How Big Business and Government Sabotaged the Hemp Industry

 

Good day everyone and once again, thanks for reading our blog.

Today, we are going to take a little trip back in time in hopes that we can expose some of the facts behind the cannabis / hemp industry and how big business and the government colluded, with each other, in an attempt to legislate the industry out of existence.

As we have stated in blogs past, history shows that cannabis derived medicines and supplements have been in existence for over 5000 years. In fact, records show that the oldest cannabis paper production dates back to the Chinese Empire of 4000BC. In the 8^th century Emperor Charlemagne encouraged the cultivation to be used by monks to copy the Holy Scriptures and provided the parchments for the first Bible printed by Gutenberg.

In addition, the processing of the outer wrapping of the stem produced the fiber needed to manufacture ropes and fabrics that are universally known for their quality and durability. Literally millions of miles of rope has been produced using fibers from the hemp and cannabis stalk. Other products made include carpet backings, and fine fabrics that are virtually undistinguishable from silk except that it is stronger and less expensive to produce. Some of you may even know that the first jeans were made using hemp fabric as it was also less expensive to process even compared to cotton. As a food substance, the seeds of the cannabis plant can be ground into high protein flour or used to produce an edible oil rich in protein carbohydrates and essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and omega-6. Hemp seed oil is believed to provide a high portion of the omega-3 fatty acids which are thought to have a very strong cardiac protective effect.

Throughout history, hemp oil has been used as a superior fuel for illumination and domestic heating. It can also be used as a fuel for cars when processed into ethanol, emits little to no smoke and leaves behind virtually no residue. This was studied as far back as 1941, by Henry Ford, who also developed a biodegradable form of lightweight plastic built almost entirely of vegetable products using primarily cannabis and its derivatives. As a matter of fact, there are said to be over 5000 items that can be produced through the processing of cannabis / hemp plants. It has also been tested and presumed to be effective to replace steel, in some applications, and can be processed without the use of petroleum products.

The plant(s) are capable of growing at almost any latitude and require no pesticides to protect them during cultivation. It also grows faster than almost all other crops and can yield up to 25 tons of biomass a year per cultivated acre.

Despite its usefulness, in the 1930’s, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, a program was put into effect to outlaw the production of cannabis / hemp products not only in the United States but worldwide. During hearings on marijuana law in the early 30’s claims were made about marijuana’s ability to cause men of color to become violent and solicit sex from white women. Talk about racist? This added a new dimension to the term.

Little did people know that Andrew Melon, the Secretary of the Treasury from 1921-1932 helped to develop the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930 and appointed his future son-in-law, Harry Anslinger, to the helm. Anslinger was already well known for his experiences as a federal agent during prohibition so, it was determined he would be perfect to lead the charge in the eradication of cannabis / hemp from the United States and beyond. Since cannabis and hemp were plants that were loved and respected, they had to devise a way to change the attitude and hide the true objective of their devious plan.

Enter into the picture, a handful of high powered players named William Randolph Hearst, Lamont DuPont, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and don’t forget our old friend Andrew Mellon.

Hearst came up with the idea to redirect people referring to cannabis as a plant and rename it using the Mexican nickname of marihuana (or marijuana as we know it). By doing so, it enabled them to better identify the use of marijuana to blacks and Mexicans and further attack its usefulness by attaching it to the growing wave of racism that was sweeping across the country. This added fuel to the fire that marijuana was mostly used by Negros, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers and that their swing and jazz music were the results of marijuana use. By using the tabloids controlled by Hearst, they were able to convince the world that the entire population of America was under attack by a drug that, once smoked, could make a helpless addict of its victim within weeks and would ultimately lead to physical and moral ruin which could result in perversion, murders, brutality, insanity or suicide. Anslinger steered the media propaganda so that even the casual smoker of marijuana became associated with the users of harder drugs such as opium, cocaine, heroin and morphine. He further convinced the public that the drug addict lives from fix to fix and to get money for his drugs he must revert to crime. The public began to view the figure of a marijuana user as a pathetic figure that had no respect for his life or that of others and could only be controlled by declaring its use illegal and imposing the same strict penalties as that of hard drug users. In fact, in 1956 the first arrest for possession of marijuana carried a mandatory sentence of two to ten years in prison. In some states, such as Missouri, a second arrest could be punished with life behind bars. Once he had America convinced of the threat, he turned his attention to the rest of the world wherever cannabis was being cultivated freely. By colluding with the United Nations, in 1961, Anslinger reached the pinnacle of his career by persuading the UN to unify all single existing treaties on drug control. Thus was born the Single Convention on narcotic drugs to which more than one hundred and fifty countries agreed to adhere. This convention established an international tribunal for the control of drugs and committed individual states to combat and eradicate the cultivation of cannabis within a few years. This would ensure that cannabis would be considered illegal virtually everywhere in the world.

