THE CANNABIS THREAD 101!!

[roots69]

6 Fun Facts on Marijuana

1
If you’re reading this that means you’re alive during perhaps the most important time in marijuana’s history. The debate over marijuana legalization has largely swayed in favor of pro-marijuana supporters as loads of scientific evidence on weed’s medicinal uses have piled up. As weed is likely—if it hasn’t already—to be introduced into your daily life, we thought it’d be nice for you two to become acquainted by learning some fun facts on marijuana.

Our Top 6 Fun Facts on Marijuana
6. Hemp Was Popular in Colonial America
Hemp is a non-psychoactive variety of cannabis sativa. It was grown in colonial America, rivaling cotton. It received high praise for its exceptionally durable fibers which were used for rope and clothing. Thomas Jefferson directed that “an acre of the best ground” at his Poplar Forest be dedicated to growing hemp and George Washington grew it throughout his life in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

5. In North Korea Weed is (Probably) Legal
Though the brutal North Korean dictatorship is backward in many ways, they appear to have at least gotten one thing right. There are conflicting reports, but many tourists and defectors have claimed that weed is legal—or at least tolerated—in North Korea. One tourist report stated they were able to buy weed and even share it with their North Korean guides.

4. There Are Thousands of Slang Terms for Marijuana
Everyone has a favorite term for marijuana. Bud, ganja, grass, and the age-old classic reefer are just a few. There are even terms to describe the quality of marijuana! If you’re smoking “fire,” that’s synonymous with good. “Dirt,” on the other hand, isn’t the greatest.

3. The U.S. Attorney General Thinks Pot is Almost as Bad as Heroin
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been quoted saying that pot “is only slightly less awful” than heroin. This was said despite marijuana’s numerous medicinal benefits and potential to counter opioid addiction. Sessions doubled down on his anti-marijuana stance in late September.

2. The Legal Marijuana Industry is Predicted to be Worth Billions
Perhaps the most intriguing fun fact on marijuana for entrepreneurs is the massive potential it has if it were made legal nationally. Colorado’s marijuana industry topped $1 billion alone in 2016, and it’s predicted that by 2026 the industry could be worth $50 billion nationally. That’s a lot of green going around, no pun intended.

1. It’s Pretty Much Impossible to Overdose on Pot
No one has ever died from the direct physical effects of smoking weed. Someone would have to smoke 40,000 times the normal amount of cannabis to die. Still concerned? Other estimates have said that you would “theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within 15 minutes to induce a lethal response”. Even the heaviest of smokers have no chance of hitting that mark.

Hopefully, you’ve learned something new about the wonder-drug thanks to these fun facts on marijuana. Perhaps you were inspired to become an early investor in the potential multi-billion dollar industry or simply searched the web for a new slang term to call marijuana. Whatever the case, it’s undeniable that marijuana has a global influence and is changing people’s lives.

 

[roots69]

3 “Alt-Facts” Anti-Cannabis Lobby Using to Demonize Marijuana

Recreational adult-use and clinical cannabis have been made tremendous progress over the last few years thanks to shifting public opinion and a bipartisan push in support of states’ rights. However, the anti-cannabis lobby (backed by big money donors) are trying to reverse this progress. And, they see the new “law and order” administration as an ally in reversing much of the progress the industry has made in recent years.

The pendulum has clearly swung in our favor, but the anti-cannabis lobby led by Kevin Sabet and the Orwellian-named — Smart Approaches to Marijuana — are working hard to change that. How? By peddling long-disproven “theories” propaganda that looks a lot like Reefer Madness 2.0.

Here are three of their biggest anti-cannabis propaganda lies:

Claim 1: Cannabis is a highly addictive and destructive drug
To support this claim they frequently share numbers on the number of teens who use marijuana compared to other drugs such as heroin, stimulants, cocaine., etc. While it is true that cannabis is more popular than other drugs says nothing about how addictive it is. It should be encouraging to note that more people use cannabis than cocaine or heroin. Duh!

What they fail to note is that cannabis has lower addiction potential and toxicity than virtually any other drug. The National Institute on Drug Abuse funded the most comprehensive study to date and found the fewer people become dependent on cannabis than other popular substances. Here’s how cannabis compares (just 9% of those who try cannabis ever become dependent, compared to 15% for alcohol and 32% for tobacco!):

Moreover, as nearly everyone knows, it’s essentially impossible to fatally overdose from cannabis. Over 50,000 people died from opioid (prescription and illicit) overdoses last year. Not a single person died from a cannabis overdose.

Claim 2: Cannabis Lowers IQ
The anti-cannabis lobby uses one study to make the claim that using cannabis lowers IQ. The study they used is the famous Dunedin Study. While this was a well-designed study, anti-cannabis advocates misrepresent the findings of the study, claiming “cannabis use associated with 6 point decline in IQ.” This is a gross misrepresentation of the study.

In fact, the study found that there was no significant decline in IQ except for individuals who started using cannabis as a teen frequently (at least weekly) AND who were later diagnosed at least three times with a cannabis use disorder. Other users experienced no decline in IQ. Even among adults who were diagnosed with a use disorder who initiated cannabis use after age 18, experienced no decline in IQ. Also, interesting to note: the study found that individuals who reported experience with cannabis had higher IQs than individuals who abstained from cannabis their entire lives.

Columbia University professor, Dr. Carl Hart, also noted that of the 1,037 participants in the study, only 38 users showed a decline in IQ. Hart believes (and most researchers would agree) the sample size is too small to generalize across larger populations.

Claim 3: Cannabis is a Gateway Drug (to Heroin!)
The proposed “gateway theory” that suggest cannabis use will lead to the use of harder drugs has long been debunked. Time Magazine wrote, “Marijuana as a Gateway Drug: The Myth That Will Not Die.” Nonetheless, anti-cannabis activists use the “gateway theory” as a key talking point to argue against cannabis.

If one defines “gateway drug” disingenuously as meaning most people who use hard drugs like heroin and cocaine started on softer drugs first (like cannabis), then sure, cannabis (and, nicotine, alcohol, breast milk?) is a gateway drug. But, to suggest a direct cause and effect relationship between using cannabis and progressing to hard drugs is patently false.

When it comes to opioids, we know that four out of five heroin users who started heroin after OxyContin came on the market started with prescription opioids. However, there is no such correlation between cannabis and opioids. In fact, to the contrary. Evidence suggests cannabis is likely an “exit drug,” helping individuals get off of opioids and use cannabis instead. In fact, states with medical marijuana laws experience significant drops (25% on average) in opioid-related overdoses than states without such programs.

In an age of alternative facts and fake news, it’s important to know the facts and combat misinformation. If we aren’t armed with knowledge, while resting on our laurels, all the progress that’s been accomplished in recent years could quickly reverse. For those of us who appreciate recent progress on the cannabis front, we have a responsibility to arm ourselves with facts and correct those who seek to spread disinformation and propaganda. Our freedom depends on it!

 

[roots69]

Do you have any suggestion on how a brother would get into this industry without picking up a quater pound and hitting the streets?

It all depends on the state you live in, every state will have different rules/laws... I would focus on growing flowers, the money is in the edibles, grows, concentrates!! But thats just my opinion.

 

[roots69]

Very informative thread, I just flipped through a special "WEED" edition from Newsweek magazine about the same subjects.

Thanks bruh!!! Im trying to put as much information as I can find in this thread.. I truly believe cannabis in this colony is our plant and it was made illegal to get it outta our hands.. Just like Jack Daniels and these other booze industries in this colony, these products were stolen from the copper color people of this colony and given a white face as the inventor!! But I digress!!

 

[roots69]

Rosn Tech: How To Make Solventless Hash Extractions with Ease
by Jasper Gillespie
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The rosin technique has been gaining a lot of traction in the online cannabis community as of lately and for good reason. Rosin is a solid form of resin that is obtained by adding pressure & heat to vaporize volatile liquid terpenes. Traditionally rosin is produced from pine and is used mainly to treat the bows on violins. However, this technique can be applied in other scenarios, such as creating solventless extractions from your dried herbs.

What Is Rosin? A Solventless Extraction Technique
Recently the rosin technique has been gaining a lot of traction in the cannabis industry as it is a simple and affordable way to produce a quality product, within seconds. This simple technique separates the resin from the plant material by using heat and pressure. The yields are much similar to other extraction techniques, ranging between 10-15% with flower and even more with dry sift/kief.

How To Make Cannabis Oil With Rosin Tech
The rosin technique is quick simple and affordable, allowing anyone to create quality solventless hash in a matter of seconds. To get started making rosin, one would only need a few basic tools in order to create a quality finished product, but not nearly as many as you need with other techniques. The tools needed to make rosin include:

• Flat Iron (2+” with temperature control) or other heat/rosin press
• Non-stick parchment paper
• Collecting device (TI dabber, razor blade, etc.)
• Processing material (flower, dry sift, bubble hash)
• 25u micron screen

Rosin Tech Steps:

• Step 1: Prepare your processing material by breaking it down to .2 – .5 increments. Cut 10-20 pieces of parchment paper in 4” x 8” strips. Preheat the flat iron to 200*F – 340*F (the lower the temp, the tastier the end-product). Lower temperatures (250°F- 300°F) = more flavor/terpenes, less yield, end material is more stable (shatter), where as higher temperatures (300°F- 335°F) = less flavor/terpenes, more yield, end material is less stable (sap). Some extraction artists claim the best way to make Rosin is at 302°F (150ºC), with 4-6 seconds of pressure, using just 0.25 gram samples in each run — but this process has not been confirmed by Medical Jane or any other official studies.
• Step 2: Take one of the small increments that you prepared and wrap it in the center of the 25u micron screen. Place the screen with the product on a piece of parchment paper and then fold the paper over, leaving the product in the center. Place the parchment paper on the flat iron and apply pressure for 3-5 seconds directly on the product.
• Step 3: Remove the pressure from the flat iron and take off the parchment paper, unfold the parchment paper. The starting product will be surrounded by the rosin, remove the product being careful to leave all of the rosin behind. Take your collecting device and scrape the parchment paper to collect all of the finished product.

