Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire US Marijuana laws

We have seen that the government doesn't need money to grow. They grow to get money. This is a dead point. The government doesn't need to make a profit.

As far as confiscation in public places, I thnink that sounds like a very reasonable way to limit use. Kind of like driving drunk.

Back before MJ was criminalized society treated it as a drug of the lower class as it was used primalrily by those who couldn't afford to buy alcohol.

You don't suppose the alcohol industry could have had anything to do with making it illegal, do you?

I had no idea!
Interesting.

for the on the fence for medical use......here are some toxicity ratings.....

alcohol: the difference from effective dose to lethal dose is 1:10......in other words 10 times the dose you feel the effects at can kill you....with some variations, with a full blown alcoholic that rate is likely higher....

Heroin: 1:8......morphine is similar but under controled conditions its perfectly fine for medicinal use, some western countries do use heroin as a medical pain killer....

pot: 1:1200......similar to aspirin, unless someone pushes it into your system after you pass out it is impossible to get enough in you to be toxic.....

to further this line of thought, at over 4,000 milligrams of Tylenol in 24 hours can kill the average persons(160 pounds) liver, 4,000mg is only 8 vicodin pills......now you see why Brian and i donate alot of blood to keep an eye on our liver function levels when on these meds for chronic pain....NSAID's like the chronic use of Advil or Aleve to help with pain can cause kidney failure as well as cause cardiac problems.....


side effects: the short term memory problem......what most dont tell yah is the opiates the doctors give yah can do the same thing and alot of sleeping aids have the potential to be way worse.....in my lil 6 month adventure with them on one i went 6 weeks with my brain incapable of converting short term memory to long term, was basically running on auto pilot cause nothing told to me, that i read or that i saw lasted more than 15 minutes.....lots of heated arguments with my wife in that time period with her saying i promised to do chit and i was positive i hadnt.....she proceeded to call witnesses and i decided "oh chit, i need to get to the doc now" turns out its a common side effect of the drug....

there have been a study in rats that show that prolonged use of pot can cause the same thing but no one thats tried has been able to duplicate the experiment which leads me to believe it was either an anomaly or they cooked the books....anomalies happen.....whole lot of potential huge break throughs in various sciences were done once never to be duplicated again....frustrating as hell to the guy that run the original experiment.....

other side effect, if you smoke it there is the potential for all the same health problems associated with smoking tobacco but this is easily avoided through other ways of use and alot of medicinal users take these routes which completely gets around the problem....

the intoxication: it is there but for some ailments the amount needed to get relief is actually less than what it takes to get stoned.....and given that individuals like Brian and I are on doc prescribed opiates we get intoxicated anyway.....which comes down to so long as we aint cruising around town on the meds there is no issue.....i frustrate the hell out of my wife regularly cause i flat refuse to drive when i take my pain pills....i view DUI's as driving impaired, personally it doesnt matter to me whether the intoxicant is alcohol, pain pills or pot, the penalties should be the same.....

Legal history of cannabis in the United States (1/2)
The 44-gun frigate, USS Constitution or 'Old Ironsides', took over 60 tons of hemp for rigging, including an anchor cable 25 inches in circumference. The Conestoga wagons and prairie schooners of pioneer days were covered with hemp canvas. Indeed the very word 'canvas' comes from the Arabic word for hemp. Prohibitions of cannabis sativa as a drug arose in many states from 1906 and onward. By the mid-1930s, cannabis, or marijuana, as a drug was regulated in every state by laws instituted through the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act. [1]

In the 1970s, many places in the United States started to decriminalize cannabis. Most places that have decriminalized cannabis have one or more of civil fines, drug education, drug treatment in place of incarceration, criminal charges for possession of small amounts of cannabis, or have made various cannabis offenses the lowest priority for law enforcement. In the 1990s many places began to legalize medical cannabis, which conflicts with federal laws, as cannabis is a Schedule I drug according to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which classified cannabis as having high potential for abuse, no medical use, and not safe to use under medical supervision. Multiple efforts to reschedule cannabis have failed and the United States Supreme Court has ruled in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop and Gonzales v. Raich that the federal government has a right to regulate and criminalize cannabis, even for medical purposes.


1. Criminalization (1900s)
The first significant instance of cannabis regulation appeared in District of Columbia in 1906, though this law was not an outright prohibition. [2] Regulations of cannabis followed in Massachusetts (1911), New York (1914) and Maine (1914). Simultaneously the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexicans to America. Later in that decade, negative tensions grew between the small farms and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Shortly after, the depression came which increased tensions, as jobs and resources soon became scarce. Many Mexicans commonly smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them over the border.[citation needed] In 1913 California passed the first state marijuana prohibition law, criminalizing the preparation of hemp and its products, the phrase Indian Hemp is sometimes used or what was referred to as "loco weed." These laws were passed not due to any widespread use or concern about cannabis, but as regulatory initiatives to discourage future use. [3] [4] Other states followed with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927).

