Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: Sol Lightman <verdant@student.umass.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.hemp,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: alt.hemp CANNABIS/MARIJUANA FAQ
Supersedes: <drugs/hemp-marijuana_818782085@rtfm.mit.edu>
Followup-To: poster
Date: 11 Jan 1996 23:01:01 GMT
Organization: University_of_Massachusetts_at_Amherst_Cannabis_Reform_Coalition
Lines: 2868
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
Expires: 24 Feb 1996 22:59:08 GMT
Message-ID: <drugs/hemp-marijuana_821401148@rtfm.mit.edu>
Reply-To: verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu
Summary: This FAQ contains answers to frequently asked questions about marijuana and industrial hemp legalization.
Keywords: hemp,marijuana,cannabis,law,legalization,environment
X-Last-Updated: 1994/06/01
Originator: faqserv@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.hemp:29356 alt.answers:14848 news.answers:62016

Archive-name: drugs/hemp-marijuana
Version: 1.0



   -------------------------------------------------------
  Welcome to Frequently Asked Questions about Cannabis Hemp
   -------------------------------------------------------


This document contains straight answers to tough questions
about hemp and marijuana.  Every effort has been made to
ensure their accuracy, and sources, if not provided, are
available by request.  BE WARNED -- this text has changed
minds.  The author and contributers do not take
responsibility for any change in outlook, new ideas, or
re-evaluation of one's relationship with current political
parties which may result from allowing photons to travel
into your eyeballs, even when said photons originate from a
cathode ray tube, backlit LCD screen, microfiche reader or
illuminated sheet of paper on which this document is being
displayed.  Unless of course you feel like showering us 
with fan mail and candy-grams.  In that case we'll take the
blame.





       Copyright (c)  1 9 9 4   by Brian S. Julin



               --------------------------

The following persons have contributed to this document at
some point in it's evolution: Laura Kriho
<cohip@darkstar.cygnus.com> (original list of questions),
Marc Anderson (fact finding), Paul L. Allen (LaTeX
formatting) ,plus some others who haven't said they want
their name put in.

This material is maintained and written by Brian S. Julin,
with help from several other individuals.  It is copyrighted
material.  The copyright is only there to prevent anyone
from editing or selling this material.  Feel free to
redistribute the material in any form as long as it is
unaltered in content, and no credit or money is taken for
the contents themselves.  Comments, questions, contributions
or ideas should be mailed to verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu or
c/o Brian S. Julin at UMACRC, S.A.O.  Mailbox #2, Student
Union Building, UMASS, 01003

More information on the document is at the end -- wouldn't
want to bore you...   So without further ado:


                   ----------------------
                   C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S
                   ----------------------

Part1: What's all this fuss about hemp?

1a)  What is hemp?
1b)  What is cannabis?
1c)  Where did the word `marijuana' come from?
2a)  How can hemp be used as a food?
2b)  What are the benefits of hemp compared to other food crops?
2c)  How about soy?  
      Is hemp competitive as a world source of protein?
3a)  How can hemp be used for cloth?
3b)  Why is it better than cotton?
4a)  How can hemp be used to make paper?
4b)  Why can't we just keep using trees?
5a)  How can hemp be used as a fuel?
5b)  Why is it better than petroleum?
6a)  How can hemp be used as a medicine?
6b)  What's wrong with all the prescription drugs we have?
7)   What other uses for hemp are there?

Part 2: So why aren't we using hemp, then?

1)   How and why was hemp made illegal?
2)   OK, so what the heck does all this other stuff have to do 
      with hemp?
3)   Now wait, just hold on.  You expect me to believe that
      they wouldn't have thought to pass a better law, one that
      banned marijuana and allowed commercial hemp, instead of
      throwing the baby out with the bath water?
4)   Is there a lesson to be learned from all this?

Part 3: Does it?  Doesn't it?  Is it true that?

