Debunking the Hemp Conspiracy Theory

[salvorhardin]

There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong. -- H.L. Mencken
http://www.bartleby.com/73/1736.html

I thought everyone here would welcome the departure from our usual fare to look at a different conspiracy theory. Steve Wishnia wrote for Alternet what I think is a solid article debunking the notion that marijuana prohibition is a result of a conspiracy between Hearst and DuPont. Wishnia's conclusion is that pot is illegal because of racism and culture wars, not because the paper industry saw cheap hemp paper as a competitor it couldn't beat and thus needed to be eliminated.

The whole article is about 3,300 words long so it's impossible to get an accurate summation of its key points by excerpting only 4 paragraphs (per DU rules) so I'm just going to (enthusiastically) recommend the article and hope you can find time to give it a read.
Original article: http://www.alternet.org/story/77339

Meanwhile, here's the first paragraph and conclusion:

Scratch a pothead and ask them why marijuana is outlawed, and there's a good chance you'll get some version of the "hemp conspiracy" theory. Federal pot prohibition, the story goes, resulted from a plot by the Hearst and DuPont business empires to squelch hemp as a possible competitor to wood-pulp paper and nylon. These allegations can be found anywhere from Wikipedia entries on William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont Company to comments on pot-related articles published here on AlterNet. And these allegations are virtually unchallenged; many people fervently believe in the hemp conspiracy, even though the evidence to back it up vaporizes under even minimal scrutiny.

Why, then, do so many people believe in the "hemp conspiracy"? First, it's the influence of The Emperor Wears No Clothes; many people inspired to cannabis activism by Jack Herer's hemp-can-save-the-world vision and passionate denunciations of pot prohibition buy into the whole "conspiracy against marijuana" package. Another is that many stoners love a good conspiracy theory; secret cabals are simpler and sexier villains than sociopolitical forces. The conspiracist worldview, a hybrid of the who-really-killed-the-Kennedys suspicions of the '60s left and the Bilderbergs-and-Illuminati demonology of the far right, is especially common in rural areas and among pothead Ron Paul supporters. Most people don't have the historical or political knowledge to dispute a conspiracist flood of detailed half-truths.

Counterculture people who see the evil done by corporations and politicians are often quick to believe that they are thus guilty of anything and everything -- that because the CIA tried to kill Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar, it's therefore indisputable that it killed Bob Marley by giving him boots booby-trapped with a carcinogen-tipped wire. Witness the multitudes who zealously argue that because George W. Bush gained a political advantage from the 9/11 attacks and told a thousand lies to justify the war in Iraq, it's proof that his operatives planted explosives in the World Trade Center and set them off an hour or so after the planes hit.

The Bush administration's attempt to link buying herb to "supporting terrorism" proved more laughable than lasting. Yet the racism-culture war combination is still very potent. Among the 360,000 arrests for marijuana possession in New York City between 1997 and 2006, the decade when mayors Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg turned the city into the nation's pot-bust capital, 84 percent of the people popped were black or Latino, mostly young men. And the oft-cited statistic that there are more black men in prison than in college should be the equivalent of a doctor's warning that the nation has a cholesterol level approaching Jerry Garcia's after years on a diet of ice cream, cigarettes and heroin.

So what's the difference between Wishnia's explanation and Herer's? Aren't they both conspiracy theories? No. Herer's explanation is a conspiracy theory because it purports a small, but relentless and disproportionately powerful cabal hatched a secret plot to further their business interests. Wishnia on the other hand presents a complex tale of social forces driven by fear and hatred that were exploited by people in power. People like Anslinger weren't secretly chortling to themselves about the easily led sheep whilst planning world domination. Rather, people like Anslinger truly believed marijuana was evil based upon their own pre-existing bigotry and ignorance. They thought they were doing the right thing. That doesn't make Anslinger a good person. It merely makes him a human. Additionally, Anslinger and his ilk couldn't have succeeded if the majority of Americans didn't already share the same racist attitudes as he did.

