The Controversy:
Fact: The Men behind making Hemp illegal were racist, and used scary stories about minority uprising to have a law passed. They also used scare tactics such as the Reefer Madness movies. Even Scientists of that period found nothing to support these claims, and actually denounced them. There are also reports of government backed studies of weed smoking in panama that report marijuana smoking is harmless, and should not lead to legal action against soldiers using it.
Fact: They used the Mexican word Marijuana to make sure No One realized what was being effectivly outlawed was the Hemp Plant.
Fact: The original law was not even a drug law, but an outrageous tax law that made dealing with the plant impossible. This law was passed in under 2 minutes, and the decision was made based on the testimony of one man, Harry J. Anslinger. Who’s “evidence” was the propaganda of William Randolph Hearst, propaganda anslinger had actually created himself.
Fact: Two machines were created not long before Hemp was made nonviable through that law. These machines would have made it easy to harvest and utilize hemp in industrial applications.
Fact:Hemp provides four times as much pulp for paper making with at least four to seven times less pollution.
Fact:Hemp can be used to make plastic cheaper and less polluting than oil based.
Fact: Companies such as Dupont, who had just patented petroleum based plastic manufacturing techniques and new wood based paper manufacturing techniques, and Hearst’s own Hearst Paper Manufacturing along with all other tree based paper companies stood to lose anywhere from 80% of their business, to everything when Hemp took over. An article by Popular Mechanic is readily available to read online where-in hemp is highly praised.
Fact: DuPont’s chief financial backer was Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh.
Fact: Mellon, in his role as Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury, appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to be head of the newly reorganized Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD), a post he held for the next 31 years.
Fact: ALL of the myths surrounding weed smoking and it’s dangers were born from the lies of these men.
Conclusion: Weed was outlawed so rich men could get richer, and racists could do more to keep minorities down.

More Facts:
Average Deaths per year by Primary Cause
Tobacco    435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity    365,000
Alcohol    85,000
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs     32,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect     17,000
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin     7,600
Water/Drowning      3,842
Exposure to Smoke, Fire, Flames      3,377
Marijuana     0, There has never been a confirmed documented case of death by Marijuna use. The only case I could find involved a guy that smoked around 100 joints in one day, and from what I read, the smoke was more to blame than the drug carried in it.

People may think that the Drug War targets drug smugglers and ‘King Pins,’ in 2008, 49.8 percent (half) of the 1,702,537 total arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana — a total of 847,863. Of those, 754,224 people were arrested for marijuana possession alone.

Myths: Dangerous while Driving?
Common Belief is that driving high is as bad as driving drunk.
Truth: Studies have shown that even heavy weed smoking does not cause a great deal of imparment. Several have shown that Weed smokers are more careful while driving, due to a belief they are impaired, and over-compensation for it.

Myth: Gateway drug?
There is no evidence that weed leads to harder drugs. Except by being illegal, because it forces people into contact with dealers who often deal in harder drugs, and as with any sales personel, they will try to get you onto something that makes them more money, quicker. As for it being the first drug people use to get high, Alcohol is used first by the vast majority of people.

Myth: pot is waaaay stronger now?
Testing was originally performed on stale, imported weed. Later tests on domesticly grown, freash weed. 2+2=weed didnt get stronger, they just had bad a bad stash:)

Myth: Causes Brain Damage?
Studies done “back-in-the-day” were rarely very scientific, such as the study where they force “fed” monkeys pot smoke with gas masks, then determined it was the weed that caused brain damage, and death rather than suffocation, and smoke inhalation. Recent studies have found NO EVIDENCE of brain damage, and to the contrary have been shown to IMPROVE BRAIN FUNCTIONS! However heavy and prolonged use can interfere with short term memory, kinda like watching too much TV.

Myth: Weed is 16x worse than smoking Tobacco?
A mis-quoted study is to blame here. In fact recent studies have shown that smoking pot affects the lungs far less than tobacco. The two drugs also interact with the lungs in very different ways.

Myth: Marijuana has no medical value?
Marijuana has been shown to be effective in reducing the nausea induced by cancer chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in AIDS patients, and reducing intraocular (eyeball) pressure in people with glaucoma. There is also appreciable evidence that marijuana reduces muscle spasticity in patients with neurological disorders. Cannabis was used as a medicine for at least 10,000 years prior to it’s modern status.

Marijuana Lowers Inhibitions and can lead to Sex?
Maybe, but Peer-preasure, boy/girl friend pressure and Alcohol are more likely suspects. I would also like to point out that there are plenty of things in the cold/sinus section of any store that will have just as much of an affect.

