’s been done.
My intention is that our children are taught a true,
comprehensive history in our schools, not watered-down nonsense that hides the
real facts and makes the War of 1812 seem totally unintelligible and without
rhyme or reason. But it’s no wonder. Our American school teachers themselves
often haven’t the foggiest understanding of why this war was really fought. If
they do know ~ or have recently learned ~ they are generally much too
intimidated to teach it.
In 1806, it cost $50,000 to build the U.S.S. Constitution, “Old Ironsides,”
and $400,000 to make the sails and rope for that ship. They needed to be
replaced every two years. In 1850, it cost $50 to build an uncovered Calistoga
wagon in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It cost $400 for the hemp canvas to cover it.
For a broader overview of the subject we’ve outlined in this
chapter, read Alfred W. Crosby Jr.’s America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon, 1965.
CHAPTER 12 ~ CANNABIS DRUG USE IN 19TH CENTURY
AMERICA
Although by 1839, cannabis hemp products for fiber, paper,
nautical use, lamp oil, food, etc., were possibly the largest agricultural and
industrial businesses in America and, of course, throughout the world, the
hundreds of medical uses of cannabis (known for thousands of years in the
Orient and Middle East) were still almost entirely unknown in much of Western
Europe and America because of the earlier Medieval Catholic Church’s
suppression.
However, the 19th century saw a dramatic re-discovery of the
benefits of cannabis drugs, which were the number-one medicine in America prior
to 1863. It was replaced by morphine when the new injectable needle became the
rage, but not before cannabis brought with it healthful elixirs and patent
medicines, luxuriant Turkish Smoking Parlors and with them a fountain of
literary creativity. Cannabis remained the number-two medicine until 1901 when
it was replaced by aspirin.
.
MARIJUANA MEDICINE IN 19TH CENTURY AMERICA
From 1850 to 1937, cannabis was used as the prime medicine for
more than 100 separate illnesses or diseases in U.S. Pharmacopoeia.
During all this time (until the 1940s), science, doctors, and
drug manufacturers (Lilly, Parke-Davis, Squibb, etc.) had no idea of its active
ingredients.
Yet from 1842 until the 1890s, marijuana, generally called
Cannabis Indica or Indian Hemp extractums, was one of the three items (after
alcohol and opium) most used in patent and prescription drugs (in massive
doses*, usually by oral ingestion).
*Doses given during the 19th century to American infants,
children, youth, adults, women in childbirth, and senior citizens, in one day,
were, in many cases, equal to what a current moderate-to-heavy American
marijuana user probably consumes in a month or two, using U.S. government’s
1983 guidelines for comparison.
Violence was equated with alcohol use; addiction to morphine was
known as the “soldiers’ illness.”
And so, during that era, cannabis gained favor and was even
recommended as a way of helping alcoholics and addicts recover.
However, cannabis medicines had been largely lost to the West
since the days of the Inquisition. (See Chapter 10, “A Look at the Sociology”)
Until, that is, W. B. O’Shaughnessy, a 30-year-old British
physician serving in India’s Bengal* province, watched Indian doctors use
different hemp extracts successfully to treat all types of illness and disease
then untreatable in the West, including tetanus.
*”Bengal” means “Bhang Land,” literally Cannabis Land.
O’Shaughnessy then did an enormous (and the first known Western)
study,* in 1839, and published a 40-page paper on the uses of cannabis
medicines. At the same time, a French doctor named Roche was making the same
rediscovery of hemp in Middle Eastern medicines.
O’Shaughnessy’s medical paper and findings on hemp extracts
stunned and swept through the Western medical world. In just three years,
cannabis was to become an American and European “superstar.”
Papers written by first-time American users (novices) and
doctors using, treating, or experimenting with cannabis, told straight forward
accounts of its usually euphoric, and sometimes disphoric, mind and
time-expanding properties for both child and adult, as well as hilarity and
increased appetites, especially the first few times they tried it.
Interestingly, during this whole period of time (1840s to 1930s)
Eli Lilly, Squibb, Parke-Davis, Smith Brothers, Tildens, etc., had no effective
way to prolong its very short shelf life and had great difficulty standardizing
dosages.
As noted before, marijuana medicine was so highly regarded by
Americans (including some Protestant theologians) during the 19th century, that
in 1860, for example, the Committee on Cannabis Indica for the Ohio State
Medical Society reported and concluded that, “High Biblical commentators
[scholars]” believe “that the gall and vinegar, or myrrhed wine, offered to our
Saviour, immediately before his crucifixion, was in all probability, a
preparation of Indian hemp [marijuana], and even speak of its earlier use in
obstetrics.”*
*Reprinted from the transcripts of the 15th annual meeting of
the Ohio State Medical Society, at White Sulphur Springs, Ohio, June 12-14,
1860, pg. 75-100.
