DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A., Washington

The arguments against industrial hemp are utter nonsense (Press & Dakotan,
June 26). The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that deny
farmers the right to grow industrial hemp.

Apparently government bureaucrats in Washington can't tell the difference
between a tall hemp stalk and a short marijuana bush. Prior to the passage
of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, few Americans had heard of marijuana,
despite widespread cultivation of its non- intoxicating cousin, industrial
hemp.

The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration
during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical
Association. White Americans did not even begin to smoke marijuana until a
soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness
propaganda.

Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been
counterproductive at best. An estimated 38 percent of Americans have now
smoked pot. The reefer madness myths have long been discredited, forcing
the drug war gravy train to spend millions of tax dollars on politicized
research, trying to find harm in a relatively harmless plant. Meanwhile,
research that might demonstrate the medical efficacy of marijuana is
consistently blocked.

The direct experience of millions of Americans contradicts the
sensationalistic myths used to justify marijuana prohibition. Illegal drug
use is the only public health issue wherein key stakeholders are not only
ignored, but actively persecuted and incarcerated. In terms of medical
marijuana, those stakeholders happen to be cancer and AIDS patients. Reefer
madness is a poor excuse for incarcerating Americans who prefer marijuana
to martinis. There is no excuse for denying farmers the right to grow
industrial hemp.