Why would they want to do this you ask? Well before we go on, let’s clarify this.

In paragraph three we talked about cannabis / hemp being used to produce paper. Well, William R. Hearst was a premier newspaper publisher, businessman and politician who controlled the nation’s largest media company, Hearst Communications. Hearst had purchased millions of acres of timber forests which he intended to use to manufacture the paper for his ever growing publications. With the cost of hemp production being less expensive and even more popular, his investment was doomed to collapse if allowed to flourish.

Another industry giant that was threatened by the plant(s) was Lamont DuPont who just happened to be the owner of a petrochemical company which had recently purchased the patents to create a multitude of synthetic products from oil including nylon stockings, brushes, men’s clothing, car tires and a full range of other products that could be easily displaced from the market because of their inability to compete with products that could be manufactured at a fraction of the cost using sustainable hemp materials.

Hearst and DuPont had something else in common. They were funded by one of the most powerful bankers of the time, Andrew Mellon. So, you can see where Mellon had a personal interest in making sure his investment remained secure. Mellon was also the owner of Gulf Oil at the time when oil companies were expanding at a rapid rate, and could potentially see their investments hampered by the mass production of cannabis and hemp oil products which were not only cleaner but much cheaper to produce.  

Other “players”, with an active interest in this ruse, were another couple of powerful bankers, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, who were heavily invested in the pharmaceutical industry, which could not compete with natural herbal treatments. They had a mission to replace these, often home grown, supplements. One movement that “sealed the deal” was the passage of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic act (FD&C) of 1938. It was through this that the FDA designated that certain drugs were only deemed “safe” when administered under the supervision of a medical professional. This action drove the costs up significantly.

Under Franklin Roosevelt a bill was introduced in congress in 1937, known as the marijuana tax act, and was approved without the support of any scientific research. This “law”, in effect, deemed all parts of the hemp and cannabis plant to be a drug menace even though the only psychotropic compounds are found in the flower and leaf of the cannabis plant. Most of the representatives who voted the bill into law in fact didn’t know that cannabis and marijuana are in fact the same. Nor did they know that hemp, though being in the cannabis sativa family, contained almost none of the compound that could render one “high”.  It didn’t matter though because, they had done their job of keeping America safe from this demon weed that assuredly would have destroyed not only America but, the rest of the world as well.

All is good right? Well, not really. Like any action there is often a reaction sometimes good and sometimes not so good. Because of the elimination of cannabis and hemp, virtually every petrochemical plant was allowed to process oil and natural gas worldwide with little to no competition. What that did was increase our slavery to oil and create conflict around the globe as one country sought to obtain another’s reserves by any means necessary regardless of the cost or loss of human lives. It also led to several ecological disasters that we are witnessing today in the forms of excessive air and water pollution, contamination of aquiver rivers, deforestation and extinction of animal species worldwide.

We also fail to realize that by eliminating a crop that required no pesticides, we had to substitute it with cotton which requires 50% of the pesticides and herbicides used in the agricultural sector.

We no longer allow the farmers to legally produce herbal supplements that could help us reduce our dependency on opioids, and other drugs, that only treat the symptoms of the illness while being responsible for tens of thousands of opioid deaths yearly in the U.S. alone. Now, the drug industry is monopolized by the pharmaceutical companies working closely with the FDA and government to assure that the products we receive are “safe” at all costs. If that were truly the case then, why do we so often here of class action lawsuits that promise millions of dollars in compensation to the victims of negligence caused by companies that were regulated by the FDA?

Now, I hope you get it. The true reason for eliminating cannabis / hemp production really comes down to a couple of reasons, money and power. While the passing of the Farm Bill in 2018 has started to open people’s eyes to the potential benefits that are available by processing these “natural” products, testing and approval is still lagging behind for the same two reasons. Even though several states have taken action to roll back the clock so to speak, those that controlled the money and power back in the 1930’s still do so today through using virtually the same methods. What has changed is the advancement of social media and the billions of dollars that are distributed through Political Action Committees and Non-Profit organizations but, the key players are pretty much the same.

In 1968 Jim Morrison, of the band The Doors, made the statement “whoever controls the media, controls the mind”. That statement still rings true today however; it may be better to say “whoever controls information controls the masses”.

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you find what you read to be informative and thought provoking.

And remember, stay strong, stay focused as this too will pass…Thanks, CBD Doc.