This guide may be helpful for those who learn better by watching.


Rosin Tech & The Future of Cannabis Concentrates
What role will rosin tech play in the future of the cannabis industry? Rosin tech allows anyone to easily create quality solventless hash. This presents the potential for patients, as well as at-home connoisseurs to have access to pure clean medicine in a matter of seconds. The process required to create rosin only allows for a limited amount at a time, however with an industrial heat press you can increase the load and overall the yield.

This technique is also a great way to process lower grade bubble hash and dry sift into top-shelf full melt. Overall the rosin technique has shown a lot of potential and we’re excited to see where things are headed.

 

[roots69]

Cannabis Growing Methods
There are many different ways to grow medical marijuana. Which method is right for you depends upon your circumstances and what you want to invest in time, money and commitment. This guide will give you a good summary of the various methods and a short summary of their advantages and disadvantages.

Any of these methods will yield good results for a dedicated gardener. However, what you get out of it will depend upon what you put into it. A crop is subject to all kinds of threats, ranging from lack of water, to improper fertilizer, to bugs and animals that will eat it. If you really want good, high-grade marijuana you will have to put a little work into it, no matter which method you use.

The first step, of course, is to get some seeds or clones to get you started. Once you obtain these, you have to select a growing method:

1. Plain Dirt
This is the traditional method of growing anything. Just grow the marijuana as you would any other plant. Use good soil, and make sure that you keep it watered and properly fertilized.

Advantages:

• It is usually easier and cheaper than any other method.
• You can use standard nursery store fertilizers.

Disadvantages:

• Unless you get commercial growing soil, the soil can be of uncertain quality. You could lose a crop or have poor results because the minerals and nutrients in the soil are out of balance.
• Yields will probably not be as great as you will get with other methods.

2. Coco Fiber/Rock Wool
Instead of using soil as a medium to hold the roots, you can use an inert medium — something that does not have the quality problems found with ordinary soil.

Advantages:

• Almost as easy as growing marijuana in plain soil.
• Better yields than soil.
• Almost as cheap and simple as plain soil.
• The process is generally cleaner with fewer bugs and mess..

Disadvantages:

• Requires special fertilizers which are more expensive.
• Requires the purchase of coco fiber. This is not very expensive, but you may have to find a local store that stocks it.

3. Hydroponics
Hydroponics consists of growing the plants in something such as gravel, with no soil or vegetable matter in the mix. The gravel will be contained in pots or troughs. Water with a light mix of special fertilizers will be either poured through the gravel, or the troughs will be flooded with the fertilizer several times throughout the day.

If you view roots grown in hydroponics versus those grown in plain soil, you will see an immediate difference. While roots grown in soil have a big tap root, the roots grown in hydroponics will have no major tap root, but will consist of a huge bunch of small, clean white hairs.

Advantages:

• Much bigger yields than the previous methods.
• Cleaner because no soil is used.

Disadvantages:

• Costs a lot more because it requires troughs, pumps, and reservoirs to hold the water/fertilizer mixture.
• Requires a lot more labor. You will need to monitor pH and nutrient levels to make sure they stay within proper limits.
• It takes more equipment. Therefore it may take more room.

4. Aeroponics
Aeroponics consists of growing roots in plain air. The plants are held in a mesh basket, hanging out in the air, and the water and fertilizer is continuously sprayed over the roots. This method produces roots that are even more amazing than hydroponics.

Advantages:

• Fastest growth and biggest yields of all. Results can be spectacular.

Disadvantages:

• Costs more than growing in soil because it requires equipment similar to that used in hydroponics.
• Requires more labor. In order to get good results, it must be monitored on a daily basis.
• Very sensitive to mistakes. You must keep the nutrients and pH in a specific range for optimum results. If the measures of nutrients and pH in your water gets out of limits, you can have really bad results in a big hurry.

5. Aquaponics
One particular alternative method that has gained popularity goes by the name of Aquaponics. Aquaponics is a combination of two traditional food production techniques: Hydroponics & Aquaculture. The concept of aquaponics is based around the idea of raising fish and growing plants together in one integrated and soil-less system. The fish and the plants form a symbiotic relationship in which the fish are providing the plants with a food source, and the plants are acting as a natural filter to cleanse the water the fish live in. When operated inside a climate-controlled greenhouse, aquaponics systems are capable of producing premium quality, organic plants and fish anywhere, during any time of the year.

The key component to a thriving aquaponics system is the beneficial bacteria responsible for converting fish waste, decaying plant matter, and uneaten food into ammonia and other compounds that are consumed by the plants. This naturally occurring, nitrifying bacteria, inhabit every and all surfaces of your aquaponics system, especially the grow medium in the hydroponics system.

Types of Grow Lights

Fluorescent
Fluorescent grow lights are popular for propagation, early vegetative growth and over-wintering semi-hardy and tender plants. T5 fluorescents are the most modern type. They are available as single, daisy-chainable strips or in panel arrays. Lamps need to be matched to the fixture (high output “HO” or very high output “VHO”). Different spectral distribution lamps are available-most common are “daylight” and “bloom.” Daylight lamps are used for propagation, vegetative growth and over-wintering. Bloom lamps are commonly used as side-lighting for larger plants flowering indoors.

High Intensity Discharge (HID)
High Intensity Discharge (HID) grow lights are the most common type of grow light for general purpose indoor applications because they are extremely efficient and capable of producing intense light indoors. Metal Halide “MH” lamps give off a bluish spectrum, perfect for vegetative growth. They also contain some ultra violet radiation “UV” which is useful for combating pests, molds and promoting the production of essential oils in aromatic crops. High Pressure Sodium “HPS” emit a yellow / orange light that simulates the fall sun-perfect for flowering and fruiting. Many growers combine HPS and MH lamps to provide a better overall light spectrum for their plants.

Plasma
Plasma is a relatively new lighting technology which is still proving to be prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of consumers. Plasma grow lights offer higher efficiency than HID, longer lamp life and less depreciation, and improved output spectrum-especially for vegetative growth.

Light Emitting Diode (LED)
LED technology is perhaps one of the quickest developing areas with significant progress occurring on a regular basis. Some early panel LED fixtures entered the horticultural industry with grand claims that didn’t match up to reality. The marketplace has now matured somewhat and LED grow lights are beginning to find their place. Many medical marijuana growers use LED grow lights to supplement the spectrum of their existing grow light setup in order to steer plants into generative development (flowering and fruiting).

 

[roots69]

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So You Want To Build A Grow Facility…

The green rush is on! As everyone knows, Colorado is on the forefront of the cannabis revolution. Numerous other states, most notably Washington, on the adult-recreational side, and many others on the medical side, are following close behind.

Recent statistics shared by Chris Walsh with Marijuana Business Daily, at the CannaBusiness Money Show in Boston last week, put the legal cannabis industry at well over a billion dollars in 2014. The industry is then expected grow 40-60% annually for the next several years.

The Boston Money Show was sold out, as were similar shows in Chicago and San Francisco, with folks clamoring for information. Budding entrepreneurs were anxious to figure out how to involve themselves in the still early stages of this post-prohibition era.

My company, Your Green Contractor (YGC), has seen growth of well over 100% in the last couple of years (and we are a 17-year mature business) due in large part to our involvement in the building of grow facilities, retail dispensaries, MIPS kitchens and extraction rooms.

If you are interested in building a grow facility, keep in mind that local codes are CONSTANTLY changing as the local building departments and fire departments try to keep pace with the rapid rate of changes in the industry. In Denver, we receive fire code updates directly. The review requirements have changed twice in the last two weeks alone.

All of this means it is incredibly important to consult with an architect and/or contractor who is intimately familiar with the industry and up to date with the latest changes.


Starting a New Project
If you are not dissuaded from jumping in yet, let’s talk about a few issues to keep an eye on specifically related to building a grow facility. Let’s assume you already have a space secured and you are lucky to only be paying two-to-three times the normal market rate due to your chosen industry.

Hopefully, you have had a contractor helping you to evaluate your potential buildings, so you are prepared with budget costs. These costs may include upgrading the electrical service and reinforcing the roof to support the numerous new heating and cooling (HVAC) units that are going to be required for your nursery, veg and flower rooms. Click here and scroll down to “White Papers” and enter your e-mail address for an instant downloadable white paper on what to look for when evaluating a potential grow building.

From there, you will need to have an in-depth conversation with your contractor regarding the way that you are planning to grow. We have built dozens of grow facilities and the one thing we have learned is that no two growers are producing cannabis the same way. Some are in soil, some are going hydroponic, and others are utilizing mediums such as coconut shells. Some are watering by hand, others are automatic. Some are in pots, others are on tables. Some are using CO2, others are conventional. Some are utilizing movable lighting gantries, others are using fixed lights. The variances are unlimited, so even if you have a contractor that is well versed in the industry, you still need to take the lead in explaining your building requirements.

Determining Project Timing
A key element of early conversations is to talk about timing. Many growers do not have a good understanding of the timeframes for projects. There are three key elements of project timing:

1. Design

• Architectural Drawings (Complete Set)
• Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) Drawings (must be completed by a licensed engineer to make sure that your spaces function properly. It is of utmost importance that you don’t overload the electrical system and burn down your (or your landlord’s) building.

The Design process can take from 4-8 weeks depending on the size and complexity of the project and also how busy your architect is. A quick tip: If the architect is not busy, you probably don’t have the right one.

2. Plan Submittal and Review

• Submit completed sets of drawings to the local building department
• Submit the same completed sets of drawings to the fire department
• Check with the local water department. Often they are not related to the building department and will require a separate application for the water tap.

Plan review times vary GREATLY from one jurisdiction to another, and can take from 2-8 weeks, or longer if there are comments and revisions are needed. Plan on the longer time frame and you will be pleasantly surprised if the permit arrives more quickly. Some jurisdictions have an “over-the-counter” permit option for simple projects. In our experience, there is no such thing as a simple marijuana related project and this quick permit will NEVER be available. A quick tip: The building department and fire department may or may not be one in the same. These departments rarely talk to each other, so do NOT assume that the plans you submit to the building department will be coordinated with the fire department.