1. 1. Indian hemp regulation (1925)
In 1925 United States supported regulation of Indian hemp, also known as hashish, in the International Opium Convention. [5] The convention banned exportation of Indian hemp and the preparations derived therefrom to countries that had prohibited its use, and required importing countries to issue certificates approving the importation and stating that the shipment was required "exclusively for medical or scientific purposes". The convention did not ban trade with fibers and other similar products from European hemp, high growing varieties of hemp from Europe traditionally grown in the United States for production of fibers with low content of THC. The European hemp grown for its fibers missed, according to 1912 edition of a Swedish encyclopedia, almost entirely to the narcotic properties which characterized Indian hemp [6]

1. 2. Uniform State Narcotic Act (1925-1932)
The Uniform State Narcotic Act, first tentative draft in 1925 and fifth final version in 1932, was a result of work by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. It was argued that the traffic in narcotic drugs should have the same safeguards and the same regulation in all of the states. The committee took into consideration the fact that the federal government had already passed The Harrison Act in 1914 and The Federal Import and Export Act in 1922. Many persons assumed that the Harrison Act was all that was necessary. The Harrison Act, however, was a revenue-producing act, and while it provided penalties for violation, it did not give the states themselves authority to exercise police power in regard to seizure of drugs used in illicit trade, or in regard to punishment of those responsible therefor. The act was recommended to the states for that purpose. [7] As a result of the Uniform State Narcotic Act the Federal Bureau of Narcotics encouraged state governments to adopt it. By the middle of 1930s all member states had some regulation of cannabis. [8] [9] [10]

1. 3. Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1930)


The use of cannabis and other drugs came under increasing scrutiny after the formation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) in 1930, [11] headed by Harry J. Anslinger as part of the government's broader push to outlaw all drugs.

"When the present administration took office ten countries had ratified the Geneva Narcotic Limitation Convention. The United States was one of these ten.... It was my privilege, as President, to proclaim, on that day, that this treaty had become effective throughout the jurisdiction of the United States....On Jan. 1, 1933, only nine nations had registered their ratification of the limitation treaty. On Jan. 1, 1935, only nine States had adopted the uniform State statute. As 1933 witnessed ratification of the treaty by thirty-one additional nations, so may 1935 witness the adoption of the uniform drug act by at least thirty-one more states, thereby placing interstate accord abreast of international accord, to the honor of the legislative bodies of our States and for the promotion of the welfare of our people and the peoples of other lands." (Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 1935 in a radio message read by United States Attorney General, Homer Stille Cummings ) [12]
Anslinger claimed cannabis caused people to commit violent crimes, act irrational, and act overly sexual. The FBN produced propaganda films promoting Anslinger's views and Anslinger often commented to the press regarding his views on marijuana cannabis.

1. 4. The 1936 Geneva Trafficking Convention
In 1936, the Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs (1936 Trafficking Convention) was concluded in Geneva. The U.S., led by Anslinger, had attempted to include in the treaty the criminalization of all activities - cultivation, production, manufacture and distribution - related to the use of opium, coca (and its derivatives) and cannabis for non-medical and non-scientific purposes. Many countries opposed this and the focus remained on illicit trafficking. Article 2 of the Convention called upon signatory countries to use their national criminal law systems to "severely" punish, "particularly by imprisonment or other penalties of deprivation of liberty," acts directly related to drug trafficking.

The U.S. refused to sign the final version because it considered the Convention too weak, especially in relation to extradition, extraterritoriality and the confiscation of trafficking profits. [13]

1. 5. Marijuana Tax Act (1937)
Main article: Marihuana Tax Act of 1937



Tax stamp for a producer of cannabis
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 made possession or transfer of cannabis illegal throughout the United States under federal law, excluding medical and industrial uses, in which an expensive excise tax was required. Annual fees for the tax were $24 ($337 adjusted for inflation) for importers, manufacturers, and cultivators of cannabis, $1 annually ($14 adjusted for inflation) for medical and research purposes, and $3 annually ($42 adjusted for inflation) for industrial uses. Detailed cannabis sale logs were required to keep record of cannabis sales. Selling cannabis to any person who has previously paid the tax is $1 per ounce or fraction thereof; however, it is $100 ($1,406 adjusted for inflation) per ounce or fraction thereof to sell any person who has not registered and paid the special tax. [14]

The American Medical Association (AMA) opposed the act because the tax was imposed on physicians prescribing cannabis, retail pharmacists selling cannabis, and medical cannabis cultivation/manufacturing; instead of enacting the Marihuana Tax Act, the AMA proposed cannabis be added to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. [15]

New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who was a strong opponent of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, started the LaGuardia Commission that in 1944 contradicted the earlier reports of addiction, madness, and overt sexuality. [16]

In its 1969 Leary v. United States decision, the Supreme Court held the Marihuana Tax Act to be unconstitutional since it violated the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. [17] In response, Congress repealed the Marihuana Tax Act and passed the Controlled Substances Act as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, which repealed the Marihuana Tax Act. [18]