1)   Doesn't marijuana stay in your fat cells and keep you
      high for months?
2)   But ... isn't today's marijuana much more potent than it
      was in the Sixties?  
      (Or, more often ... Marijuana is 10 times more powerful than 
      it was in the Sixties!)
3a)  Doesn't Marijuana cause brain damage?
3b)  If it doesn't kill brain cells, how does it get you `high'?
4)   Don't people die from smoking pot?
5)   I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory impairment?
6a)  Is marijuana going to make my boyfriend go psycho?
6b)  Don't users of marijuana withdraw from society?
7)   Is it true that marijuana makes you lazy and unmotivated?
8)   Isn't marijuana a gateway drug?  
      Doesn't it lead to use of harder drugs?
9a)  I don't want children (minors) to be able to smoke marijuana.  
      How can I stop this?
9b)  Won't children be able to steal marijuana plants that
      people are growing?
10a) Hey, don't you know that marijuana drops testosterone
      levels in teenage boys causing [various physical and
      developmental problems]?
10b) Doesn't heavy marijuana use lower the sperm count in males?
10c) I heard marijuana use by teenage girls may impair hormone
      production, menstrual cycles, and fertility.  Is this true?
11)  Go away.
12)  Isn't smoking marijuana worse for you than smoking cigarettes?
13)  Don't children born to pot-smoking mothers suffer from
      ``Fetal Marijuana Syndrome?''
14)  Doesn't marijuana cause a lot of automobile accidents?
15)  Aren't you afraid everyone will get hooked?
16a) Is urine testing for marijuana use as a terms of
      employment a good idea?  
      I want to make sure my business is run safely.
16b) Isn't all this worth the trouble, though, in order to
      reduce accident risks and health care costs?
17)  Wouldn't it be best to just lock the users all up?
18)  I heard that there are over 400 chemicals in marijuana...
      Wellllll...? 
19)  Doesn't that stuff mess up your immune system and make
      it easier for you catch colds?

Part 4:  Why is it still illegal?

1)   Why is it STILL illegal?:
2)   What can I do to bring some sense into our marijuana laws?
3a)  Where can I get more information?
3b)  Umm, I'm computer illiterate, so that just went way over
      my head.  Are there any good books I could go get instead?
4)   Do you have any advice for people who want to organize
      their own group?

Part 5:  Sources by question number

Part 6:  About the alt.hemp FAQ.

 
                 ----------------------
                 P  A  R  T     O  N  E
                 ----------------------

            WHAT'S ALL THIS FUSS ABOUT HEMP?  


1a) What is hemp?
 
    For our purposes, hemp is the plant called `cannabis
    sativa.'  There are other plants that are called hemp, but
    cannabis hemp is the most useful of these plants.  In fact,
    `cannabis sativa' means `useful (sativa) hemp (cannabis)'.
    
    `Hemp' is any durable plant that has been used since
    pre-history for many purposes.  Fiber is the most well known
    product, and the word `hemp' can mean the rope or twine
    which is made from the hemp plant, as well as just the stalk
    of the plant which produced it.




1b) What is cannabis?

    Cannabis is the most durable of the hemp plants, and it
    produces the toughest cloth, called `canvass.'  (Canvass was
    widely used as sails in the early shipping industry, as it
    was the only cloth which would not rot on contact with sea
    spray.)  The cannabis plant also produces three other very
    important products which the other hemp plants do not (in
    usable form, that is): seed, pulp, and medicine.
    
    The pulp is used as fuel, and to make paper.  The seed is
    suitable for both human and animal foods.  The oil from the
    seed can be used in as a base for paints and varnishes.  The
    medicine is a tincture or admixture of the sticky resin in
    the blossoms and leaves of the hemp plant, and is used for a
    variety of purposes.




1c) Where did the word `marijuana' come from?
 
    The word `marijuana' is a Mexican slang term which became
    popular in the late 1930's in America, during a series of
    media and government programs which we now refer to as the
    `Reefer Madness Movement.'  It refers specifically to the
    medicine part of cannabis, which Mexican soldiers used to
    smoke.

    Today in the U.S., hemp (meaning the roots, stalk, and stems
    of the cannabis plant) is legal to possess.  No one can
    arrest you for wearing a hemp shirt, or using hemp paper.
    Marijuana (The flowers, buds, or leaves of the cannabis
    plant) is not legal to possess, and there are stiff fines
    and possible jail terms for having any marijuana in your
    possession.  The seeds are legal to possess and eat, but
    only if they are sterilized (will not grow to maturity.)
    