3. Construction

Once you have a complete design and a permit has been issued, you are on the home stretch! It is difficult to talk about durations for the construction as we have built grows from less than 1,000 square feet to over 80,000 square feet, but we will offer a bit of advice.

After receiving the permit, your contractor should be able to give you a schedule, IN WRITING, with a project completion date, as well as key milestone dates along the way. Milestones may include passing rough inspections, pouring the floor back after underground plumbing, deliveries of major equipment, etc.

If you are supplying items outside of your contract with your contractor, such as grow lights, find out when these items are needed. You do not want to be the reason for a delay to the schedule.


There are also often outside vendors, who do not come under the control of the general contractor, but that need to be made part of the overall schedule. Your security contractor is a prime example. Typically the security folks are contracted directly with the grower, but having them in contact with the contractor from the beginning is crucial. Their wiring is typically installed at the same time as the electrician’s rough wiring, BEFORE the drywall is installed. Coming back in later to “fish” wires into finished walls is expensive and inefficient.

During construction, communication is inordinately important. Construction of grow houses has some nuances, but it is not difficult. What trips up projects most often is poor communication and assumptions made on both sides. Do NOT assume anything. Communicate regularly, and then communicate some more. Ask questions. Review the schedule regularly. If there is a change from the schedule it should be noted in writing.

Schedule changes could result from scope changes based on an inspector’s comments, subcontractor issues or errors or any other number of things. If a subcontractor causes a schedule slip, it is important for your contractor to show you on paper how they plan to regain the completion date.

Building a Grow Facility The Right Way
In conclusion, there are hundreds of variables that go into every construction project. Add to this that every jurisdiction interprets the code differently, and the number of potential pitfalls expands exponentially. Building a grow is not the same as building a car, where the process is repeated over and over again in a controlled environment. Every construction project is unique.

Choose your contractor carefully. Choose your contractor EARLY. Communicate with your contractor often. Be patient. Be pleasant with the City. And before you know it, you will be growing beautiful green plants that allow for a profit margin that most farmers can only dream about. The green rush in on! Are you ready to be a part of it?

 

[roots69]

Aquaponics: Hydroponics Meets Aquafarming

A report done recently by the UK’s Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) has discovered that about 1.2-2 billion tons of the food produced in developed countries is either wasted by poor storage, bad distribution, or rigorous quality standards. The current wasteful behavior is extremely ignorant, and accounts for 30-50% of the worlds produced food. Spoiling 2 billion tons of food also means that 35% of the world’s fresh water supplies are being wasted. Modern day agriculture uses 2.7 trillion cubic meters of water a year, which amounts to about 70% of the world’s freshwater use.

“…Engineers will play a crucial role in preventing future food loss and waste by developing more and more efficient ways of growing, transporting and storing foods.” – Tim Fox, IMechE Head of Energy & Environment

Nearly 12 million hectares of the world’s drylands, a piece of land the size of the United Kingdom, are being lost to a process called desertification every year. While droughts or floods can accelerate the degradation process, often times over-cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and faulty irrigation systems are to blame for the desert-like conditions. Although these drylands are losing their natural agricultural capabilities due to degradation, all is not lost.

IMechE reports that just one hectare of land can provide enough rice or potato for twenty-two people a year.

What this statistic suggests, is if alternative growing techniques were to be adopted, sustainable food systems could be easily created in places where in-ground agriculture is simply impossible around the world.


Alternative Growing Technique Using Fish Waste
One particular alternative method that has gained popularity goes by the name of Aquaponics, and is a combination of two traditional food production techniques, Hydroponics & Aquaculture. The concept is based around the idea of raising fish and growing plants together in one integrated, and soil-less system. The fish and the plants form a symbiotic relationship in which the fish are providing the plants with a food source, and the plants are acting as a natural filter to cleanse the water the fish live in. When operated inside a climate-controlled greenhouse, aquaponics systems are capable of producing premium quality, organic plants and fish anywhere, during any time of the year.

How does Aquaponics work?
The key component to a thriving aquaponics system is the beneficial bacteria responsible for converting fish waste, decaying plant matter, and uneaten food into ammonia and other compounds that are consumed by the plants. This naturally occurring, nitrifying bacteria, inhabit every and all surfaces of your aquaponics system, especially the grow medium in the hydroponics system.

While more than 50% of the waste produced by fish is ammonia-based urine, the other 50% is excreted in the form of fecal matter. The waste, along with decaying plant matter and un-eaten fish food, are then converted into to ammonia as well through a process called mineralization. Next the nitrifying bacterium converts the ammonia into nitrite, and then to nitrate, which plants readily uptake as nutrients. This leaves the water safe and clean so that it may be recycled back to the aquaculture tanks.
Although aquaponics systems are made up of about seven components, the three main components are the aquaculture tanks designated to raising the fish, the hydroponics bed for growing the plants, and the controlled beneficial bacteria. In order to help you fully understand aquaponics, we will first explain it’s two counterparts; Hydroponics & Aquaculture. When you look at how the pieces work independently, it is evident that aquaponics is nothing more than simple biology working its magic in a highly controlled environment.

Aquaculture
Aquaculture(also known as aqua-farming) is the raising of aquatic animals such as fish, snails, shrimp, or crustaceans (typically for food) in a symbiotic environment. It is reported that global aquaculture operations can account for producing half of the fish, and shellfish that is consumed by humans each year. However, a natural result of aquaculture is effluent rich water resulting from either uneaten fish food, or waste products from animals being raised. This requires a large amount of solids removal as well as bio-filtration.

Over the years farmers have experimented with new sustainable practices to lessen the biological and chemical pollution caused by their animals, as well as the dumping of waste water into the earth. Some farmers have experimented with dumping the nutrient rich water over their crops, as well as adding the solid waste to their compost to treat land. This is one of the discoveries that led to the the development of aquaponics.




Hydroponics
Hydroponics has been experimented with by The United States since the 40’s. The technique was developed at Purdue University, and worked by alternately flooding and draining a container holding gravel and the plant roots. This gave the plants a perfect balance of nutrient rich water and air. According to a 1938 Times magazine article, this technique was used during World War II in order to grow produce for large amount of people on the inhospitable Pacific Islands. While hydroponics has come a long way since then, the basics remain the same. It is a soil-less method of growing plants in which the roots are directly immersed in nutrient-rich water that is constantly being cleansed, oxygenated, and recycled back to the plant by a hydroponics pump. Plants are grown in an inert medium, such as gravel, expanded clay, or perlite, and almost any plant will grow in a hydroponics system. The system saves water costs, makes it easier to control and utilize nutrients (lower nutrition costs), and no nutrition pollution is poured into the earth like with typical farming methods.



Combining Aquafarming and Hydroponics
When you combine the two methods, you end up with an organic, self-sustaining mini ecosystem. The only thing you have to add once the tank has developed the beneficial bacteria, is the fish food. This saves thousands of dollars in nutrient costs, and hours of time that would have been spent mixing nutrient solutions if you were using a hydroponics system.

“Since no water escapes the system, aquaponics uses about one-tenth the amount of water as conventional farming, and nutrients are used much more efficiently.“

After allowing effluents from the fish to build up in the aquaculture tanks, the water is led to the plants in the hydroponics system, where the plants filter it out as food. Once the plants have absorbed their required nutrients, the remaining water (and a nontoxic level of leftover nutrients) are re-circulated straight back to the aquaculture tanks as clean, breathable water for the fish. In addition, plants can be grown very close, allowing you to grow much higher volumes of plants per square foot. The ability to stock high densities of fish allows plants to be grown rapidly in aquaponics systems. However, like nature, aquaponics is all about balance. There are many factors that go into aquaponics, and it is definitely not an ideal growing technique for unexperienced growers.

Although Tilapia are the most popular type of fish raised in the systems (for food purposes), farmers have been known to raise anything from goldfish to large mouth bass. The number of fish that can be raised in each tank is dependent upon the size of tank, and mode of filtration you are using. In larger tanks with proper filtration, growers sometimes stock up to ½ lb of fish per gallon, while smaller aquarium grows are typically limited to one gallon per ½ inch of fish.


The number of plants you can grow in an aquaponics system is a factor of the number & size of the fish, and the amount of food added daily. Some plants like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and other flowering plantshave higher nutritional demands than others, and will only thrive in a heavily stocked, time-honored system. The most popular plants grown in aquaponics include lettuce, spinach, arugula, basil, mint, watercress, chives, and most common houseplants.

Where is Aquaponics being used?
Many gardeners are building systems in their backyards, capable of producing hundreds of pounds of fish and vegetables a year. Home aquariums can even be combined with mini gardens that sit on top of the tanks in some of the simplest systems. Since these systems model biological cycles in a natural habitat, schools are building mini aquaponics systems in classrooms for educational purposes. Aquaponics is also being used commercially, but there are currently a limited number of large-scale operations. What are more prevalent are smaller operations like urban farms that are growing vegetables, fish, and herbs to sell to local restaurants and at farmers markets.


With the organic and healthy eating craze spreading like wildfire in the U.S., urban aquaponic farms are sprouting up providing ‘foodies’ everywhere with direct access to fresh and organically grown fruits, vegetables, and fish. In addition, many non profits are working to establish sustainable communities in undeveloped countries, as well as urban settings where agriculture was thought to be out of the question. The Urban Farming Guys is a public charity from inner-city Kansas dedicated to transforming entire communities into thriving and sustainable places for the next generation. They are providing everything from job creation, to healthy food directly onto plates of less fortunate community members. The Urban Farming Guys have even begun experimenting with solar powered aquaponics that would provide an alternative farming method to third world countries, where electricity is often times intermittent.

