Is The Illegalization Of Marijuana Valid?

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Is The Illegalization of Marijuana Valid?

The debate over the legalization of Cannabis sativa, more commonly known

as marijuana, has been one of the most heated controversies ever to occur in the

United States. Its use as a medicine has existed for thousands of years in many

countries world wide and is documented as far back as 2700 BC in ancient Chinese

writings. When someone says ganja, cannabis, bung, dope, grass, rasta, or weed,

they are talking about the same subject: marijuana. Marijuana should be

legalized because the government could earn money from taxes on its sale, its

value to the medical world outweighs its abuse potential, and because of its

importance to the paper and clothing industries. This action should be taken

despite efforts made by groups which say marijuana is a harmful drug which will

increase crime rates and lead users to other more dangerous substances.

The actual story behind the legislature passed against marijuana is

quite surprising. According to Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No

Clothes, the acts bringing about the demise of hemp were part of a large

conspiracy involving DuPont, Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal

Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), and many other influential industrial leaders such as

William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon. Herer notes that the Marijuana Tax

Act, which passed in 1937, coincidentally occurred just as the decoricator

machine was invented. With this invention, hemp would have been able to take

over competing industries almost instantaneously. According to Popular Mechanics,

"10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of

average [forest] pulp land." William Hearst owned enormous timber acreage so his

interest in preventing the growth of hemp can be easily explained. Competition

from hemp would have easily driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing company out of

business and significantly lowered the value of his land. Herer even suggests

popularizing the term "marijuana" was a strategy Hearst used in order to create

fear in the American public. Herer says "The first step in creating hysteria

was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one

had ever heard of before... 'marijuana'".

DuPont's involvement in the anti-hemp campaign can also be explained

with great ease. At this time, DuPont was patenting a new sulfuric acid process

for producing wood-pulp paper. According to the company's own records, wood-pulp

products ultimately accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont's railroad car

loadings for the 50 years the Marijuana Tax Act was passed. It should also be

said that two years before the prohibitive hemp tax in 1937, DuPont developed

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