That's the moral I think. Most times things, both good and bad, happen because of the complex interplay between beliefs, attitudes, events and personalities. However, understanding and comprehending that rich tapestry is hard to do, takes time and most people are looking for simple explanations. Conspiracy theory is often that simple (and wrong) explanation.

[SidDithers]

1. Thanks for posting, I'll try to read later...

but your comment here:

a complex tale of social forces driven by fear and hatred that were exploited by people in power.

was a line that struck a chord with me as being most appropriate for the main topic of this forum too.

Cheers.

Sid

[PerpetualYnquisitive]

2. That was debunked a decade ago in the documentary 'Grass'

Grass (1999)

This film explores the history of the American government's official policy on marijuana in the 20th century. Rising with nativist xenophobia with Mexican immigration and their taste for smoking marijuana, we see the establishment of a wrong headed federal drug policy as a crime issue as oppposed to a public health approach. Fuelled by prejudice, hysterical propaganda and political opportunism undeterred by voices of reason on the subject, we follow the story of a costly and futile crusade against a substance with questionable ill effects that has damaged basic civil liberites.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214730/plotsummary


Grass (1999)/#####/*** A documentary history of marijuana criminalization in the U.S.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Americans are arrested for marijuana use. The cumulative cost of these arrests (and subsequent incarcerations) is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. That's a lot of pain and effort to ban a drug that even government experts have concluded to be relatively benign, as indeed marijuana must be since roughly a quarter of the U.S. population has used it without noticeable ill effect. So how did U.S. government policy with respect to marijuana get to be so absurd? That's the question this documentary sets out to answer.

As told here, it all started with a man named Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930-1962 and an enthusiastic Prohibitionist. He's the chief villain of this story. In league with some of the more yellow press and naive Hollywood, Anslinger created public hysteria over marijuana by blaming it for widespread murder and insanity. The feds and the states then banned marijuana without debate or scientific investigation. After an embarrassing study (commissioned by Mayor LaGuardia of New York) disproved Anslinger's preposterous allegations with regard to pot, Anslinger effectively stopped all research on it by cutting off the supply to researchers. Later, he encouraged the idea that marijuana was a commie plot, and then finally topped off his career by getting the UN to ban marijuana around the world. In short, with regard to pot, Anslinger was the metaphorical Hitler of the War on Drugs.
http://www.archive.org/details/Grass__History_of_Marihuana

You can watch or download the movie from the archive.org link above.

[salvorhardin]

3. It bears repeating I think

and I think Wishnia did a pretty thorough job of it.

Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) also covered this subject in his book Reefer Madness.
http://books.google.com/books?id=s4FeZmuBAqsC&dq=Eric+Schlosser&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=eric+schlosser&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=2&cad=author-navigational

[Ghost in the Machine]

7. America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619

America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.

The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

{snip}

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them.

However, the first state law outlawing marijuana did so not because of Mexicans using the drug. Oddly enough, it was because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church was not pleased and ruled against use of the drug. Since the state of Utah automatically enshrined church doctrine into law, the first state marijuana prohibition was established in 1915. (Today, Senator Orrin Hatch serves as the prohibition arm of this heavily church-influenced state.)

Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

[salvorhardin]

10. I didn't know about the Utah prohibition

Wishnia alludes to it but doesn't mention it outright. I suspect he was being concise in the history section of his essay in order to more fully deal with the conspiracy theory aspects.

In the United States, marijuana prohibition began partly as a throw-in on laws restricting opiates and cocaine to prescription-only use, and partly in Southern and Western states and cities where blacks and Mexican immigrants were smoking it. Missouri outlawed opium and hashish dens in 1889, but did not actually prohibit cannabis until 1935. Massachusetts began restricting cannabis in its 1911 pharmacy law, and three other New England states followed in the next seven years.