Our Visit to New Roots Aqua Farm
We visited an urban farm with a similar mission here in San Diego. The farm is located in City Heights, one of the most diverse, highly concentrated areas of retail outlets, restaurants, and supermarkets in the area. On our way to the farm we drove past concrete building after concrete building until finally, like an oasis in the desert,IRC New Roots Aqua Farm appeared on the left side of the street. The farm sat atop a concrete lot situated directly across the street from a number of ten-story high rises. In the middle of the nursery was a greenhouse containing a 1,200 square foot aquaponics system in which trays of basil, lettuce, tomatoes, and kale were thriving in extremely close quarters. One of the experienced farmers informed us that they could grow corn as close as 3″ to each other. We found this astonishing.

In addition, the farm pumps water from the tanks, out of the greenhouse to fertilize the outdoor crops. They also grew their own fish food in order to cut back on costs, and provide their fish with organic food. They explained to us that Duckweed was the perfect fish food to grow because it multiplied so quickly, and required little to no maintenance. In addition, the Duckweed tanks provide the perfect habitat for New Root’s baby fish to develop in until they can be moved to the larger tanks.


New Roots Aqua Farm harvest’s hormone-free tilapia in 700-gallon fish tanks, as well as organic vegetables and herbs which are sold at the City Heights Farmers’ Market every Saturday. The farm also has a very experienced grower onsite who offers plans for personal aquaponics systems. However, the operators of the farm explained to us that the farm’s main purpose is to provide the community access to locally grown, organic food that they would otherwise never get from city grocery stores such as Ralph’s. They also aim to provide the neighborhood’s large refugee population with an educational resource for those interested in growing their own food, as many did in their native countries.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a part of San Diego’s Food Security and Community Health (FSCH) program that aims to create sustainable, locally-grown, culturally-appropriate foods for San Diego’s low-income communities. City Heights residents interested in farming are invited to use one of 80 spaces designated for families to grow their own plots in the heart of the neighborhood, at the New Roots Community Farm. It is a great way for refugee families to gain direct access to nutrition, and provide some with their first opportunity to reconnect with the land in the United States. Michelle Obama referred to the IRC’s, New Roots Community Farm as a, “model for communities around the country.”

For additional information about aquaponics as well as FAQ, please visit Aquaponics.com.

Other Helpful Links:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics
  
• http://www.rescue.org/us-program/us-san-diego-ca/irc-aqua-farm-tours#Plants
• http://www.rescue.org/us-program/us-san-diego-ca/volunteer-work-days-new-roots
• http://www.rescue.org/us-program/us-san-diego-ca/fsch
• http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/
• http://cleantechauthority.com/revolutionizing-agriculture-with-aquaponic-process/

 

[roots69]

• 
  

Cooking with Cannabis

The ultimate free patient guide to cooking with medical marijuana


Intro to Cooking with Cannabis
If you have the luxury of being able to obtain your medicine from a legal dispensary near you, you may have noticed the large selection of edibles that are beginning to overflow the shelves. These pre-made, pre-packaged cannabis infused treats are more accessible to patients nowadays than ever before, but unfortunately many edibles still come packed with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and other unhealthy ingredients. While these processed food delights can be an easy way to get medicated on the go, many medical marijuana patients prefer making their own medicated snacks and infused meals — and for good reason. Join us as we explore all of the popular cannabis cooking techniques and become a master chef in no time!

Decarboxylation
Using cannabis as a medicine begins with understanding the basic science of decarboxylation, and why it is a crucial process in making edibles, tinctures and topical treatments. To get the full medicinal value out of your cannabis, it needs to be heated to a temperature that is just not possible to obtain in the human digestive system. The major downside of decarboxylating is that some of the more volatile terpenes (and other aromatics) that give the plant its signature aroma and flavor are lost during the process. Adding an equal amount of raw material to the decarboxylated materials may improve the taste and/or smell of your creations, but learning how to properly decarboxylate cannabis from the get-go will save you a lot of time, energy, money and product when cooking with cannabis.

The Decarboxylation Process
The predominant compounds found in cannabis are THCA and CBDA. THCA is the major cannabinoid in Cannabis, while CBDA predominates in fiber-type hemps. THCA and CBDA accumulate in the secretory cavity of the glandular trichomes, which largely occur in female flowers and in most aerial parts of the plants. The concentration of these compounds depends on the variety of cannabis and its growth, harvesting and storage conditions. When locked in their acidic forms, THCA and CBDA are not bioavailable to the body’s cannabinoid receptors. Occurring either naturally within the plant, or upon “decarboxylation” (heating the plant material), these acids are non-enzymatically decarboxylated into their corresponding neutral forms (THC and CBD).

THCA is non-psychoactive (meaning it does not produce mind and body altering effects). If you want to achieve the full psychoactive effects of your butters, fats, oils, sugars or alcohols, decarboxylating the plant material to convert the THCA to THC prior to infusion is essential.

Control of heating temperatures and times is critical when cooking with cannabis. Heating cannabis also converts THC to CBN. At about 70% decarboxylation, THC is converted to CBN at a faster rate than the THCA is converted to THC. Higher CBN levels will produce more sedative effects.

Studies show cannabidiol (CBD) has tremendous medical potential, especially in the treatment of seizure disorders and pediatric patients. Indications also suggest CBD lowers blood sugar, which makes it desirable for treating diabetes. Its sedative properties make it useful in the treatment of stress-related and sleep disorders. CBDA and CBD are non-psychoactive. Unlike THCA and THC, converting CBDA to CBD will not make a psychoactive product. CBD has a calming effect. This makes it ideal for treating children, the aged or patients that prefer less psychoactive effects. THC vaporizes quicker than CBD, so decarboxylating higher CBD varieties may produce higher CBD-enriched material. However, if you are not using a high CBD strain, extending the heating process may accomplish no more than burning off the THC.

There is much debate and opinion on this process and very little scientific evidence to establish the best method. The only real way to prove the safety, consistency and potency of your cannabis products is to have them lab tested.

How to Decarboxylate Cannabis
Forewarning: There will be a very strong odor of cannabis during this process.

1. Preheat oven to 225° F / 110° C.
2. Line an oven-safe dish (or a rimmed baking sheet) with parchment paper.
3. Breaking up cannabis buds into smaller pieces by hand, place the material in the dish close together but not stacked on one another (the less unused space the better).
4. When oven is pre-heated, bake for about 20 minutes to remove the moisture (depending on the freshness of the material). Watch for the plant color to get darker (a light to medium brown shade). When it is time to remove from the oven, the material should be crumbly looking.
5. Set plant material aside and wait until it is cool enough to handle. Turn oven up to 240° F / 115° C and wait for it to preheat again.
6. When the cannabis is cooled, lightly crumble by hand and distribute evenly over the bottom of the dish.
7. Cover dish with aluminum foil, crimping the edges tight to seal and return to the oven. Continue baking for another 45-60 minutes for higher THC and 60-90 minutes for higher CBD.
8. Remove from oven and allow to cool fully before removing the foil. Depending on the material you use, it may be fine enough and require no further processing. If not, you can place the material in a food processor or blender, pulsing the cannabis until it is coarsely ground. Be careful not to over grind the material, as you do not want a super fine powder.
9. Place in an airtight container (glass preferred) and store in a cool, dry place.

 

[roots69]

Cannabinoids 101
Cannabinoids are a diverse set of chemical compounds that bind to special receptors in the human body that make up what is known as the endocannabinoid system. The “key and lock” metaphor is often used to describe this process. The human body possesses specific binding sites (“locks”) on the surface of many cell types, and our body produces several endocannabinoids (“keys”) that bind to these cannabinoid receptors (CB) to activate or “unlock” them.

In 1992, researchers detected an endogenous substance that binds to cannabinoid receptors for the first time. This substance, known as anandamide, comes from the Sanskrit word “Ananda” for bliss and “amide” due to its chemical structure. A second endocannabinoid was discovered in 1995, 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG). These two endocannabinoids are the best studied so far. Today, it is thought that about 200+ related substances exist, which resemble the endocannabinoids and complement their function in what has been termed the “entourage effect.” Several endocannabinoids do not only bind to cannabinoid receptors, but also to a possible CB3 receptor (the GPR55 receptor), to vanilloid receptors and further receptors.

In addition to endocannabinoids, scientists have now identified cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant (phytocannabinoids) that work to mimic or counteract the effects of some endocannabinoids. Phytocannabinoids and terpenes are manufactured in resin glands (trichomes) present on the flowers and main fan leaves of late-stage cannabis plants. The amount of resin produced and its cannabinoid content varies by plant gender, growing conditions and harvesting time. The chemical stability of cannabinoids in harvested plant material is affected by moisture, temperature, light and storage, but will degrade over time in any storage conditions.

When a cannabinoid causes a receptor to act in the same way as it would to a naturally occurring hormone or neurotransmitter, then it is labeled “agonist.” On the other hand, if the cannabinoid prevents the receptor from binding to the naturally occurring compound, thereby causing the resulting event (e.g., pain, appetite, alertness) to be altered or diminished, it is labeled “antagonist.” Research is mounting to better understand how specific cannabinoids can unlock (or lock in some cases) specific receptors.

Over 100 phytocannabinoids have been identified in the cannabis plant, many of which have documented medicinal value. Most are closely related or differ by only a single chemical part. The most talked-about and researched cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for its psychoactive properties (“high feeling”) and cannabidiol (CBD) for its healing properties.

Cannabinoids can be administered by smoking, vaporizing, oral ingestion, transdermal patch, intravenous injection, sublingual absorption or rectal suppository.

Endocannabinoid System
An Endogenous Cannabinoid System (ECS), commonly referred to as an “Endocannabinoid System,” is found in every animal and regulates a broad range of biological functions. The ECS is a biochemical control system of neuromodulatory lipids (molecules that include fats, waxes, sterols and fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E and K and others) and specialized receptors configured to accept certain cannabinoids. In general, a given receptor will accept only particular classes of compounds and will be unaffected by other compounds, just as a specific key is needed to open a lock.