    Since it is not possible to grow the hemp plant without
    being in possession of marijuana, the United States does not
    produce any industrial hemp products, and must import them
    or, more often, substitute others.  (There is a way to grow
    hemp legally, but it involves filing an application with the
    Drug Enforcement Administration and the DEA very rarely ever
    gives its permission.)  This does not seem to have stopped
    people from producing and using marijuana, though.  In many
    of the United States, marijuana is the number one cash crop,
    mostly because it fetches a very high price on the black
    market.




2a) How can hemp be used as a food?

    Hemp seed is a highly nutritious source of protein and
    essential fatty oils.  Many populations have grown hemp for
    its seed -- most of them eat it as `gruel' which is a lot
    like oatmeal.  The leaves can be used as roughage, but not
    without slight psycho-active side-effects.  Hemp seeds do
    not contain any marijuana and they do not get you `high.'

    Hemp seed protein closely resembles protein as it is found
    in the human blood.  It is fantastically easy to digest, and
    many patients who have trouble digesting food are given hemp
    seed by their doctors.  Hemp seed was once called `edestine'
    and was used by scientists as the model for vegetable
    protein.

    Hemp seed oil provides the human body with essential fatty
    acids.  Hemp seed is the only seed which contains these oils
    with almost no saturated fat.  As a supplement to the diet,
    these oils can reduce the risk of heart disease.  It is
    because of these oils that birds will live much longer if
    they eat hemp seed.

    With hemp seed, a vegan or vegetarian can survive and eat
    virtually no saturated fats.  One handful of hemp seed per
    day will supply adequate protein and essential oils for an
    adult.




2b) What are the benefits of hemp compared to other food crops?
 
    Hemp requires little fertilizer, and grows well almost
    everywhere.  It also resists pests, so it uses little
    pesticides.  Hemp puts down deep roots, which is good for
    the soil, and when the leaves drop off the hemp plant,
    minerals and nitrogen are returned to the soil.  Hemp has
    been grown on the same soil for twenty years in a row
    without any noticeable depletion of the soil.

    Using less fertilizer and agricultural chemicals is good for
    two reasons.  First, it costs less and requires less effort.
    Second, many agricultural chemicals are dangerous and
    contaminate the environment -- the less we have to use, the
    better.




2c) How about soy?  
    Is hemp competitive as a world source of protein?

    Hemp does not produce quite as much protein as soy, but
    hemp seed protein is of a higher quality than soy.
    Agricultural considerations may make hemp the food crop of
    the future.  In addition to the fact that hemp is an easy
    crop to grow, it also resists UV-B light, which is a kind of
    sunlight blocked by the ozone layer.  Soy beans do not take
    UV-B light very well.  If the ozone layer were to deplete by
    16%, which by some estimates is very possible, soy
    production would fall by 25-30%.
    
    We may have to grow hemp or starve -- and it won't be the
    first time that this has happened.  Hemp has been used to
    `bail out' many populations in time of famine.
    Unfortunately, because of various political factors,
    starving people in today's underdeveloped countries are not
    taking advantage of this crop.  In some places, this is
    because government officials would call it `marijuana' and
    pull up the crop.  In other countries, it is because the
    farmers are busy growing coca and poppies to produce cocaine
    and heroin for the local Drug Lord.  This is truly a sad
    state of affairs.  Hopefully someday the Peace Corps will be
    able to teach modern hemp seed farming techniques and end
    the world's protein shortage.





3a) How can hemp be used for cloth?
     
    The stalk of the hemp plant has two parts, called the
    bast and the hurd.  The fiber (bast) of the hemp plant can
    be woven into almost any kind of cloth.  It is very durable.
    In fact, the first Levi's blue jeans were made out of hemp
    for just this reason.  Compared to all the other natural
    fibers available, hemp is more suitable for a large number
    of applications.
    
