Wow, great post. I found this part worthy of a film script ...
'Evidence suggests that Hearst's (and the other families' mentioned) angle was actually more doing away with a competitor to his paper mills (and to duPont's then new synthetic fibers) by adding industrial hemp - which will not get anyone stoned - to the substances criminalized by the law. "Evidence suggests that Hearst's (and the other families' mentioned) angle was actually more doing away with a competitor to his paper mills (and to duPont's then new synthetic fibers) by adding industrial hemp - which will not get anyone stoned - to the substances criminalized by the law.'
There's much more to the story - both before and after 1937. And on the civil service side, Harry J. Anslinger really was a pip.
And legendary NYC Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia ("The Little Flower") agreed. He appointed a commission of investigation in 1938, whose 1944 report strongly objected to Anslinger's campaign.
So there's totally a timely film (or films) to make at this point. And hopefully better than this one:
BTW, the federal government's constitutional authority to directly make producing, buying, selling or using a drug (or a simple useful, non-intoxicating, non-toxic crop like hemp) was much in doubt at the time -- as the 10th Amendment (the last in the Bill of Rights) held much more sway in reining in its notion of its powers at the time than does today. So the law didn't make "marihuana" illegal, rather it made not buying Federal Marihuana Tax Stamps for pot a revenue crime.
Of course, if you bought the stamps, you were admitting you were dealing in cannabis, so it's clear cannabis users and growers were expected to incriminate themselves OR commit a tax crime. So while "respecting" the 10th Amendment, the Act was clearly in violation of the 5th. Although it would take the Supreme Court until 1969 in the case Leary v. United States, to get around to ruling on this.
My own dentist back in the '60s was convicted of "failure to buy" his tax stamps in the 1950's and lost his license to practice for at least 10 years. And after getting it back, displayed it next to his "special tax stamp" (which he insisted on purchasing after his conviction, but wisely didn't use having already paid the price).
And by then, an expanded sense of Federal power was ready to begin its hopeless and wholly counterproductive War on Drugs in 1970 with the passage of Nixon's show piece Controlled Substances Act. Which has done far more damage to societies (the US and Mexico's cartel-ravaged state to name two of many) than marijuana (or heroin, cocaine and meth combined) could ever have done if we'd taken a more intelligent approach to their management.
But the Wikipedia entries still stand 7 years after the first post. My opinion is that the truth likely lies somewhere in between, with these worthies not harmless, and I thoroughly disagree with the notion advanced by these "debunkers" that hemp would not - even today - be a major cash crop in the US if allowed to freely compete for many reasons.
E.g., see this link and many more. It clearly has huge potential, both product-wise and ecologically given that it needs much less water and requires virtually no pesticides to be grown successfully:
Comments
Wow, great post. I found this part worthy of a film script ...
There's much more to the story - both before and after 1937. And on the civil service side, Harry J. Anslinger really was a pip.
And legendary NYC Mayor, Fiorello La Guardia ("The Little Flower") agreed. He appointed a commission of investigation in 1938, whose 1944 report strongly objected to Anslinger's campaign.
So there's totally a timely film (or films) to make at this point. And hopefully better than this one:
BTW, the federal government's constitutional authority to directly make producing, buying, selling or using a drug (or a simple useful, non-intoxicating, non-toxic crop like hemp) was much in doubt at the time -- as the 10th Amendment (the last in the Bill of Rights) held much more sway in reining in its notion of its powers at the time than does today. So the law didn't make "marihuana" illegal, rather it made not buying Federal Marihuana Tax Stamps for pot a revenue crime.
Of course, if you bought the stamps, you were admitting you were dealing in cannabis, so it's clear cannabis users and growers were expected to incriminate themselves OR commit a tax crime. So while "respecting" the 10th Amendment, the Act was clearly in violation of the 5th. Although it would take the Supreme Court until 1969 in the case Leary v. United States, to get around to ruling on this.
My own dentist back in the '60s was convicted of "failure to buy" his tax stamps in the 1950's and lost his license to practice for at least 10 years. And after getting it back, displayed it next to his "special tax stamp" (which he insisted on purchasing after his conviction, but wisely didn't use having already paid the price).
And by then, an expanded sense of Federal power was ready to begin its hopeless and wholly counterproductive War on Drugs in 1970 with the passage of Nixon's show piece Controlled Substances Act. Which has done far more damage to societies (the US and Mexico's cartel-ravaged state to name two of many) than marijuana (or heroin, cocaine and meth combined) could ever have done if we'd taken a more intelligent approach to their management.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/history/mustomj1.html
Back to Hearst, the Mellons and the DuPonts, some also argue against the notion I first posted, e.g.
http://www.alternet.org/story/77339/debunking_the_hemp_conspiracy_theory (2008)
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4401 (muchly a 2014 rehash of the above)
But the Wikipedia entries still stand 7 years after the first post. My opinion is that the truth likely lies somewhere in between, with these worthies not harmless, and I thoroughly disagree with the notion advanced by these "debunkers" that hemp would not - even today - be a major cash crop in the US if allowed to freely compete for many reasons.
E.g., see this link and many more. It clearly has huge potential, both product-wise and ecologically given that it needs much less water and requires virtually no pesticides to be grown successfully:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-284.html
So research further and draw your own conclusions if you're interested.
Oh, and back to where this all started, yay Apple!
Far out, man.
I presume that this is Cook's last desperate attempt to soften up customer's minds to entice them to buy the Apple Watch.
Desperate measures for desperate times.