Marijuana has no value out-side of recreational drug use?
And now to the real meat of this whole thing. Marijuana comes from a variety of the Hemp Plant, or Cannabis. Here are some of it’s many, many uses:
Paper, Food, Clothing, plastics, body care products, construction(can be used to create a form of concrete amongst other things), lifestock feed, lifestock bedding, highly nutritional so it could be used for the base in many supplements, medicine, fuels (Ford famously built a car with a body made of Hemp, designed to run on Hemp based fuel.). Some say it has over 25,000 uses.

Sources: Many, try doing a search on Jack Herer, Hemp Controversey, and Truth about Marijuana.

I will still attempt to.

An idealist believes strongly about something, an ideal they hold above other beliefs. There are two types of idealist. One is the type willing to do anything within their means to further their cause. The other is the type that mainly works behind the scenes.

I fall into the second category. I prefer to sit back, and quietly nudge people towards the ideals I hold dear. As an anarchist, those ideals are a call to greater personal responsibility, and the eventual removal of humanity from the shackles of government and religion.

However I also see the pathetic truth of the human race.
It will likely never be able to completely throw these things away.

Humans are still pack animals in nature. Government, street gangs, high school cliques, religions, these are all examples of how people arrange themselves in packs. In these “packs” an Alpha directs things. The leader. The coolest one in the Clique, the President, El Jefe, the Preacher.

Although every generation has it’s rebels. Hell, every town has it’s rebels. Even they arrange themselves into packs. This is the undercurrent of most human behavior, the need to belong to something. People will go out of their way, they will debase themselves in horrible ways, they will do almost anything in order to belong.

To be accepted.

If you take this as one of the main undercurrents to the way Human societies form, it becomes clear that the true anarchistic principle of a society were no one is in charge, because people are responsible enough to make it unnecessary, is impossible.

Consider the average person. This likely means you, the reader. How capable are they in making their own decisions? Most aren’t very good at it. The average person wants to be told what to do, and flails without direction if that is taken away. I have found it to be a disheartening, and uncomfortable truth that most people are ignorant, and prefer to keep it that way. After all “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise”, most people don’t realize there is more to that.

It is also true that great intelligence, brings great depression.

So why is ignorance bliss? Because if you don’t know about it, you don’t have to think about it.

Why does intelligence bring depression? Because with higher thinking ability it becomes hard to ignore things, and just because you see something wrong, does not mean you have any ability to change it.

This is the crux of all idealists. They are generally of higher intelligence, or at the very least have had something happen in their life to compel them pursue their cause. Yet they are rarely able to make much; if any, difference.

The only way an idealist is able to create real change is by confronting an issue that most people are aware of at some level, but chose to ignore. Segregation, and the treating of blacks as second class citizens is a prime example.

It made many people feel dirty, so they ignored it. Till the Black rights movement made it impossible to. They were idealists that made a real change, but only because deep down most people already knew it was wrong. The women’s rights movement is a similar case.

Since then Gangsta culture, and radical feminists have once again created the division of ‘us and them’, so in a way all idealists are doomed to some degree of failure. After all, it’s impossible to predict what precisely will happen once your ideal is achieved.

How could MLK know that what he worked so hard; and died, for would be spurned by the people he was doing it for? I speak of the way many blacks view any black person that achieves success as a traitor. Even if a black person does take advantage of the opportunities available and achieves success, he (or she) is often viewed with contempt by other blacks. Often being called a “House Nigger”, their words, not mine.

So you have two types of idealist. Those who take every opportunity to rail against those things they see as wrong, and those who quietly work in the background.

The KKK and the Rap Industry are good examples. After all, both work to undermine blacks. One by overtly attacking them, the other by putting the dirty life of the black street thug on display, and making it seem preferable to education. One group is viewed as the villeins. The other as heroes.

What? Did you forget that racists and terrorists are idealists too?

The problem with most idealists, are that too many are also extremists. They don’t know when to draw the line in the sand, and say “Okay…that’s enough”.
Very few feel any degree of success when they do achieve a small victory. It’s gotta be all or nothing. So; far too often, that’s what they achieve, nothing.

The overt idealist fails to acknowledge another common undercurrent of human behavior. The harder you push, the harder they push back!

While the idealist that sits in the background is content to take his little victories, and actually allow him(or her) self the ability to live a life that does not center on their ideal. Thus, a background idealist both can achieve greater success, and live a happier life. While the overt idealist bangs their head against a brick wall of opposition, till they finally collapse.

In conclusion, I will say that there is nothing wrong with having an ideal, or ideals you like to work for. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking you can really ever achieve much of anything. The abysmal truth is that whatever victories you get now, will not matter much in the long run.
The phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is a good one to keep in mind. It is a reference to the fact that turmoil in society only changes the way things are, not the way people think and act.

Things have changed a great deal over the centuries of recorded history, but the motivations behind what people do has not changed at all.

In our hearts it’s still law of the Jungle baby!

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