    Here is how hemp is harvested for fiber: A field of closely
    spaced hemp is allowed to grow until the leaves fall off.
    The hemp is then cut down and it lies in the field for some
    time washed by the rain.  It is turned over once to expose
    both sides of the stalk evenly.  During this time, the hurd
    softens up and many minerals are returned to the soil.  This
    is called `retting,' and after this step is complete, the
    stalks are brought to a machine which separates the bast and
    the hurd.  We are lucky to have machines today -- men used
    to do this last part by hand with hours of back-breaking
    labor.





3b) Why is it better than cotton?

    The cloth that hemp makes may be a little less soft than
    cotton, (though there are also special kinds of hemp, or
    ways to grow or treat hemp, that can produce a soft cloth)
    but it is much stronger and longer lasting. (It does not
    stretch out.)  Environmentally, hemp is a better crop to
    grow than cotton, especially the way cotton is grown
    nowadays.  In the United States, the cotton crop uses half
    of the total pesticides.  (Yes, you heard right, one half of
    the pesticides used in the entire U.S. are used on cotton.)
    Cotton is a soil damaging crop and needs a lot of
    fertilizer.




4a) How can hemp be used to make paper?
 
    Both the fiber (bast) and pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant
    can be used to make paper.  Fiber paper was the first kind
    of paper, and the first batch was made out of hemp in
    ancient China.  Fiber paper is thin, tough, brittle, and a
    bit rough.  Pulp paper is not as strong as fiber paper, but
    it is easier to make, softer, thicker, and preferable for
    most everyday purposes.  The paper we use most today is a
    `chemical pulp' paper made from trees.  Hemp pulp paper can
    be made without chemicals from the hemp hurd.  Most hemp
    paper made today uses the entire hemp stalk, bast and hurd.
    High-strength fiber paper can be made from the hemp baste,
    also without chemicals.
    
    The problem with today's paper is that so many chemicals are
    used to make it.  High strength acids are needed to make
    quality (smooth, strong, and white) paper out of trees.
    These acids produce chemicals which are very dangerous to
    the environment.  Paper companies do their best to clean
    these chemicals up (we hope.)  Hemp offers us an opportunity
    to make affordable and environmentally safe paper for all of
    our needs, since it does not need much chemical treatment.
    It is up to consumers, though, to make the right choice --
    these dangerous chemicals can also be used on hemp to make a
    slightly more attractive product.  Instead of buying the
    whiter, brighter role of toilet paper, we will need to think
    about what we are doing to the planet.
    
    Because of the chemicals in today's paper, it will turn
    yellow and fall apart as acids eat away at the pulp.  This
    takes several decades, but because of this publishers,
    libraries and archives have to order specially processed
    acid free paper, which is much more expensive, in order to
    keep records.  Paper made naturally from hemp is acid free
    and will last for centuries.




4b) Why can't we just keep using trees?

    The chemicals used to make wood chemical pulp paper today
    could cause us a lot of trouble tomorrow.  Environmentalists
    have long been concerned about the effects of dioxin and
    other compounds on wildlife and even people.  Beyond the
    chemical pollution, there are agricultural reasons why we
    should use cannabis hemp instead.  When trees are harvested,
    minerals are taken with them.  Hemp is much less damaging to
    the land where it is grown because it leaves these minerals
    behind.
    
    A simpler answer to the above question is:

    Because we are running out!  It was once said that a
    squirrel could climb from New England to the banks of the
    Mississippi River without touching the ground once.  The
    European settler's appetite for firewood and farmland put an
    end to this.  When the first wood paper became a huge
    industry, the United States Department of Agriculture began
    to worry about the `tree supply.'  That is why they went in
    search of plant pulp to replace wood.  Today some
    `conservatives' argue that there are more forests now than
    there ever were.  This is neither true, realistic nor
    conservative: these statistics do not reflect the real
    world.  Once trees have been removed from a plot of land, it
    takes many decades before biological diversity and natural
    cycles return to the forest, and commercial tree farms
    simply do not count as forest -- they are farm land.

