There is major confusion surrounding many aspects of the ubiquitous, yet seriously misunderstood botanical phenomenon knows as Mary Jane, or in the stodgier circles of the laboratory: Cannabis Sativa Afghanica Indica Cunningham—or Pot for short. I intend to clear away some of the smoke and lay out some of the cold hard facts. The confusion I’m referring to is not the befuddlement caused by a few tokes of your Brother-In-Law’s good stuff after a Thanksgiving dinner, it’s the conflict and question given rise by our gut when we know we are being deliberately lied to, but we don’t know why or by whom? I may sound paranoid, but sometimes paranoia is a proper response, and that’s when a conspiracy theory isn’t just a theory anymore. And no, I’m not paranoid because I got too stoned.
Let’s start at the beginning, roughly a bunch of millennia ago, when pot first appeared on the scene. According to advancedholisitic.org we can trace societal acceptance for and the usefulness of hemp back to 8,000BCE, which is over 10,000 years ago. “Finding hemp use and cultivation in this date range puts it as one of the first and oldest known human agriculture crops” according to the website. Carl Sagan expanded on this point in 1977 suggesting that marijuana may be the world’s first agricultural crop, becoming the catalyst for modern civilization itself. If that’s true it would seem to me that humanity evolved pretty well from our stoned beginnings and now, under the century of prohibition we seem to be falling apart. Maybe medical marijuana can not only help save patients from pain but possibly can help save society as a whole from the impending pain we are about to unleash upon ourselves when our consumer lifestyle leads to a massive collapse of the modern standard of living we’ve come to know.
Hemp use, for recreation and healing, as well as for clothes, paper, ropes, construction materials and food is well documented throughout humanity’s history. 100 BC we find the first evidence of hemp paper in China, which is stronger and longer lasting paper than the thin and highly degradable type we manufacture today from trees. The Constitution of the United States was printed on hemp paper, indeed that’s why it has lasted to this day. In concentrated doses cannabis is anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumoral. It literally shrinks tumors and reverses their effects. The research on this is spotty because of a mix of deliberate deception and incompetence, but I’ve seen this treatment work. I am treating a mole on my body this way right now, and it’s beginning to shrink. So I became infatuated, captivated by Mary Jane herself. My passion to learn everything I could about pot took root inside me.
The hemp plant itself has the hardest fiber of all plants that can be processed so it makes higher quality paper than trees, which could mean an end to deforestation. The oil from the stalk can be used instead of crude oil to make all petroleum based “plastic” items we use today, thus eliminating toxic plastic from the planet and replacing it with something lasting but safe. It can further be processed into non-toxic paint, heating fuel, car fuel, construction materials, cords, rope and clothes. Additionally hemp seed is the most complete form of food on the planet, being the only thing containing every known amino-acid chain as well as an abundance of nutrients and minerals. Just by being planted in large enough numbers, the amount of carbon dioxide it uses can single-handedly reverse our man-made carbon foot print, while the seeds it would produce can feed everybody three times over. And finally it’s one of the most advanced plants out there, being able to be both male and female, pollinate itself, grow in almost any climate and reproduce in vast quantities without any help—that’s why we call it a weed. Pot, in short, is a miracle. I am caught in the thrall of this new phenomenon that has the potential to reverse many catastrophic trends facing humanity. I mean, we know it’s good for the economy!
So why is this information so hard to come by? Why has prohibition of such a wondrous miracle plant lasted for almost a century? And why don’t we rise up and put an end to all of humanity’s problems in one fell swoop by legalizing, harvesting, manufacturing and—yes—even smoking this miracle plant. If cannabis can yield eco-friendly versions of all the toxic modern day comforts we have come to know and love then what is the hold up? Is it because those of us who know about this kind of thing happen to be stoned all the time? Well I don’t think that’s it. The medical marijuana movement has gained more support and accomplished more in the last five years than it had in the previous 15 years before that. And awareness of hemp and it’s beneficial, nay, miraculous effects is becoming common knowledge. So why does it seem that our consciousness regarding this issue moves at a stoned snail’s pace?
Because we are being deliberately lied to. Marijuana is a plant and therefore it cannot be patented. The equalizing nature of this makes it a threat to many industries, from oil to plastic to cotton, even to paper and pharmaceutical drugs. If people can grow their own medicine in their back yard or their home then where does that leave the prozac pushers? The deliberate disinformation campaign has been fully underway for decades now. In the 1930’s citizens were told that marijuana would make black men and Mexicans rape women. Then in a complete one-eighty in 1942, in order to win WWII, the US government ordered farmers to grow the crop to make equipment and rope for their ships and soldiers. In the late 1960’s ganja caused a massive cultural and spiritual awakening prompting Nixon in 1971 to declare a war on drugs. The last thing men in power want is a society that’s fully awake. It turns out he was declaring a war on all of us by categorizing something that even George Washington grew on the lawn of his Mount Vernon home as a schedule one narcotic.
The bottom line is this: we have been lied too. So if you are one of those people in a state where pot is still illegal you are probably smoking some resin hits by now. Here’s hoping the truth about pot’s miraculous nature will resonate in our society more deeply, so resin hits, roach clips, and all manner of global catastrophe can become a thing of the past. Until then, until we can break once and for all out of this prison of the mind the propaganda machine has jailed us in, I say, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
