Interesting Facts
Cannabis has an interesting history!
Starting back in the 1800's Napoleon introduced it to Europe. The Europeans were said to fancy Cannabis over alcohol because it caused them no hangover.
Queen Victoria of Paris used to use Cannabis to relieve her menstrual cramps.
Cannabis and hash used to be used in many medications in the United states.
In the 1920's smoking saloons emerged in New Orleans. It was said that jazz and weed go perfectly together and joints were sold like cigarettes in jazz clubs.
During the late 1940's and 1950's many Americans believed weed was linked to crime, they called it the Marijuana menace.
Slowly the southern states banned together to try to illegalize cannabis. The drug and narcotic bureau started cracking down on users of the drug because of pressure from the southern states. The southern states seen weed as a scapegoat to force Hispanic people out of the country. They linked weed with these people and in order to push the Hispanics out, weed got the bad wrap.
Harry J. Anslinger dealed out a whole lot of propaganda, anything from the comment that "weed causes sex and murder," to it causes young children to kill their parents. It was all nonsense, yet people were so gullible and many believed the lies.
One newspaper front page read: "The smoke of Hell! Devil's harvest." This just goes to show how exaggerated and untruthful the comments were made by the narcotics bureau during that time.
When the plan to ban Cannabis was set into motion it included the following:
You had to get a transfer stamp to transfer weed, however the Federal government made no stamps. (This idea was modeled after the machine gun transfer act). In order to theoretically get a stamp you had to have the weed in hand which would automatically place you in violation of the law. Basically, they had already banned weed, yet they did not admit that it was illegal.
Today medicinal marijuana has become legal in many states. It started to gain acceptance in the early 90's and is continuing to gain acceptance. Likewise, the issue about legalizing marijuana for non-medicinal purposes has been a topic of debate. I think we are on our way to see the legalization of marijuana and I can't wait to see that day!