The main reasons that cannabis medicines fell into disuse in
America was the difficulty of identifying and standardizing dosage, e.g., in
1964, 27 years after America outlawed cannabis in 1937, Dr. Raphael Mechoulam
of Tel Aviv University first discovered the THC delta molecules as the active
ingredients in cannabis. Also, doctors in the late l9th century could not find
a way to inject it into humans with their brand new hypodermic needles…and
still haven’t.
By the 1890s, some of the most popular American marriage guides
recommend cannabis as an aphrodisiac of extraordinary powers – no one ever
suggested a prohibition law against cannabis. And while there was talk of an
alcohol prohibition law, a number of women’s temperance organizations even
suggested “hasheesh” as a substitute for “demon” alcohol, which they said led
to wife beating.
A POPULAR INSPIRATION OF THE 19TH CENTURY LITERARY GREATS
From the early 1800s on, some of the world’s foremost romantic
and revolutionary writers on individual freedom and human dignity extolled
cannabis use. We study their works in schools today as “classics”:
The science of psycho-pharmacology started in France circa 1845
with Doctor J. J. Moreau DeTours, and cannabis became one of the first drugs
used to treat the insane and depressed.
Moreau was best friends with Dumas, Hugo, and Gautier, and in
1845 co-founded with them in Paris the first cannabis club in the Western
World: Le Club Des Haschischins.
MAPLE SUGAR HASHISH CANDY
Starting in the 1860s, the Gunjah Wallah Company made maple
sugar hashish candy, which soon became one of the most popular treats in
America.
.
.
For 40 years, it was sold over the counter and advertised in
newspapers, as well as being listed in the catalogs of Sears-Roebuck, as a
totally harmless, delicious and fun candy.
TURKISH SMOKING PARLORS
World Fairs and International Expositions, from the 1860s
through the early 1900s, often featured a popular Turkish Hashish Smoking
exposition and concession. Hashish smoking was entirely new for Americans; its
effects came on much faster. However, smoking hashish was only about one-third
as strong or long lasting as orally ingesting the cannabis extract medicines
that even American children were regularly prescribed.
At America’s giant 100-year 1876 Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia, fair-goers took their friends and family to partake (smoke) at
the extremely popular Turkish Hashish Exposition, so as to “enhance” their fair
experience.
By 1883, similar hashish smoking parlors were legally open in
every major American city, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago,
St. Louis, New Orleans, and so on.
The Police Gazette estimated there were over 500 hashish smoking
parlors in New York City in the 1880s and it was estimated by the NYPD that
there were still 500 or more hashish parlors in NYC in the 1920s•more of these
parlors than there were “speakeasies” during the same 1920s alcohol prohibition
period.
AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE
By the start of the 20th century almost four generations of
Americans had been using cannabis. Virtually everyone in this country was
familiar from childhood on with the “highs” of cannabis extract – yet doctors
did not consider it habit forming, anti-social or violent at all, after 60
years of use.
This leads us to an important question: if it was not fear of
health or social consequences that led to the eventual ban of cannabis use in
America (and later forced on the rest of the world), what did?
THE SMEAR CAMPAIGN
What socio-political force would be strong enough to turn
Americans against something as innocent as a plant ~ let alone one which so
many people had an interest in using to improve their own lives?
Earlier, you read how the first federal anti-marijuana laws
(1937) came about because of William Randolph Hearst’s lies, yellow journalism
and racist newspaper articles and ravings, which from then on were cited in
Congressional testimony by Harry Anslinger as facts.
But what started Hearst on the marijuana and racist scare stories?
What intelligence or ignorance, for which we still punish fellow Americans to
the tune of 16 million years in jails and prisons in just the last 70 years,
(786,545 arrested in 2005 alone for marijuana, more than twice as many as 1990)
~ brought this all about?
The first step was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one had ever heard of before: “marijuana.”
The next step was to keep the maneuverings hidden from the
doctors, scientists and hemp industries who would have defended hemp. This was
done by holding most of the hearings on prohibition in secret.
And, finally, prohibitionists set out to stir up primal emotions
and tap right into an existing pool of hatred that was already poisoning
society: racism.
Jack was a national treasure. He is missed and his work needs to be passed around every now and then to remind us not only of history but what we are up against today.
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