California's 1913 narcotics law banned possession of cannabis preparations -- which California NORML head Dale Gieringer believes was a legal error, that the provision was intended to parallel those affecting opium, morphine and cocaine. The law was amended in 1915 to ban the sale of cannabis without a prescription. "Thus hemp pharmaceuticals remained technically legal to sell, but not possess, on prescription!" Gieringer wrote in The Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California. "There are no grounds to believe that this prohibition was ever enforced, as hemp drugs continued to be prescribed in California for years to come." In 1928, the state began requiring hemp farmers to notify law enforcement about their crops.

[PerpetualYnquisitive]

43. My post was in reference to the prohibition of hemp,

hence the 'conspiracy theory' angle of the thread.

I was unaware of a 'conspiracy theory' to legalize hemp, whether in 1619 or at any other time. Though I did notice that even your 'rebels' from Utah had a tie to Mexico. Coincidence?

Wasn't the U.S. in a war against Mexico in the mid 1800's?

[greyl]

4. Just a few days ago, a friend said the Dupont/Hemp issue was another good

reason to hate Jeff Gordon. ;)

[wildbilln864]

5. This belongs in the drug forum! nt

[salvorhardin]

8. Why?

The article is discussing a conspiracy theory. The article is not advocating for drug use. Seems like dungeon filler to me.

[wildbilln864]

6. there were many reasons it was banned....

Dupont probably had a big hand in it though. With legal marijuana, nylon wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

[salvorhardin]

11. You think we'd be brushing our teeth with hemp toothbrushes

And women would be wearing hemp shear stockings instead?

Nylon wasn't invented until 1935. The first uses of it were in toothbrush bristles and women's stockings in 1938 and 1940 respectively. Anti-marijuana sentiments had been growing for years before. So I don't think you can tie DuPont's nylon interests into the prohibition of marijuana.

[wildbilln864]

24. well, what you think and the facts are completely at odds!

Go figure! :shrug:

[salvorhardin]

34. I think you missed the point (again)

But thank you for your thoughts.

[wildbilln864]

39. No I did not but what ever fertilizes your ego I guess. nt

:hi:

[Realityhack]

48. self delete

[wildbilln864]

27. another link....

about hemp :hi:

ETA this snip/
"Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.

This all set the stage for...

The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937."

[mhatrw]

53. Who cares?

Should hemp be illegal or not?

[salvorhardin]

55. Of course not

My position on recreational drug use is that it should be treated as nothing more than what it is... a public health concern. As such, tobacco and alcohol are much greater threats to the public health than marijuana.

However, repeating tired old conspiracy theories and myths will do nothing to get it decriminalized or legalized. On the other hand, understanding precisely why marijuana and hemp were outlawed in the first place will help us form and adopt a better strategy. Neither will pretending that the main reason people want marijuana legalized is that it will somehow magically transform our economy.

Let's be clear hear. People want marijuana legalized because they like to get stoned. There's nothing wrong with that, but we have to be adults about it. That means letting go of spurious conspiracy theories and admitting that people will use marijuana regardless of laws, that it has both positive and negative effects and the only sensible solution is legalization, education and harm reduction.

[mhatrw]

58. Your "position" is full of shit.

There are all sorts of potential uses of hemp and all sorts of places where growing hemp could be useful to local economies.

There is every reason to legalize hemp and no reason not to.

Exactly why hemp was made erroneously made illegal is not important. What is important is that we now recognize that there is absolutely no good reason for hemp cultivation to remain illegal.

[salvorhardin]

59. Whatever you say

But thank you for your thoughts.

[LARED]

12. "With legal marijuana, nylon wouldn't have gotten anywhere."

Good Lord man!!! Farming Hemp is so much cheaper than making Nylon :sarcasm:

:rofl: :rofl:


Do you even think about what you write before you write?

[wildbilln864]

25. well not now of course it isn't...

"Marijuana activtist 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 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 would have 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 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 Mellon stayed until 1962.<21>"
linky

[seemslikeadream]

26. Next someone will be saying that IBM had nothing to do with the Holocaust

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/



IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.
Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.

But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.

IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich's needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.

IBM and the Holocaust takes you through the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters, and the Geneva intermediaries -- all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction.

Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century's greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit.

