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(20 posts)A book I read many many years ago called "The Naked Emperor".
The book explained in great detail how marijuana was demonized on behalf of DOW chemicals and some other companies because of patent rights. Seems at the time you couldn't patent a naturally occurring plant and DOW didn't like the fact that Hemp was many times more useful and efficient than certain chemicals use to make such things as rope and medicine. The book explained how racism was incorporated in an effort to instill fear of the drug marijuana into the hearts and minds of middle class white Americans. Beware! These negro jazz musicians smoking their weed and corrupting your precious white daughters! And now....we have what we have. It's too easy to blame the African American community at large of being thugs and criminals because...look at the stats! The war on drugs is a war on personal freedoms and a feather in the cap of old school racists looking for any excuse to blame the victim.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)You can also read it online here - http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/
I think you mean DuPont, not Dow, however.
But, yes, testimony regarding "marihuana" - that's part of the National Archives, indicates the racist basis - and the collusion between the forerunner to the DEA - Anslinger, his uncle, then Treasury Secretary/Gulf Oil President Andrew Mellon(whose family, btw, now works for right wing causes under the "Mellon-Scaife" fortune, and a Congress that looked, frankly, bought and sold, in retrospect.
The Marihuana Tax Act was written in secret - by those interests that would benefit - was hidden from the oversight of doctors who didn't know cannabis was also "marihuana" (and when hearings took place, the lawyer/dr. for the AMA was silenced by Congress...), and was sold to the American public IN EXACTLY THE WAY THE DRUG WAR HAS BEEN SOLD TO AMERICANS SINCE NIXON.
Research scientists who challenged the claims made by the prohibition propagandists were targeted by the FBI and harassed for collecting valid data that indicated drug warrior claims were lies (LaGuardia also challenged them.)
Knowing this long history - and knowing, as Alexander states here, that Democrats have used this issue to appeal to the racist vote - this is why I think Obama's legacy to this nation as the first African-American president should include an end to marijuana prohibition, at the least, by decriminalization at the federal level if Congress fails to do its job and represent the will of the voter.
Republicans are going to attack Obama no matter what he does. He might as well do something that would be as momentous as FDR's repeal of prohibition - Democrats and moderates have the president's back on this one. The racist vote is not going to be swayed, while economic conservatives can grasp the financial arguments in favor of ending this massive waste of taxpayer dollars that, in effect, recreates slavery by arresting African-Americans and putting them to work for little to no wages while their white counterparts, generally, face no such threat.
Thank you! It's been years but I knew I was close! Memory doesn't serve me too well.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)K&R
RainDog
(28,784 posts)and raise you another 8 or so minutes of Chomsky...
I think his problem (as with many others), is that they define conspiracy as some kind of cloak & dagger, shadowy activity that takes place in underground caves, in the dark of night under a full moon and only after you hear the sound of two birds tweeting.
Such is the mentality of those of us born and raised under the influence of Hollywood. Nothing can be further from the truth. Conspiracies don't have to be tight well-oiled machines. They don't require a great many people to run, ''because most people will simply do as they are told.'' As Robert Anton Wilson observed, conspiracy is natural human behavior:
~Robert Anton Wilson
It only takes two people to conspire. I think that might even be an over estimate.