    As just mentioned, many plant fibers were investigated by
    the USDA -- some, like kenaf, were even better suited than
    cannabis hemp for making some qualities of paper, but hemp
    had one huge advantage: robust vitality.  Hemp generates
    immense amounts of plant matter in a three month growing
    season.  When it came down to producing the deluge of paper
    used by Americans, only hemp could compete with trees.  In
    fact, according to the 1916 calculations of the USDA, one
    acre of hemp would replace an entire four acres of forest.
    And, at the same time, this acre would be producing textiles
    and rope.
    
    Today, only 4% of America's old-growth forest remains
    standing -- and there is talk about building roads into that
    for logging purposes!  Will our policy makers realize in
    time how easy it would be to save them?
    



5a) How can hemp be used as a fuel?
 
    The pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be burned as is or
    processed into charcoal, methanol, methane, or gasoline.
    The process for doing this is called destructive
    distillation, or `pyrolysis.'  Fuels made out of plants like
    this are called `biomass' fuels.  This charcoal may be
    burned in today's coal-powered electric generators.
    Methanol makes a good automobile fuel, in fact it is used in
    professional automobile races.  It may someday replace
    gasoline.
    
    Hemp may also be used to produce ethanol (grain alcohol.)
    The United States government has developed a way to make
    this automobile fuel additive from cellulosic biomass.  Hemp
    is an excellent source of high quality cellulosic biomass.
    One other way to use hemp as fuel is to use the oil from the
    hemp seed -- some diesel engines can run on pure pressed
    hemp seed oil.  However, the oil is more useful for other
    purposes, even if we could produce and press enough hemp
    seed to power many millions of cars.




5b) Why is it better than petroleum?

    Biomass fuels are clean and virtually free from metals
    and sulfur, so they do not cause nearly as much air
    pollution as fossil fuels.  Even more importantly, burning
    biomass fuels does not increase the total amount of carbon
    dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.  When petroleum products
    are burned, carbon that has been stored underground for
    millions of years is added to the air; this may contribute
    to global warming through the `Greenhouse Effect', (a
    popular theory which says that certain gases will act like a
    wool blanket over the entire Earth, preventing heat from
    escaping into space.)  In order to make biomass fuels, this
    carbon dioxide has to be taken out of the air to begin with
    -- when they are burned it is just being put back where it
    started.

    Another advantage over fossil fuels is that biomass fuels
    can be made right here in the United States, instead of
    buying them from other countries.  Instead of paying oil
    drillers, super-tanker captains, and soldiers to get our
    fuel to us, we could pay local farmers and delivery drivers
    instead.  Of course, it is possible to chop down trees and
    use them as biomass.  This would not be as beneficial to the
    environment as using hemp, especially since trees that are
    cut down for burning are `whole tree harvested.'  This means
    the entire tree is ripped up and burned, not just the wood.
    Since most of the minerals which trees use are in the
    leaves, this practice could ruin the soil where the trees
    are grown.  In several places in the United States, power
    companies are starting to do this -- burning the trees in
    order to produce electricity, because that is cheaper than
    using coal.  They should be using hemp, like researchers in
    Australia started doing a few years ago.  (Besides, hemp
    provides a higher quality and quantity of biomass than trees
    do.)





6a) How can hemp be used as a medicine?
 
    Marijuana has thousands of possible uses in medicine.
    Marijuana (actually cannabis extract) was available as a
    medicine legally in this country until 1937, and was sold as
    a nerve tonic -- but mankind has been using cannabis
    medicines much longer than that.  Marijuana appears in
    almost every known book of medicine written by ancient
    scholars and wise men.  It is usually ranked among the top
    medicines, called `panaceas', a word which means `cure-all'.
    The list of diseases which cannabis can be used for
    includes: multiple sclerosis, cancer treatment, AIDS (and
    AIDS treatment), glaucoma, depression, epilepsy, migraine
    headaches, asthma, pruritis, sclerodoma, severe pain, and
    dystonia.  This list does not even consider the other
    medicines which can be made out of marijuana -- these are
    just some of the illnesses for which people smoke or eat
    whole marijuana today.