Specialized receptors are located throughout the human body, including but not limited to, in the hippocampus (memory, learning), the cerebral cortex (decision-making, emotional behavior), the cerebellum (motor control, coordination), putamen (movement, learning), the hypothalamus (appetite, body temperature) and the amygdala (emotions). When a specific cannabinoid or combination of cannabinoids bind to a specialized receptor, an event or a series of events, is triggered in the cell, resulting in a change in the cell’s activity, its gene regulation and/or the signals that it sends to neighboring cells. This process is called “signal transduction.”

Clinical endocannabinoid deficiency (CEDC) is a proposed spectrum disorder that has been implicated in a range of illnesses, including fibromyalgia, migraine and irritable bowel syndrome. So far, very little clinical research has been conducted on this speculative disorder. It is quite possible that these very common conditions may respond favorably to cannabinoid therapies. However, this will only happen if more research is conducted.

Cannabinoid Receptors
The primary cannabinoid receptors are identified as Cannabinoid type 1 receptors (CB1-R) and Cannabinoid type 2 receptors (CB2-R). The receptors can be “unlocked” by three kinds of cannabinoids:

1. Endocannabinoids – endogenous-fatty-acid cannabinoids produced naturally in the body (e.g., anandamide and 2-AG)
2. Phytocannabinoids – concentrated in the oily resin of the buds and leaves of plants such as cannabis (e.g., THC and CBD)
3. Synthetic cannabinoids – manufactured by artificial means such as in a laboratory

First detected in the brain, science now shows that CB1-R are also located in many other organs, connective tissues, gonads and glands. CB1-R are not found in the medulla oblongata (the part of the brain stem responsible for respiratory and cardiovascular functions). CB1-R play an important role in the coordination of movements, spatial orientation, sensory perceptions (taste, touch, smell, hearing), cognitive performance and motivation.

The most important function of the CB1-R is the reduction of excessive or inadequate signaling by the neurotransmitters (messengers) in the brain. By the activation of the CB1-R, the hyperactivity or hypoactivity of the messengers (e.g., serotonin, dopamine) is regulated back into balance. For example, when THC binds to CB1-R, activity in the pain circuits is inhibited, thus resulting in reduced pain. Many other symptoms such as nausea, muscle spasticity and seizures can be alleviated or diminished with cannabinoid therapy.

CB2-R are primarily associated with the immune system and found outside of the brain in such places as the gut, spleen, liver, heart, kidneys, bones, blood vessels, lymph cells, endocrine glands and reproductive organs. For example, CBD is keyed to CB2-R, and good evidence shows CBD is a beneficial therapeutic strategy to lessen the impact of inflammatory and neuro-inflammatory diseases. Until recently, it was believed that CB-2R played no role with nerve cells or bundles. However, studies now show that it also plays an important role in the signal processing of the brain.

A third receptor that gets little attention is the transient receptor potential vanilloid-type one (TRPV1). The function of TRPV1 is to detect and regulate body temperature. In addition, TRPV1 is responsible for the sensations of extreme external heat and pain and is subject to desensitization. Therefore, if continuously stimulated, the pathway will eventually slow down or even stop. This raises therapeutic possibilities for agents to effectively treat certain kinds of neuropathic pain.

New vs. Old Science
Since the initial discovery of the CB1 receptor site by Allyn Howlett and William Devane in 1988, it has been an “accepted” fact that CBD, unlike THC, has little binding affinity for the CB1 receptor. Unfortunately, this assumption was not based on science. New data emerging from the international cannabinoid research community indicates that CBD interacts directly with the CB1 receptor site in ways that are therapeutically relevant. CBD parks at a different docking site on the CB1-R that is functionally distinct from THC’s orthosteric binding site. CBD attaches to what’s known as an “allosteric” binding site on CB1-R. When CBD docks at the receptor, it does not initiate a signaling cascade. It does, however, influence how the receptor responds to stimulation by THC and the endogenous cannabinoids. Allosteric modulation of CB1-R changes the conformation (shape) of the receptor, and this can have a dramatic impact on the efficiency of cell signaling.

A positive allosteric modulator that enhances CB1 receptor signaling indicates that CBD could be helpful treating diseases linked to endocannabinoid deficits (such as anorexia, migraines, irritable bowel, fibromyalgia, and PTSD), in addition to treating conditions associated with endocannabinoid excess or overactivity (obesity, metabolic disorders, liver disease, cardiovascular issues).

Entourage Effect
The concept of the entourage effect was introduced in 1998 by Israeli scientists Shimon Ben-Shabat and Raphael Mechoulam. The theory is that cannabinoids within the cannabis plant work together through a network of coincidental relationships as part of a greater organism and affect the body in a mechanism similar to the body’s own endocannabinoid system. Basically, these compounds work better together than in isolation.

The longstanding, successful use of cannabis as a whole makes it necessary to find a rationale for its medicinal superiority in comparison to products containing isolated, single components of the cannabis plant, or synthetic cannabinoids trying to replicate the natural components.

Research on the benefits of THC and CBD in isolation is well established. THC demonstrates analgesic, anti-emetic, and anti-inflammatory properties. CBD possesses anti-psychotic, anti-seizure, and anti-anxiety properties. However, evidence is mounting that by isolating these cannabinoids or creating them in a lab, that the resulting effects may have limited therapeutic use. It is also the reason visits to a doctor or emergency room have increased. When delivered in high concentrations, THC can cause overdosing. Although an acute THC overdose rarely requires medical intervention, the side effects can be very unpleasant. Good evidence now shows that THC and CBD work together. CBD is known to lock out THC at the CB1-R. Therefore, applying the entourage effect, increasing CBD in the case of an overdose may lessen the effects of THC.

The synthetic cannabinoid, Marinol, is another example. Marinol is a pure, synthetic form of THC. When the drug was first introduced in the mid-80s, it was thought it would have the same effect as the cannabis plant as a whole. However, it soon became clear that most patients were not responding the same as when THC is consumed by smoking or ingesting naturally-grown cannabis. Researchers soon realized that other compounds, such as CBD and various terpenes, play a larger role than previously realized.

List of Cannabinoids
CBD
Cannabidiol (CBD)
Not all cannabinoids are colorless. One of the most brightly yellow-colored cannabinoids is CBD, a very valuable cannabinoid. CBD has tremendous medical potential. This is particularly true when the correct ratio of CBD to THC is applied to treat a particular condition. CBD acts as an antagonist at both the CB1 and CB2 receptors, yet it has a low binding affinity for both. This suggests that CBD’s mechanism of action is mediated by other receptors in the brain and body.
Click here to learn more
THC
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)
Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is a phytocannabinoid, and typically the most abundant cannabinoid present in cannabis products on the market today. THC can be derived from THCA by non-enzymatic decarboxylation during storage and consumption. It is responsible for the well-documented psychoactive effects experienced when consuming cannabis. When you smoke or ingest cannabis, THC travels into the bloodstream and eventually binds to cannabinoid receptors throughout your body. These receptor sites affect memory, concentration, pleasure, coordination, sensory and time perception, appetite and many more important functions. Mild side effects of larger doses of THC can include anxiety, elation, burning eyes, dry mouth, shaking/trembling, increased heart rate and/or shortness of breath (or at least the perception of such) and short-term memory loss. Smoking or ingesting too much THC in a short period of time can intensify and alter its effects.
Click here to learn more
THCA
Tetrahydrocannabinolic Acid (THCA)
THCA is the main constituent in raw cannabis. THCA converts to Δ9-THC when burned, vaporized, or heated at a certain temperature. THCA, CBDA, CBGA, and other acidic cannabinoids hold the most COX-1 and COX-2 inhibition, contributing to cannabis’ anti-inflammatory effects. This cannabinoid also acts as an antiproliferative and antispasmodic.
Click here to learn more
CBDA
Cannabidiolic Acid (CBDA)
CBDA, CBD-acid or CBD-a is the main form in which CBD exists in the cannabis plant, along with THCA (THC-acid). CBD is obtained through non-enzymatic decarboxylation from the acidic form of the cannabinoid, this reaction taking place when the compounds are heated. Heating or catalyzing CBDa transforms it into CBD, thereby increasing the total CBD level. Research shows higher concentrations of CBDA displayed more pronounced antimicrobial activity than CBD alone.
Click here to learn more
CBDV
Cannabidivarin (CBDV)
Like THCV, CBDV differs from CBD only by the substitution of a pentyl (5 carbon) for a propyl (3 carbon) sidechain. Although research on CBDV is still in its initial stages, recent studies have shown promise for its use in the management of epilepsy. This is due to its action at TRPV1 receptors and modulation of gene expression.
Click here to learn more
CBG
Cannabigerol (CBG)
A non-psychoactive cannabinoid, CBG’s antibacterial effects can alter the overall effects of cannabis. CBG is known to kill or slow bacterial growth, reduce inflammation, (particularly in its acidic CBGA form,) inhibit cell growth in tumor/cancer cells, and promote bone growth. It acts as a low-affinity antagonist at the CB1 receptor. CBG pharmacological activity at the CB2 receptor is currently unknown.
Click here to learn more
CBN
Cannabinol (CBN)
CBN is a mildly psychoactive cannabinoid that is produced from the degradation of THC. There is usually very little to no CBN in a fresh plant. CBN acts as a weak agonist at both the CB1 and CB2 receptors, with greater affinity for CB2 receptors than CB1. The degradation of THC into CBN is often described as creating a sedative effect, known as a “couch lock.”
Click here to learn more
CBC
Cannabichromene (CBC)
Evidence has suggested that it may play a role in the anti-inflammatory and anti-viral effects of cannabis, and may contribute to the overall analgesic effects of medical cannabis. A study done in March 2010 showed that CBC along with cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have antidepressant effects. Another study showed that CBC helps promote neurogenesis.
Click here to learn more
THCV
Tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV)
THCV is a minor cannabinoid found in only some strains of cannabis. The only structural difference between THCV and THC is the presence of a propyl (3 carbon) group, rather than a pentyl (5 carbon) group, on the molecule. Though this variation may seem subtle, it causes THCV to produce very different effects than THC. These effects include a reduction in panic attacks, suppression of appetite, and the promotion of bone growth.
Click here to learn more

 

[roots69]

Weed Should Be Legalized

Recreational marijuana users are looked down on by many people in society. People are called trashy, good for nothing, and “bums” because of their use of a plant. Marijuana has been proven to be less harmful than alcohol and cigarette use, so the underlying question is: why? Although cannabis has some effects to the usage of it, alcohol usage causes a greater effect, yet businesses allow it to be distributed without the blink of an eye. In the long run, the sale of weed will boost the economy and may lessen criminal charges that are added into the crime rate. Marijuana should be legal because it is proven to be less harmful than various substances sold daily in society and was made illegal because of poorly researched information by the government in the late 1800s to early 1900s.

