When marijuana was outlawed and eventually placed as a Schedule 1 drug in the 20th century, the primary propaganda used to help ban the weed was a combination of racism, fearmongering by certain members of the government, and of course, corporate America.
The main villain who would become the father of the eventual 'war on drugs' was Harry Anslinger, an assistant
Prohibition commissioner and then commissioner of the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. Anslinger would use all means of vilification to both deter use, and eventually become successful in banning pot by portraying minorities as the only ones using the drug. And of course as a bonus, this fit in perfectly with agendas of corporations who wanted pot and its brother hemp eliminated from society.
"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S.," Anslinger might say, "and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
Actually, Anslinger did say that, and much more. With the help of the federal government, the states, DuPont, pharmaceutical companies and the Hearst newspaper chain, Anslinger sought to keep the heartbeat of Puritanism alive. He was the assistant Prohibition commissioner and then commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. - Mapinc
Medical studies have now overwhelmingly shown that the medicinal benefits of marijuana outweigh the side effects that using pot may incur, especially if distilled into forms other than as a joint to smoke. And while it took nearly two decades to get this information out to where enough of the public was open to accepting and demanding its legalization, the war on this drug continues even today thanks to the one industry that is spending 100's of millions of dollars to keep it out of people's hands.
Big Pharma.
There’s a body of research showing that painkiller abuse
and overdose are lower in states with medical marijuana laws. These studies
have generally assumed that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients
are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics. But
that’s always been just an assumption.
Now a new
study, released in the journal Health Affairs, validates these findings by
providing clear evidence of a missing link in the causal chain running from
medical marijuana to falling overdoses. Ashley and W. David Bradford, a
daughter-father pair of researchers at the University of Georgia, scoured the database
of all prescription drugs paid for under Medicare Part D from 2010 to 2013.
They found that, in the 17 states with a
medical-marijuana law in place by 2013, prescriptions for painkillers and other
classes of drugs fell sharply compared with states that did not have
a medical-marijuana law. The drops were quite significant: In medical-marijuana
states, the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of antidepressants each
year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer anti-nausea doses
and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety medication.
But most strikingly, the typical physician in a
medical-marijuana state prescribed 1,826 fewer doses of painkillers in a given
year.
The tanking numbers for painkiller prescriptions in
medical marijuana states are likely to cause some concern among pharmaceutical
companies. These companies have long been at the forefront
of opposition to marijuana reform, funding research by anti-pot academics and funneling dollars to groups, such as the
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, that oppose marijuana legalization.
Pharmaceutical companies have also lobbied federal
agencies directly to prevent the liberalization of marijuana laws. In one
case, recently uncovered by the office of Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that naturally derived THC, the main
psychoactive component of marijuana, be moved from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 of
the Controlled Substances Act — a less restrictive category that would
acknowledge the drug’s medical use and make it easier to research and
prescribe. Several months after HHS submitted its recommendation, at least
one drug company that manufactures a synthetic version of THC — which
would presumably have to compete with any natural derivatives — wrote to the Drug Enforcement Administration to express opposition
to rescheduling natural THC, citing “the abuse potential in terms of the need
to grow and cultivate substantial crops of marijuana in the United States.”
The DEA ultimately rejected the HHS recommendation without
explanation.
The Pharmaceutical industry is one, if not the largest combined corporate segment in America today, and has revenues reaching hundreds of billions of dollar per year. And as you can see in the above chart of how marijuana use in states that have legalized it in some fashion have both aided people in numerous ways, and taken profits away from corporations reliant upon synthetic opioids, this war will not end quietly, as we all know that the love of money is the root of many evils.
No matter the cost to your well being.
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