    There are over 60 chemicals in marijuana which may have
    medical uses.  It is relatively easy to extract these into
    food or beverage, or into some sort of lotion, using butter,
    fat, oil, or alcohol.  One chemical, cannabinol, may be
    useful to help people who cannot sleep.  Another is taken
    from premature buds and is called cannabidiolic acid.  It is
    a powerful disinfectant.  Marijuana dissolved in rubbing
    alcohol helps people with the skin disease herpes control
    their sores, and a salve like this was one of the earliest
    medical uses for cannabis.  The leaves were once used in
    bandages and a relaxing non-psychoactive herbal tea can be
    made from small cannabis stems.
    
    The most well known use of marijuana today is to control
    nausea and vomiting.  One of the most important things when
    treating cancer with chemotherapy or when treating AIDS with
    AZT or Foscavir, being able to eat well, makes the
    difference between life or death.  Patients have found
    marijuana to be extremely effective in fighting nausea; in
    fact so many patients use it for this purpose even though it
    is illegal that they have formed `buyers clubs' to help them
    find a steady supply.  In California, some city governments
    have decided to look the other way and allow these clubs to
    operate openly.
    
    Marijuana is also useful for fighting two other very serious
    and wide-spread disabilities.  Glaucoma is the second
    leading cause of blindness, caused by uncontrollable eye
    pressure.  Marijuana can control the eye pressure and keep
    glaucoma from causing blindness.  Multiple Sclerosis is a
    disease where the body's immune system attacks nerve cells.
    Spasms and many other problems result from this.  Marijuana
    not only helps stop these spasms, but it may also keep
    multiple sclerosis from getting worse.





6b) What's wrong with all the prescription drugs we have?

    They cost money and are hard to make.  In many cases,
    they do not work as well, either.  Some prescription drugs
    which marijuana can replace have very bad, even downright
    dangerous, side-effects.  Cannabis medicines are cheap,
    safe, and easy to make.

    Many people think that the drug dronabinol should be used
    instead of marijuana.  Dronabinol is an exact imitation of
    one of the chemicals found in marijuana, and it may actually
    work on a lot of the above diseases, but there are some big
    problems with dronabinol, and most patients who have used
    both dronabinol and marijuana say that marijuana works
    better.

    The first problem with Dronabinol is that it is even harder
    to get than marijuana.  Many doctors do not like to
    prescribe dronabinol, and many drug stores do not want to
    supply it, because a lot of paperwork has to be filed with
    the Drug Enforcement Administration.  Secondly, dronabinol
    comes in pills which are virtually useless to anyone who is
    throwing up, and it is hard to take just the right amount of
    dronabinol since it cannot be smoked.  Finally, because
    dronabinol is only one of the many chemicals in cannabis, it
    just does not work for some diseases.  Many patients do not
    like the effects of dronabinol because it does not contain
    some of the more calming chemicals which are present in
    marijuana.




7) What other uses for hemp are there?

    One of the newest uses of hemp is in construction
    materials.  Hemp can be used in the manufacture of `press
    board' or `composite board.'  This involves gluing fibrous
    hemp stalks together under pressure to produce a board which
    is many times more elastic and durable than hardwood.
    Because hemp produces a long, tough fiber it is the perfect
    source for press-board.  Another interesting application of
    hemp in industry is making plastic.  Many plastics can be
    made from the high-cellulose hemp hurd.  Hemp seed oil has a
    multitude of uses in products such as varnishes and
    lubricants.
    
    Using hemp to build is by no means a new idea.  French
    archeologists have discovered bridges built with a process
    that mineralizes hemp stalks into a long-lasting cement.
    The process involves no synthetic chemicals and produces a
    material which works as a filler in building construction.
    Called Isochanvre, it is gaining popularity in France.
    Isochanvre can be used as drywall, insulates against heat
    and noise, and is very long lasting.
    
    `Bio-plastics' are not a new idea, either -- way back in the
    1930's Henry Ford had already made a whole car body out of
    them -- but the processes for making them do need more
    research and development.  Bio-plastics can be made without
    much pollution.  Unfortunately, companies are not likely to
    explore bio-plastics if they have to either import the raw
    materials or break the law.  (Not to mention compete with
    the already established petrochemical products.)



