WRITER AGREES WITH DECRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

Editor:

While I think Rick Reimer has done an excellent job expressing his
opinion about the present status of marijuana, I would like to
address how we got here in the first place.

Cannabis sativa is on record as being the oldest cultivated plant in
human history, mostly for its fibre for cloth, sails and rope. Its
seed head was harvested for its great food content, both for humans
and for livestock, and for its heavy oil content.

Pre-1930, it had taken hard labor to extract 50 per cent of the
usable fibre. After 1935, industrialization created machines that
enabled 95 per cent of the hemp fibers to be extracted for industrial uses.

Popular Mechanics magazine in 1937 had a front cover article lauding
the new "million dollar crop" that had over 25,000 uses.

Farmers would now be able to favourably compete in the industrial raw
material market for such items as paper, plastics, textiles, fuel,
building materials, etc.

DuPont, the oil industry, the cotton industry, the chemical industry
and the big timber industry all saw cannabis hemp and small family
farmers as being competitors to their dominance of the market. Using
their money influence and connections in government, they quickly
moved to ban the growth of hemp, both in the USA and in Canada.

Using the Mexican slang name "marijuana", propagandists in the media
(newspapers, magazines, and films) created an image of moral decline
from one taste of marijuana. Most U.S. Congressmen did not even know
they were banning hemp.

In 1938, the Government of Canada decided cannabis "marijuana" was
"bad" and banned the growth of all cannabis plants in Canada.
Removing hemp from the industrial raw material market cemented North
America's addiction to petroleum. Local farmers who had been growing
the plant since pioneer days for rope, baling twine, clothing,
livestock feed, human food, oil for lamps, fuel, horse bedding, a
cash crop to sell to the hemp rope and textile mill in Douglas, and
for many other uses, simply had to find the cash, during the
cash-poor times of the late Depression, to buy all those items they
used to be able to provide for themselves. Government suddenly was
telling farmers what they were allowed to grow on their own land.

The biggest complaint during U.S. Congressional hearings about
banning "marijuana" came from the American Medical Association. They
knew how to use cannabis "marijuana" as a medicine, and had been
using it for ages. The pharmaceutical industry promised the doctors
they could replace any use that cannabis was being advocated for. Big
Pharma made a big promise and huge profits. As Rick Reimer has
clearly stated, their products have not been as effective for pain
relief, nor other maladies, that cannabis, "marijuana," successfully
alleviates. It's been suggested that decriminalizing "marijuana"
would displace nearly half the over-the-counter drugs now on the
market. Rick Reimer states that decriminalization of marijuana is a
freedom issue, the "freedom to medicate yourself" with full, complete
and balanced information, and without adding to the profit margins of
the pharmaceutical industry, nor draining the health care budget.
Humans have depended on cannabis for thousands of years. Oil
dependency is new, as is the concept of making plants illegal. I
agree with Rick Reimer, it's time to reconsider our priorities, and
the facts about cannabis marijuana, with an open mind. From all the
research I've seen, decriminalization makes sense.

Robbie Anderman

Killaloe ON