Marijuana is a plant in which, if smoked, does not show to have much respiratory health effects. Cigarettes have shown to have a huge correlation to cancer and other respiratory related illnesses, but companies distribute them as if the product will have no effect on the consumers’ health. In the American Journal of Public Health, it states that the choice, “...was never marijuana instead of alcohol and tobacco… but rather marijuana in addition to alcohol and cigarettes.” But, if you think about it, that does not seem too horrendous.

Marijuana is legal for consumers for recreational use in Colorado. Of course, just like alcohol, regulations are placed upon how much marijuana a citizen can purchase at one time (Colorado Pot Guide). In order to purchase cannabis you must be 21 years old, you can only purchase one ounce of marijuana in total a day and seven grams per transaction, and you can only purchase cannabis from eight in the morning to seven at night (Colorado Pot Guide). If you drive under the influence with alcohol in the U.S. you can receive a DUI and become arrested if you are over the limit prohibited of the substance. As for weed in Colorado, the legal limit is five nanograms per millimeter of blood (Colorado Pot Guide).

Every day you hear stories about people wrecking their car drunk and threatening their life or people dying from cancer because they smoked everyday of their life. You do not typically hear is that lives are being damaged because of marijuana use. Honestly, marijuana should have been the most easy to legalize because of the effects it has on your body and health compared to alcohol consumption and cigarette use. Coming from a home where your parents smoke cigarettes their whole life and knowing you cannot stop their health from declining is heart breaking. No child wants to think about their parents dying from cancer due to something that could have been prevented.

Marijuana started to be seen as a “bad” recreational substance from the 1900s to the 1920s (Marijuana Timeline). During this time period Mexican immigrants were flooding into the United States and introduced the recreational use of the marijuana leaf (Marijuana Timeline). Since discrimination against these newly imported immigrants was at a high, no one really took the time to research what marijuana really was (Marijuana Timeline). Anti-drug contributors glorified the fact that the reason cannabis was in America was because of immigrants (Marijuana Timeline). The Marijuana Tax Act was placed upon Americans in 1937 restricting marijuana use aside from extreme medical causes and industrial uses (Marijuana Timeline). More research and projects should have happened to have made cannabis illegal because the reason it was made illegal are not intact (Marijuana Timeline).

Something that is eye-opening to me is that someone almost got their child taken due to cannabis use. In Michigan a woman named Maggie was pregnant (Figueroa). Maggie used marijuana to treat health disturbances and help with her pregnancy since she was not gaining the appropriate amount of weight; the cannabis helped her (Figueroa). Keeping in mind Maggie is a legalized medical marijuana user, one would understand that during pregnancy the treatment would be continuous (Figueroa). Maggie was drug tested in the hospital during labor and when the child was born and tested positive with THC in his system it caused a Child Protective Service months-long investigation (Figueroa). The case ended up being dropped, but, the torment Maggie had to be put through was astonishing. Especially because if you smoke cigarettes while pregnant, sure it is looked down upon, but it would not result in your baby being taken from you even though it has a huge correlation to baby deformities. Statistics show that women who smoke cigarettes during pregnancy heighten the chance of their child having a birth defect (Goodman 1). Mothers who smoked cigarettes during pregnancy had babies at risk twenty to thirty percent more likely to have a birth defect than mothers that do not smoke (Goodman 1). In contrast studies correlating marijuana use to birth defects are not as prevalent (Baby Blog). In one study which encompassed 12,825 cases done after delivery did not find an association between cannabis use and birth defects (Baby Blog).

After thinking and researching for long periods of time, one can conclude marijuana use should be legalized for recreational use. Not only are cigarettes and alcohol less harmful but also the plant does not show correlation to the illnesses that may come along with alcohol and cigarettes. Marijuana should be legal because it is less damaging than many other substances and the reason it was made illegal is based on ignorance and discrimination.

 

[LennyNero1972]

Thanks bruh!!! Im trying to put as much information as I can find in this thread.. I truly believe cannabis in this colony is our plant and it was made illegal to get it outta our hands.. Just like Jack Daniels and these other booze industries in this colony, these products were stolen from the copper color people of this colony and given a white face as the inventor!! But I digress!!

Exactly they definitely don't want us to capitalize on this ZILLION DOLLAR industry.

 

[roots69]

Talking to Your Doctor About Medical Marijuana

It Can Be Easier than You Think

THC Design's Future Berries (above) is an indica-dominant strain that many medical marijuana patients consume to help manage medical conditions such as chronic and acute pain, sleep disorders, and anxiety. This California estate-grown cannabis was also cultivated using Oregon Tilth Certified Organic standards, sustainable water and energy-efficient practices, to bring patients the cleanest, reliable product.


For more than half a century, Americans have been told one mistruth after the other about marijuana. However, as the country is becoming more educated about cannabis, what it is, and how the plant can play a role in improving overall health and wellness, Americans’ understanding of marijuana is changing.

In fact, today, more than two-thirds of the country already passed responsible medical marijuana laws and more than 82% of Americans support legalizing medical marijuana.

As Baby Boomers continue to grow wiser, many of them are turning to cannabis—a plant scientifically proven to be less harmful than alcohol and tobacco (two legal substances under federal law)—to help improve their brain function and overall health and wellness, to decrease consumption of powerful prescription painkillers, and to stay active in the workforce.

More of the Silent Generation—the generation sandwiched between the Greatest Generation and the Boomers—is also exploring medical cannabis for the same reasons. More and more of them are also turning to cannabis as a viable medical alternative to help manage and treat a variety of conditions such as managing pain, migraines, epilepsy, ADD/ADHD, PTSD, depression, Crohn's disease, appetite, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), arthritis, lupus, autism, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, nausea, reducing inflammation, and anxiety.

However, many are finding themselves stumped as to how to start the conversation with their general practitioners. After talking with countless of THC Design seniors and Boomers, we created a list of tips to help navigate this important first step in the process: talking openly with your doctor about medical marijuana.

Qualifying Conditions
Before talking with your doctor, you will want to know if your medical conditions qualify you for a medical marijuana recommendation.

Do your homework.
Take the time to understand your condition and how medical marijuana may help you. Don’t be afraid to bring articles or documentation to your doctor’s office explaining and supporting your reasonings and experiences.

Be your own best health advocate.
No one can help keep an eye on your own health more than you. Openly tell your doctor that you would like to explore medical cannabis as an option.

Be prepared.
Talk openly with your doctor about your condition and why you think medical marijuana may help you. Bring any relevant medical records related to your condition and symptoms to your doctor’s appointment. It is wise to share as much information as you can with your doctor, and there are a ton of great websites and materials out there that will help get you started. Go over a list of terminology so you won’t be stumped by any of the lingo, it's another pro-move too.

Not all doctors are created equal.
Some doctors will be more open, more educated, and more up to speed on the latest medical marijuana research than others. Ask your doctor if he or she has taken any educational programs or workshops on medical marijuana.

Be honest and direct with your doctor.
Your conversations between you and doctor are private. There is nothing wrong or illegal about exploring medical marijuana as an alternative medical treatment. These conversations are are also protected under the law, and physicians are accustomed to patients making suggestions about their treatments.

Continue to ask questions.
Talk to your doctor about what ailment you are trying to treat or what consumption method are you thinking of using (flower, vaporizing, topicals, pills, tinctures, etc.), along with what dosage and the different type of strains of cannabis are used to treat different your condition to ensure your find the right match for you.

Ask for your physician a recommendation.
If your condition qualifies, you should be able to obtain a doctor’s authorization and obtain a medical marijuana card to help treat your condition, so you are able to legally visit a cannabis dispensary near you and purchase a variety of medical marijuana products.

Know you have options.
If your physician for some reason isn’t comfortable writing a medical marijuana recommendation, ask ask him or her for a referral to another physician or clinician who is. Medical cannabis practitioners can also be identified through sites like the Medicinal Marijuana Association.

Obtain a medical marijuana card & head to the dispensary.
Prior to heading out to the dispensary, you will need to show proof of residency, that you have an eligible condition, and that a doctor signed your medical recommendation, so you can obtain a medical marijuana card.

Once you have your medical marijuana card, you are ready to head to the dispensary and start exploring how medical marijuana may help you improve your overall quality of life. Most doctors want you to be as healthy as you can be, so while you may find it difficult starting that initial conversation, once you do, you’ll likely find yourself on path to better health.

 

[roots69]

Exactly they definitely don't want us to capitalize on this ZILLION DOLLAR industry.

You aint kidding!! Thats reason #1 why we gotta teach and share with each other how this plant grows and all the things we can do with our plant!! Anyway, enjoy the information and hopefully someone will read the thread and become the Starbucks of the cannabis world!!

 

[roots69]

LED Lights For Growing Indoor Marijuana

In this article we will discuss:

The advantages and disadvantages of using LED lights

• LED lights compared to other lights

• How do LED lights work?

• The LED lens

• High powered LEDs (HPLEDs) and low powered LED

• Making high-intensity white LEDs (WLEDs)

• Differences in price and quality

• Common problems with LEDs and how to avoid them

• Best LED lights compared

When creating an indoor setup for growing marijuana, one of the most important decisions is what kind of lights to use. In this article, we'll cover a few of the different options and details about LED lights.