                    -----------------------
                    P  A  R  T      T  W  O
                    -----------------------




              WELL WHY AREN'T WE USING HEMP, THEN?  


1) How and why was hemp made illegal?

    Tough question!  In order to explain why hemp, the most
    useful plant known to mankind, became illegal, we have to
    understand the reasons why marijuana, the drug, became
    illegal.  In fact, it helps to go way back to the beginning
    of the century and talk about two other drugs, opium (the
    grandfather of heroin) and cocaine.
    
    Opium, a very addictive drug (but relatively harmless by
    today's standards) was once widely used by the Chinese.  The
    reasons for this are a whole other story, but suffice to say
    that when Chinese started to immigrate to the United States,
    they brought opium with them.  Chinese workers used opium to
    induce a trance-like state which helped make boring,
    repetitive tasks more interesting.  It also numbs the mind
    to pain and exhaustion.  By using opium, the Chinese were
    able to pull very long hours in the sweat shops of the
    Industrial Revolution.  During this period of time, there
    was no such thing as fair wages, and the only way a worker
    could make a living was to produce as much as humanly
    possible.
    
    Since they were such good workers, the Chinese held a lot of
    jobs in the highly competitive industrial work-place.  Even
    before the Great Depression, when millions of jobs
    disappeared overnight, the White Americans began to resent
    this, and Chinese became hated among the White working
    class.  Even more than today, White Americans had a very big
    political advantage over the Chinese -- they spoke English
    and had a few relatives in the government, so it was easy
    for them to come up with a plan to force Chinese immigrants
    to leave the country (or at least keep them from inviting
    all their relatives to come and live in America.)  This plan
    depended on stirring up racist feelings, and one of the
    easiest things to focus these feelings on was the foreign
    and mysterious practice of using opium.
    
    We can see this pattern again with cocaine, except with
    cocaine it was Black Americans who were the target.  Cocaine
    probably was not especially useful in the work-place, but
    the strategy against Chinese immigrants (picking on their
    drug of choice) had been so successful that it was used
    again.  In the case of Blacks, though, the racist feelings
    ran deeper, and the main thrust of the propaganda campaign
    was to control the Black community and keep Blacks from
    becoming successful.  Articles appeared in newspapers which
    blamed cocaine for violent crime by Blacks.  Black Americans
    were painted as savage, uncontrollable beasts when under the
    influence of cocaine -- it was said to make a single Black
    man as strong as four or five police officers.  (sound
    familiar?)  By capitalizing on racist sentiments, a powerful
    political lobby banned opium and then cocaine.
    
    Marijuana was next.  It was well known that the Mexican
    soldiers who fought America during the war with Spain smoked
    marijuana.  Poncho Villa, A Mexican general, was considered
    a nemesis for the behavior of his troops, who were known to
    be especially rowdy.  They were also known to be heavy
    marijuana smokers, as the original lyrics to the song `la
    cucaracha' show.  (The song was originally about a Mexican
    soldier who refused to march until he was provided with some
    marijuana.)
    
    After the war had ended and Mexicans had begun to immigrate
    into the South Eastern United States, there were relatively
    few race problems.  There were plenty of jobs in agriculture
    and industry and Mexicans were willing to work cheap.  Once
    the depression hit and jobs became scarce, however, Mexicans
    suddenly became a public nuisance.  It was said by
    politicians (who were trying to please the White working
    class) that Mexicans were responsible for a violent crime
    wave.  Police statistics showed nothing of the sort -- in
    fact Mexicans were involved in less crime than Whites.
    Marijuana, of course, got the blame for this phony outbreak
    of crime and health problems, and so many of these states
    made laws against using cannabis.  (In the Northern states,
    marijuana was also associated with Black jazz musicians.)
    
