LIES ABOUT POT CONTINUE

Editor:

Over the last few decades I've been advocating the re-legalization of
cannabis, hemp, aka marijuana, pot, weed, reefer, etc. The two most
common comments I've gotten are "you don't see a person come home and
beat their wife, kids or family dog after a night of smoking pot like
you do sometimes when they've been out drinking," or "in spite of my
objections my kids indulge in intoxicating substances; I'd rather they
just smoke pot."

To counter these and other pro-pot sentiments our government comes out
with lie after lie intended to induce fear. One lie is that the pot
available today is far more potent than it was in the '60s and '70s.
Hogwash. Suppressed government studies show this is just not the case,
yet the lies continue.

Lies are nothing new when it comes to marijuana. In 1968, I was busted
for pot and my poor ol' Southern Baptist "lips that touch mine will
never touch wine" grandma was beside herself with grief. She was sure
I was going to end up in the nut house or worse.

Then one morning she opened up her newspaper and there was a picture
of a marijuana plant. Her first words were, "They lied to me! They put
my grandson in prison just for smoking silly ol' rabbit weed." She was
so relieved to find out that evil marijuana was not jimson weed (aka
loco weed) like government and Hearst newspaper propaganda had
convinced her it was.

During the infamous 1937 marijuana tax hearings, pot was never
referred to as cannabis or hemp but just as marijuana. Included were
such racist quotes as "Big-lipped n------ will entice white women to
listen to jazz music and smoke marijuana so they can have sex with
them." The mere thought of a black man having sex with a white woman
was totally unacceptable, so of course the tax act passed with flying
colors.

So nothing really has changed. Fact is in 1917 it was Chinese men
luring white women into opium dens to have sex with them. That got the
Harrison Tax Act passed.

You'd think that after 20,000 years of humankind using pot, if there
was something wrong or harmful with its use it would have manifested
itself by now.

So why the lies? To protect the profitability of Big Oil, Pharma, etc.
After all, unfortunately, we've become a nation by the
corporation/money, of the corporation/money, and for the
corporation/money. It's all about money, not justice. That's so sad!

JOE DePAUL, Casper