A Lil something about weedI have been propagated, for food, fibres, and medicine, for at least five thousand years. Neolithic archaeological sites in China include my seeds and plants. The first known mention of Me is in a Chinese medical text of 2737 BC. I was used as medicine throughout Asia and the Middle East to treat a variety of conditions. In India particularly, I was associated with Shiva. In the history of man, i was well known to the Scythians. Germans grew Me for My fibres to make nautical ropes and material for clothes since ancient times. Large fields of Me along the banks of the Rhine are featured in 19th century copper etchings. I have to be soaked to harvest the fibre. The resulting liquid may be drunk; in modern Germany, some bars serve beer and wine made from Me, but the kind of Me used is required by law to contain very minimal levels of THC. I was used medicinally in the western world (usually as a tincture) around the middle of the 19th century. I was famously used to treat Queen Victoria's menstrual pains, and Iwas available from shops in the US. By the end of the 19th century My medicinal use began to fall as other drugs such as aspirin took over (bastard). Until 1937, consumption and sale of Me was legal in most American states. In some areas I could be openly purchased in bulk from grocers or in cigarette form at newstands, though an increasing number of them had begun to outlaw Me. In that year, federal law made possession or transfer of Me illegal without the purchase of a by-then incriminating tax stamp throughout the United States (contrary to the advice of the American Medical Association at the time); legal opinions of time held that the federal government could not outlaw Me entirely. The decision of the U.S. Congress was based in part on testimony derived from articles in the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, who was heavily interested in DuPont Inc. Some analysts theorize DuPont wanted to boost declining post-war textile sales, and wished to eliminate My fiber as competition. Many argue that this seems unlikely given DuPont's lack of concern with the legal status of cotton, wool, and linen; although it should be noted that My textile potential had not yet been largely exploited, while textile factories already had made large investments in equipment to handle cotton, wool, and linen. Others argue that Dupont wanted to eliminate Me because my high natural cellulose content made it a viable alternative to the company's developing innovation: modern plastic. Even more inflammatory and biased were the accusations by that period's US 'drug czar' Henry (Harry) Anslinger. Anslinger charged that I provoked murderous rampages in previously solid citizens. Anslinger testified that I "makes darkies feel equal to white men," a complaint typical of much of the anti-drug rhetoric of the time, which for example emphasised opium's role in promoting Anglo-Chinese miscegenation. He told the married men in the audience: "Gentlemen, it will make your wives want to have sex with a Black man!" Anslinger also popularized the word marihuana for the Me, using a Mexican derived word (believed to be derived from a Brazilian Portuguese term for inebriation) in order to associate the Me with increasing numbers of Mexican immigrants, creating a negative stereotype which persists to this day. The 1937 federal marijuana tax act was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1969. In a case brought by Timothy Leary, the Court held that the law's requirement that a possessor of Me present the substance before receiving the stamp, thereby placing the possessor in violation of the law against unlicensed possession, violated the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act made possession of Me illegal again, without the constitutional issues that scuttled the 1937 act. I have a prominent role in the Rastafarian religion. Although I have been used recreationally throughout its history, I first became well known in the United States during the jazz scene of the late 1920s and 30s. Louis Armstrong became one of My most prominent and life-long devotees. My use was also a prominent part of 1960s counterculture. I am currently the most widely used illegal drug in the world. First of all, it's important to realize that there is no legitimate reason why I am illegal. Both in the establishment of penalties for marijuana and the continuance of them, there has never been a single true compelling government interest for making Me illegal. Most of the history of marijuana's criminalization has been based on lies For most of human history, I have been completely legal. It's not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. I has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it's been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and I was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy. I , of course, have an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently made of me, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600's, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900's. America's first law about Me was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing Me during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, I was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with Me -- try that today!) I was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