LED grow lights have not always been popular with marijuana growers. However, technology has improved, and so have LED lighting systems. Although they would not have been a reasonable choice for marijuana growers five or ten years ago, they are becoming more popular every day. We can now find LED lights not only in the marijuana grow room, but also in cars, offices, and homes.

Many people swear by LEDs instead of HID setups, asserting that they are a far superior and more energy conscious option. If you go with LEDs, you will save energy, money, and management time.


The advantages and disadvantages of using LED lights - Image powered by Walkallday.com

While LEDs sure sound amazing at first, this does not necessarily mean that they are the right light choice for you and your indoor marijuana grow setup. Let’s go over some of the major pros and cons that come with using LED lights.

Advantages
First and foremost, the energy savings are enormous. If you compare using an LED light for the same purposes as you would an HID light, using the LED light will save you about 40% of the energy consumption. They also last a lot longer. You can expect between 50,000 and 60,000 hours of working use of an LED light, compared to between 2,000 and 3,000 hours with an HID light. This is because LED lights don’t have a filament to burn.

LED lights take up less space, emit light faster, and are more durable and shock-resistant than HID lights. They also have a much lower heat output, therefore lowering the need to keep your grow room cool. This reduces the risk of fire significantly. HID lights will become very hot, but good LED lights feel cool when you touch them, even after running for several hours.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

LED lights focus using the lenses, which means there is less of a need for reflectors like HID lights, which disperse the light without focusing and, therefore, need an external means of focusing. HID lights need approximately 100 to 150 Watts of more power than LED lights since there is power management built into the LED lights. HID lamps require external ballasts and, therefore, add extra watts of consumption.

LED lights turn instantly on and off, unlike HID lamps, which need to warm up before being fully lit. LED lights can even be dimmed quite easily. Classified as “Class 1 LED product,” LEDs are considered a safer lighting option. This is because they don’t have mercury like some other lights, such as compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs).

The efficiency of LEDs is particularly noticeable when compared to CFLs. You can expect to save about 50% of your energy bill when you choose an LED over a CFL.

Disadvantages
When using LED lights, precise power (current) management is necessary. Additionally, LED lights have higher upfront costs. That being said, they are less expensive over longer periods of time. LED lights particularly need more specific current and heat management than do HID lights, when they are powerful lights to be used to light entire large areas.

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LED lights vs. other lights

LED lights vs. other lights - Image powered by Growweedeasy.com

One of the biggest questions to consider is whether you should choose an LED light setup or one of the other options for an indoor grow setup. How do LED lights measure up to other types of grow lights? Let’s look at the differences in lighting.

LEDs vs. CFLs

LEDs vs. CFLs - Image powered by Growweedeasy.com

The most common light that has been traditionally used to grow marijuana is the CFL. CFLs are tried and true, having been used for generations, causing many growers choose to go with them, despite the fact that LEDs are often hailed as a more efficient technology. For people who have properly done their research on lighting systems, LEDs are almost always the winner. While CFLs needed to be adjusted pretty much on a daily basis, LED lights do not need this frequent maintenance.

LED lights also do not release the large amount of heat that CFLs do. They are well-equipped with cooling systems such as fans or heatsinks as well, which allows for an easier time of keeping the grow room at a temperature that isn’t too high (for the plants as well as the grower).

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

That all being said, there are some situations where using CFL lights makes more sense. One such situation is if your indoor growing area is on the shorter side. This is simply because LED lights need to be kept further away from the plants than CFLs do. Generally speaking, LED lights should be between twelve and eighteen inches above the canopy of your plants (although this should be cross-checked with the specific manufacturer) while CFLs just need a minimum of a few inches.

LEDs vs. MH/HPS


LEDs vs. HPS - Image powered by Estagecraft.com

While many growers choose either LEDs or MH/HPS lights, the fact is that combining the two might provide the most advantageous setup you can find. Without the scientific evidence to prove it, many growers will swear that HPS lights turn out much prettier buds while LEDs get them to be denser and more potent. Therefore, using both should give you the best of both worlds.

Many growers have specific requirements for their situation that make either LED or MH/HPS lighting a more logical choice. For instance, if you are trying to keep the upfront costs of your grow room as low as possible, using an HPS grow light during the flowering phase makes the most sense. If you compare electricity used to the resulting yield, MH/HPS lights will give you the best bang for your buck. Electricity aside, they also simply cost much less than LED lights.

There is also a higher degree of variability with LED lights. If you buy LED lights, you must always check the manufacturer’s information to know what “rules” to follow. MH/HPS lights, on the other hand, are highly standardized and the models all fall into the same category of rules for the most part.

Many assert that LED lights get a better quality bud than MH/HPS lights, however. More trichomes, greater potency, and a stronger natural taste and smell are all associated with using LED lights.

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How do LED lights work?

How do LED lights work - Image powered by Lumenelectronicjewelry.com

Most simply, LED lights use a current passing through a semiconductor to produce light. The energy (in the form of light) is released from moving electrons inside the semiconductor. They used to only be available in the red, but now they are available in any color, ranging from ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths.

The invention of LED lights is credited to H. J. Round, a British man from Marconi Labs who, in 1907, was the first to experiment with, and observe electroluminescence. Fast forward twenty years to when the actual invention of the first LED light finally came about. But even the Russian inventor, Oldeg Vladimirovich Losev, couldn’t find a practical way to use the light. It wasn’t until 1955 that Rubin Braunstein observed semiconductor alloys, and six years later, Texas Instruments took over with a patent.

LED colors
LED colors are made via electronic action occurring at the p-n junction. This junction is where the n-type and p-type semiconductor materials emit energy, resulting in the color of the light. This light wasn’t even observed until 1962, when Nick Holonyak, Jr., working with General Electric, witnessed the red LED light. His graduate student, named Craford, then invented the yellow LEDs and also made the reds and orange LEDs ten times as bright by the year 1972. Blue and white followed similar development, via other experimenters and companies.



3 band, 5 band, 11 band, and full spectrum LEDs
The different colors of LED lights actually stimulate and trigger different types of growth in marijuana plants, for example:

• LED lights within the blue spectrum spur vegetative growth.
• LED lights within the yellow, amber, red, and far-red spectrums spur pre-flowering and flowering stages, which includes reproductive growth.

Generally speaking, using lights to grow marijuana indoors can be successfully done from sprout to harvest by using between 420 and 730 nanometers (nm). Therefore, if you want to grow marijuana that ends up with a successful yield, you will need LED lights that include and use the full spectrum.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

If you choose an LED light that has only red or blue lights, it simply will not get your plants to grow to their full potential, like a white LED light (also known as a full spectrum LED light) would. White LED lights contain closer to the full spectrum, making them more similar to the sun than single color LED lights. Even red and blue lights together will not do it. You need white LED lights.

So what exactly are the other types of LED lights, such as the 3, 5, 6, 11, or 12 band LEDs that are advertised? These LEDs have a spectrum that includes those gaps. They might be 440, 470, 525, 640, 660, or 740 nanometers. These lights do not offer the same full spectrum that a proper white LED light would provide.

Instead of white LED lights, you will often find many different diodes on store shelves, or online. Some claim to be able to match the PAR spectrum more accurately than a white LED. When you shop for an LED light for your marijuana plants, you should be aware of the exact spectrum that it covers, and know whether it coincides with the PAR spectrum as closely as possible.

The fact about the PAR spectrum is that the better an LED light matches it, the more efficient the light will be. Less light will be wasted since there will be a higher ratio of usable light for your marijuana plants. This helps marijuana growers save on their power bill while simultaneously spurring better growth in your plants. There is also less heat loss, which means cooling your grow room is much easier with LED lights.

Thermal management of LED grow lights
LEDs don’t get as hot as other types of lights, and they are also far more efficient than other lights. This efficiency is because they don’t burn filament. The vast majority (95%) of an HID lamp’s energy is actually wasted as heat or radiation, therefore reducing its efficiency significantly. Since LEDs are generally cooler in temperature, they waste far less energy as heat.

When using LEDs or HIDs as grow lights, it’s important to take these heat differences into account. HIDs need to be situated several feet above the tops of your marijuana plants, for example, while LEDs can be kept really close to them (between one foot and 18 inches).

This does not mean, however, that LEDs have absolutely no heat issues associated with them. While they don’t feel warm because they aren’t emitting infrared radiation, the high powered LEDs are actually less efficient and, therefore, waste more heat than low powered ones.

If you have high-quality LEDs, they should have heat sinks that keep the heat under control. These heat sinks allow for the dissipation of unwanted heat. Any LED lights that are below 700 watts should use heat sinks to cool them. For high powered LED lights, heat sinks should include aluminum, copper, thermoplastics, or even graphite (for the most expensive option). A large surface area is required for the heat sinks to work efficiently, so don’t be surprised by odd fin shapes designed into some of the more expensive lights.

Because of the requirement for a large surface area, heat sinks will not be as practical of an option for the largest LED lights on the market. Therefore, some of these larger lights use passive heat sinks combined with fans to keep cool, although the best designs don’t need a fan at all because the sinks work well enough.

Whatever type of cooling system your LED light has, make sure it is high in quality. Low-quality cooling systems will cause your LED lights to deteriorate fast, so it’s better to pay the higher upfront costs to get your money’s worth in the long run.

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The LED lens

The LED lens - Image powered by Premierltg.com

One of the best qualities of an LED light is the fact that external reflectors are not needed to focus the light on one area efficiently, unlike HID lights. Instead of requiring these reflectors, LEDs use a lens to focus their lights onto a smaller area in full force. The plastic shell holds together the entire LED system: the “chip” that sits in the potting, which also serves as the lens for your LED, boosting the light out of the semiconductor. Depending on the quality of the way the chip was “potted,” the light output can vary considerably between cheap and very expensive options.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

Remember, the actual extraction of this light is equally important to the type materials being used for the semiconductor. This is why sometimes people prefer to purchase reflectors even though they have LED lights. Reflectors don’t need to be complex to be effective. If you are getting a lens instead, go for a Total Internal Reflective (TIR) lens because it is the most accurate and complete.