    Here is where things start to get complicated.  Put aside,
    for a moment, all the above, because there are a few other
    things involved in this twisted tale.  At the beginning of
    the Great Depression, there was a very popular movement
    called Prohibition, which made alcohol illegal.  This was
    motivated mainly by a Puritan religious ethic left over from
    the first European settlers.  Today we have movies and
    television shows such as the ``Untouchables'' which tell us
    what it was like to live during this period.  Since it is
    perhaps the world's most popular drug, alcohol prohibition
    spawned a huge `black market' where illegal alcohol was
    smuggled and traded at extremely high prices.  Crime got
    out-of-hand as criminals fought with each other over who
    could sell alcohol where.  Organized crime became an
    American institution, and hard liquor, which was easy to
    smuggle, took the place of beer and wine.
    
    In order to combat the crime wave, a large police force was
    formed.  The number of police grew rapidly until the end of
    Prohibition when the government decided that the best way to
    deal with the situation was to just give up and allow people
    to use alcohol legally.  Under Prohibition the American
    government had essentially (and unwittingly) provided the
    military back-up for the take-over of the alcohol business
    by armed thugs.  Even today, the Mob still controls liquor
    sales in many areas.  After Prohibition the United States
    was left with nothing to show but a decade of political
    turmoil -- and a lot of unemployed police officers.
    
    During Prohibition, being a police officer was a very nice
    thing -- you got a relatively decent salary, respect,
    partial immunity to the law, and the opportunity to take
    bribes (if you were that sort of person.)  Many of these
    officers were not about to let this life-style slip away.
    Incidentally, it was about this time when the Federal Bureau
    of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was reformed, and a man
    named Harry J. Anslinger was appointed as its head.
    (Anslinger was appointed by his uncle-in-law, Andrew Mellon,
    who was the Secretary of the United States Treasury.)
    Anslinger campaigned tirelessly for funding in order to hire
    a large force of narcotics officers.  After retiring,
    Anslinger once mused that the FBNDD was a place where young
    men were given a license to steal and rape.
    
    The FBNDD is the organization which preceded what we now
    call the DEA, and was responsible for enforcing the new
    Federal drug laws against heroin, opium, and cocaine.  One
    of Anslinger's biggest concerns as head of the FBNDD was
    getting uniform drug laws passed in all States and the
    Federal legislature.  (Anslinger also had a personal dislike
    of jazz music and the Black musicians who made it.  He hated
    them so much that he spent years tracking each of them and
    dreamed of arresting them all in one huge, cross-country
    sweep.)  Anslinger frequented parent's and teacher's
    meetings giving scary speeches about the dangers of
    marijuana, and this period of time became known as Reefer
    Madness.  (The name comes from the title of a silly movie
    produced by a public health group.)





2) OK, so what the heck does all this other stuff have to do 
   with hemp?

    To make a long story short, during the first decades of this 
    century, opium was made illegal to kick out the Chinese 
    immigrants who had flooded the work-force.  Cocaine was made 
    illegal to repress and control the Black community.  
    And, marijuana was made illegal in order to control Mexicans 
    in the Southeast (and Blacks.)  All these laws were based 
    mainly on emotional racism, without much else to back them 
    up -- you can easily tell this by reading the hearings held 
    in state legislatures.  Also at this time, the end of 
    Prohibition left us with a large force of unemployed police 
    officers, who looked for work enforcing the new drug laws.
    Consequently, these same police officers needed to convince
    the country that their jobs were important.  They did so by
    scaring parents about the dangers of drugs.  All this set
    the stage for a law passed in the Federal legislature which
    put a prohibitive tax on marijuana.  This is what killed the
    hemp industry in 1937, since it made business in hemp
    impossible.
    
    Before the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, the state of Kentucky was
    the center of a relatively large American hemp industry
    which produced cloth and tow (rope for use in shipping.)
    The industry would have been larger, but hemp had one major
    disadvantage: processing it required a lot of work.  Men had
    to `brake' hemp stalks in order to separate the fiber from
    the woody core.  This was done on a small machine called a
    hand-brake, and it was a job fit for Hercules.  It was not
    until the 1930's that machines to do this became widely
    available.
    
    Today we use paper made by a process called `chemical
    pulping'.  Before this, trees were processed by `mechanical
    pulping' instead, which was much more expensive.  At about
    the same time as machines to brake hemp appeared, the idea