[seemslikeadream]

28. or maybe there's no truth to the conspiracy rumors about Internal Combustion

http://www.internalcombustionbook.com/



THIS COUNTRY WAS BUILT ON CONSPIRACY AND GENOCIDE, NO DOUBT

ask the Native Americans

too bad the trains weren't running, :sarcasm:

[LARED]

44. "used to make paper and plastic (nylon)"

Humm, I understand the basic process to turn hemp into paper, but turning hemp into a polymer in a sensible way is escaping me.

Please explain what Herer had in mind.

[wildbilln864]

45. Henry Ford made auto body panels from hemp!

polymer, smolymer!
hemp car. :hi:

[LARED]

46. That's great, but so what? -nt

[wildbilln864]

35. why would you think it's not?

Marijuana/hemp/canabis will grow with little or no maintenance. Guess you just didn't know! :rofl:

[SDuderstadt]

9. Thanks for clearing this up...

for some reason, I always thought it was the "Kemp conspiracy". I kept wondering what Jack Kemp had to do with it.

[BeFree]

13. So

You're saying that you think you believe the simple Official theory of 19 hijackers doing all that on 9/11?

Cuz that is the simplest and most assinine theory, ya know.

Quote from OP:

That's the moral I think. Most times things, both good and bad, happen because of the complex interplay between beliefs, attitudes, events and personalities. However, understanding and comprehending that rich tapestry is hard to do, takes time and most people are looking for simple explanations. Conspiracy theory is often that simple (and wrong) explanation.

[salvorhardin]

14. I think you've missed the point

But thank you for your thoughts.

[BeFree]

15. What?

Don't hit and run, son. I asked you a question. And the point of that question was related to your beliefs here on this thread and your beliefs about 9/11.

Assuming you can read...duh!.... I can now only assume that you are afraid to answer my question.

[salvorhardin]

16. The answer to your question is in the bit of my OP that you quoted

But thank you for your thoughts.

[BeFree]

17. Good evasion.

So..... it could be said, since you said it, that you have been wrong to stick with the simplest of explanations and that the one offered by the officials may be the stupidest one of all?

No we're getting somewhere. Eh?

[seemslikeadream]

18. Donchano this OP was just filler?

as in DIVERSION see post #8

[BeFree]

19. Well

There are some here who you don't see anywhere else on DU and so about all they do is contribute empty filler.

It just seems rather odd that the OP runs from its own OP.

[CrawlingChaos]

20. WTF?

I realize I'm new here and may not fully understand how things work, but what the heck is this doing in the September 11 forum???

I hope it's not an attempt to place a variety of popular myths alongside 9/11 discussion, to create some kind of guilt-by-association effect. Not that it would ever work (the 9/11 OCT stinks far too much for that).

Btw, OP, you cannot escape "conspiracy theory" with 9/11. It's just a matter of finding the right one. Here's a hint: governments lie (see: history).

[seemslikeadream]

21. WELCOME CrawlingChaos

:hi:

Are ya good at playing games?

[Grateful for Hope]

22. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[CrawlingChaos]

40. Thanks for the welcome...

...And thanks for all the great information I've found here. I'm really grateful to those of you who've risen to the challenge and done the work the mainstream press refuses to do. In the short time I've been here, I've learned a lot -- and will do my best to disseminate the info in my circle of acquaintance. You're doing good work here folks.

[Grateful for Hope]

42. SLaD and others have definitely contributed much to this forum

Looking forward to more posts from you!

[Beam Me Up]

23. good point

To the question of 9/11, whether marijuana prohibition is or is not a conspiracy is irrelevant.

9/11 was a conspiracy by definition. As you say, the relevant question is, who were/are the conspirators?

The government is so sure of itself it doesn't task the 9/11 commission to investigate that question. It doesn't task the NTSB to investigate the WTC collapses outside the very narrow question of "collapse initiation." Now we find out they are "so sure", neither the FBI nor the NTSB or the FAA even bother to positively identify the wreckage of what they allege to be the aircraft involved.

Edit to add link: http://www.911blogger.com/blog/2074

Evidence?! We don't need no stinking evidence, we have all the proof we need!