1. 5. 1. DuPont, William Randolph Hearst, and hemp
The decision of the United States Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was based on hearings [19] reports [20] . In 1936 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) noticed an increase of reports of people smoking marijuana, which further increased in 1937. The Bureau drafted a legislative plan for Congress, seeking a new law and the head of the FBN, Harry J. Anslinger, ran a campaign against marijuana. [21] A part of the testimony derived from articles in newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst[citation needed], who had significant financial interests in the timber industry, which manufactured his newsprint paper. [22]

Cannabis activist Jack Herer has researched DuPont and in his 1985 book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Herer concluded DuPont played a large role in the criminalization of marijuana cannabis. In 1938, DuPont patented the processes for creating plastics from coal and oil and a new process for creating paper from wood pulp. If hemp had been largely exploited, Herer believes it would have likely been used to make paper and plastic (nylon), and may have hurt DuPont's profits. Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank was DuPont's chief financial backer and was also the Secretary of the Treasury under the Hoover administration. Mellon appointed Harry J. Anslinger, who later became his nephew-in-law, as the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD) and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), where Anslinger stayed until 1962. [23]

In 1916, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewey created paper made from hemp pulp, which they concluded was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood" in USDA Bulletin No. 404." [24] In his book Herer summarized the findings of Bulletin No. 404: [25]

USDA Bulletin No. 404, reported that one acre of hemp, in annual rotation over a 20-year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres (17,000 m2) of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period. This process would use only 1/7 to 1/4 as much polluting sulfur-based acid chemicals to break down the glue-like lignin that binds the fibers of the pulp, or even none at all using soda ash. The problem of dioxin contamination of rivers is avoided in the hemp paper making process, which does not need to use chlorine bleach (as the wood pulp paper making process requires) but instead safely substitutes hydrogen peroxide in the bleaching process. ... If the new (1916) hemp pulp paper process were legal today, it would soon replace about 70% of all wood pulp paper, including computer printout paper, corrugated boxes and paper bags.
Hemp was a relatively easy target because factories already had made large investments in equipment to handle cotton, wool, and linen, but there were relatively small investments in hemp production. Big technological improvements in the wood pulp industry were invented in the 1930s; for example the recovery boiler allowed kraft mills to recycle almost all of their pulping chemicals, and other improvements came later. There was also a misconception hemp had an intoxicating effect because it has the same active substance, THC, which is in potent cannabis strains; however, hemp only has minimal amount of THC when compared to recreational cannabis strains.

1. 6. Mandatory sentencing (1952, 1956)
Mandatory sentencing and increased punishment were enacted when the United States Congress passed the Boggs Act of 1952 and the Narcotics Control Act of 1956. The acts made a first time cannabis possession offense a minimum of two to ten years with a fine up to $20,000; however, in 1970, the United States Congress repealed mandatory penalties for cannabis offenses. [16]

1. 7. Reorganization (1968, 1973)


U.S. cannabis arrests by year. 1965 to 2008.
In 1968, the United States Department of the Treasury subsidiary Bureau of Narcotics and the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare subsidiary Bureau of Drug Abuse Control merged to create the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs as a United States Department of Justice subsidiary.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon's "Reorganization Plan Number Two" proposed the creation of a single federal agency to enforce federal drug laws and Congress accepted the proposal, as there was concern regarding the growing availability of drugs. [26] As a result, on July 1, 1973, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) and the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) merged together to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). [16]

On December 1, 1975 the Supreme Court ruled that it was "not cruel or unusual for Ohio to sentence someone to 20 years for having or selling cannabis." [27]

1. 8. Mandatory sentencing and three-strikes (1984, 1986)
During the Reagan Administration the Sentencing Reform Act provisions of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 created the Sentencing Commission, which established mandatory sentencing guidelines. [28] The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 reinstated mandatory prison sentences, including large scale cannabis distribution. [29] Later an amendment created a three-strikes law, which created mandatory life sentences for repeat drug offenders and allowed the death penalty to be used against "drug kingpins." [16]

1. 9. United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative (2001)
Main article: United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative

In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, which legalized medical cannabis. The Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, was created to "provide seriously ill patients with a safe and reliable source of medical cannabis, information and patient support" in accordance with Proposition 215.

In January 1998, the U.S. Government sued Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative for violating federal laws created as a result of Controlled Substances Act of 1970. On May 14, 2001, the United States Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop that federal anti-drug laws do not permit an exception for medical cannabis and rejected the common-law medical necessity defense to crimes enacted under the Controlled Substances Act because Congress concluded cannabis has "no currently accepted medical use" when the act was passed in 1970.

Or the timber industry. Hemp can be made into paper and a variety of other cellulose based products, including including rope and methanol. At the time it was criminalized the farm equipment was just being developed to take the back breaking manual labor out of seperating the woody core from the hemp stalk. Google Hemp for Victory, it's a US gov. propaganda film about growing hemp for the war effort during WW II when our hemp supplies were cut off from the Philippines, it should be easy to find on you tube.

Back when it was criminalized, MJ was also primarily being used by Black and Hispanic minorities.

Pat,
Cool. I will give that a read-yes indeed!