[SDuderstadt]

32. Are you freaking kidding??

"Now we find out they are "so sure", neither the FBI nor the NTSB or the FAA even bother to positively identify the wreckage of what they allege to be the aircraft involved".

And you know this, how? Because 911Blogger says so? Did you bother to check out his claims and subject them to scrutiny or did you just swallow them whole? Try this. In every case, nearly EVERY passenger on the planes in question was identified by DNA tests. Try to think this through. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that this identification establishes they were in the plane upon which passenger list/manifest they appeared? Or, are you drawing some other conclusion? What would that be? They were herded onto different planes, THEN crashed into the WTC/Pentagon/ground? What would be the purpose of that? How would they have done that? How would they have fooled the FAA as to their whereabouts while the transfer was being made? Some questions are so freaking silly, they don't need to be answered.

http://www.debunk911myths.org/topics/DNA_identification#_note-kelly

http://www.afip.org/images/public/Dec01.pdf

If you want more, I'd be glad to provide it.

[mrgerbik]

47. wasn't there some report stating

that they had recovered dna of most of the hijakers which allowed investigators to make a 'clear' case for thier guilt?

edit: heres one report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2808599.stm

[mhatrw]

54. Please. Let's see the DNA test results for all four planes.

Where are these test results published? By all means, please produce them.

[salvorhardin]

30. I think you've missed the point

But thank you for your thoughts.

Oh, and welcome back. :hi:

[CrawlingChaos]

41. Welcome back?

Is that supposed to mean something by any chance?

[wildbilln864]

29. more ....

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

[seemslikeadream]

31. Fix your link wildbillin

[wildbilln864]

36. sorry seems....

don't know what happened there but thanks for the heads up. :hi:

[seemslikeadream]

38. Oh I know!!

[Twist_U_Up]

33. Isn't there a drug forum for this type stuff ?

I mean,you might get a better more educated response to that question there.
Or do you have other motives ?
Hmmmmmm

[salvorhardin]

37. Yes, I have other motives but...

Yes, I have other motives but based on the responses so far it seems I have little fear of them being discovered.

But thank you for your thoughts.

[leftofthedial]

49. you are just part of the conspiracy,

spreading pro-Hearst propaganda.

That's fine. Go right ahead. But now we know what YOU really are . . .












;-)

[salvorhardin]

50. Actually I'm part of the neocon mafia

It's twoo! Wayne Madsen said so.
http://www.neuralgourmet.com/2006/12/11/proud_to_be_part_of_the_neo_co

[420 Bob]

51. PROTEST Ganja prohibition by purchasing hemp products!

Screw those uptight lawmakers!

[mhatrw]

52. What purpose does "debunking" tripe like this serve?

Should growing hemp be prohibited or not? Why or why not?

[salvorhardin]

56. Repeating my post from above...

Of course not.

My position on recreational drug use is that it should be treated as nothing more than what it is... a public health concern. As such, tobacco and alcohol are much greater threats to the public health than marijuana.

However, repeating tired old conspiracy theories and myths will do nothing to get it decriminalized or legalized. On the other hand, understanding precisely why marijuana and hemp were outlawed in the first place will help us form and adopt a better strategy. Neither will pretending that the main reason people want marijuana legalized is that it will somehow magically transform our economy.

Let's be clear hear. People want marijuana legalized because they like to get stoned. There's nothing wrong with that, but we have to be adults about it. That means letting go of spurious conspiracy theories and admitting that people will use marijuana regardless of laws, that it has both positive and negative effects and the only sensible solution is legalization, education and harm reduction.

[mhatrw]

57. Wrong. Hemp is a weed. It grows easily in all sorts of climates and soils.

It has a lot of potential as a crop for its medicinal, industrial and nutritional value.

How about if we simply let anyone who wants to grow it grow it, and then let the market work itself out?

[Bolo Boffin]

60. For once, I agree.

Marijuana should be as legal as alcohol, and hemp should be grown for its many other uses.