The best LED lens for directing light right onto the plants is one with a 90-degree angle, although some products are 120-degree angles. The typical output of an LED light is around 160 degrees. If you choose a lens that is too wide, it will cover a greater area but will be less efficient because less light energy will be hitting your plants, and instead, will just be wasted. Don’t buy an LED light without a lens.

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High powered LEDs (HPLEDs) and low powered LEDs


Regular LEDs use 30-60 milliwatts (mW), but higher powered LEDs use around 500 mW, or even more. The first 1-Watt LED light came out in 1999, but many people don’t understand the difference between a 1-Watt LED and a 3-Watt LED. To put it simply, the 3-Watt LED can run at 1 Watt, but the 1-Watt LED cannot run at more than 1 Watt because that is its limit. In other words, these names refer to the highest possible potential power output from the light.

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Making high-intensity white LEDs (WLEDs)


Since you already know that white LEDs are the best choice for growing your marijuana plants, let’s look at the different ways they are made. There are two primary methods used to produce high-intensity white LED lights.

The first method involves using one LED that just gives off three colors of light: red, green, and blue. These lights get mixed together to form one perfect white light. These lights are considered multi-colored white LEDs, or RGB LEDs, and are the most effective type of WLEDs.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

The second method requires you to use a phosphor-based semiconductor material that converts one color (blue or UV) into the full spectrum white light. These WLEDs are called phosphorus based white LEDs, and they are cheaper to produce (and buy) than the above version.

Another type of WLED does exist, but it is hardly worth mentioning because it has barely been developed. It uses zinc selenide (ZnSE).

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Differences in price and quality

Differences in price and quality - Image powered by Growweedeasy.com

To start with, it’s a given fact that almost every LED grow light that you will find in stores, even ones with American designs, will be produced in China. At a minimum, most or all of the different components will come from China. There is a difference in quality between the low, middle, and high prices LED lights, we’ll explain those differences to help you choose the best lights for your grow room setup and budget.

Low price
Generally speaking, LED lights in the low price range have a poor spectrum and are low in quality. They are generally UFO LEDs found online, often misrepresented as “full spectrum” LEDs that can easily be recognized by what they actually are due to the fact that they are clearly large blue and red LED lights in a cheaply made plastic shell.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

Because these are lower in quality and spectrum, they will hurt the growth and yield of your marijuana plants. Simply put, these LED lights are not recommended over HPS or MH system lights, making it not worth the money at all.

Middle price
These LED lights will be more reasonable in their quality. They will have a better shell, come with a built-in fan, and will come from higher quality brand names that should be familiar although they still will not have the full spectrum that their more expensive counterparts will. More likely is that they are models with either 6, 8, 11, or 12 bands. The primary function of these bands is that they will cover the entire PAR range, but not thoroughly; there will be some gaps missing throughout. This means that, although they are better than the lower quality version, they are not as close to the sun’s spectrum as you can get with LED lights.

High price
These are the types of LED lights that are going to get you the best results in terms of marijuana plant yield. They don’t need a fan to stay cool, they are built with the best materials, and they incorporate the entire spectrum, getting as close to the PAR (and, therefore, are the most sun-like) as possible. These models should cover a range from 420 to 750 nanometers. Sometimes they will appear dim or dead to people because of the far-red part of the spectrum, which is 710 to 850 nanometers and is hard to see with many people’s eyes.

The highest quality LED lights will be from companies such as Cree, Bridgelux, or Epistar. The lights have the highest thermal engineering, allowing them to operate without a fan and still stay cool. You can rest assured that plants growing under these lights will reach their maximum yield potential, helping you end the season with a fantastic product. Although the costs are higher for these LED lights, the results are equivocal, making it well worth the extra spending.

Reputable LED brands
Whatever type of LED light you buy, make sure you choose one from a reputable source. The problem with there being so many options these days is that plenty of those options are sub-par, meaning consumers need to do their research before buying. Ask in-depth questions about the light intensity and the spectrum, and check for the most highly recommended products around.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link and learn to grow like a pro

We can recommend a few brands although there are certainly more brands out there that have similar high-quality LED lights. Some of the best brands for LEDs that grow marijuana include Advanced Platinum Grow Lights, GalaxyHydro LED Grow Lights, Pro-Glow LED Grow Lights, Kind LED Grow Lights, and Advance Spectrum LED Grow Lights. Be sure to do your own research into these brands and others to find the brand that is right for you.

• Advanced platinum grow lights:
  These lights are a fairly recent development on the market, but this in no way means they are lower quality than other, older brands. These lights are usually a reasonable price, come with good customer service, and even have a trusted warranty that lasts for 5 years on all of their models. Their models include the Advanced Platinum P150, P300, P450, and the P600. All of these models work best in different grow room setups, so be sure to read into it and ask questions about specific models if necessary.
• GalaxyHydro LED grow lights:
  Like the Advanced Platinum Grow Lights, GalaxyHydro is also a relatively new brand. The results from their lights are consistently positive, however, and we can recommend the GalaxyHydro 300W LED Panel, the GalaxyHydro “Roleadro” COB 200W, 270W, or 400W LED Grow Light, and the 300W “Full Spectrum” LED Grow Light.
• Pro-Glow LED grow lights:
  These lights are considered some of the most expensive, but also the highest quality ones on the market. You can find all sorts of research and records online showing their positive results, so if you have the money and really want to do it right, the Pro-Glow lights are worth it. The models include the PG-180 LED Grow Light, the PG-400, the PG-X5-300, the PG-400X, and the PG-750.
• Kind LED grow lights:
  These LEDs have skyrocketed in popularity in recent months among the marijuana-growing crowd. They provide numerous available models, but so far the only one used and recommended for marijuana plants is the K3 L600 model.
• Advance Spectrum LED grow lights:
  Not quite as much is known about this company at this point, but so far the experiences with them have sounded positive. In particular, the S540 is recommended for marijuana growers.

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Common problems with LEDs and how to avoid them

Common problems with LEDs and how to avoid them - Image powered by Weedinmypocket.com

If you’re looking for an everyday, “standard” type of grow light, then LEDs may not be for you. They require a certain amount of research and patience, and they achieve different results than other types of grow lights. In order to avoid some of the common problems that occur with new LED growers, let’s look at some important facts and common problems with LED lights.

They change the appearance of your plants
Many growers who are newly using LED lights begin to panic when they see that their marijuana plants apparently have nutrient deficiencies because of some strange discoloration taking place. Before you start testing the pH levels and loading your soil with extra nutrients, however, consider the fact that it might simply be from using LED lights – and it is not necessarily a bad thing.

It is most common to see such discoloration during your plants’ flowering stage, particularly when they are reaching the end of it. The leaves will start appearing discolored, but as long as the lights are far enough away, the leaves aren’t actually falling off of the plant, and the buds are still healthy as ever, there is nothing wrong with your plant at all.

Distances can vary
Because LED lights are not as standardized as other types of lights, it is crucial that you check the manufacturer’s instructions for how far away from your plants your new lights should be. This distance varies according to the bulb size as well as the type of lens, so don’t start using it until you feel confident that you fully understand what should be done with your specific LED lights.

Generally speaking, smaller LEDs that have 1W chips should be a minimum of one foot away. The majority of LED lights with chips that are 3W or larger, however, should be at least 1.5 feet away. Otherwise, you could give your plants light burn. Remember that you can always ask the manufacturer for recommendations yourself. If your plants are starting to appear burnt on just their top part, you should probably try moving your LEDs further away.

HPS lights get a higher yield
While this statement is probably true, that does not necessarily mean that you will get a better yield with HPS lighting. LED lights may achieve a lower yield than HPS lights, but it is well known that buds given light from LEDs will be stickier, stronger, and have a more intense aroma. Remember, more is not always better, especially when you are growing something that will be consumed or smoked later.

 

[roots69]

MH And HPS Grow Lights For Marijuana

In this article we will discuss:

CFL lights vs. MH/HPS grow lights

• The different parts of an HID grow setup

• MH vs. HPS grow lights

• Buying a ballast

• Buying the bulbs

• Buying a hood

• Setup and use of your MH/HPS grow lights

• Setting up an exhaust system

Often known among indoor marijuana growers as the “golden standard,” HID (high-intensity discharge) grow lights are an excellent option for those new to growing marijuana and those that are experienced marijuana growers. It has been used successfully for decades, but does that mean that it’s the right choice for you? In this article, we will cover the different aspects -- both positive and negative -- of MH and HPS grow lights, which are both types of HID grow lights.


The most likely alternative to MH/HPS (metal halide/high pressure sodium) grow lights is a CFL light. There are pros and cons to both options, so let’s look at the differences between the two so that you can decide which will be best for you and your grow setup.

CFLs are best for smaller, stealthy grow areas because they need to be placed close to your plants, making them best for smaller (shorter) areas or strangely shaped ones. They do not cost much, either, so they work well for growers with a small operation who are also on a budget, or else for people who are just looking to get their feet wet in the marijuana growing industry before committing fully financially.

CFLs are easy to find nearly anywhere, so you would not have to order them online. If your setup only requires a few small CFL bulbs, they will not consume much electricity or have a high heat output. This means an expensive exhaust or ventilation system is not so important.

On the other hand, CFLs do not work well for larger growing operations. Anyone who is interested in growing more than one or two marijuana plants should opt for MH/HPS grow lights instead. The plants under CFLs also need to stay short to get enough light, while MH/HPS lights are known for their penetrating abilities. The efficiency of MH/HPS lights is much higher than CFLs, giving you a better deal despite the higher upfront costs of MH/HPS lights.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more about grow lights

The beauty of HID lights (like MH/HPS lights) is that they are tried and true, having been used by indoor marijuana growers for many years already. We know they produce great results -- there is no question about it. They are also a very practical option. While CFLs don’t provide much in the way of convenience when it’s time to upgrade your growing area, MH/HPS light fixtures make it easy to do. Better yet, these lights are some of the most efficient lights on the market (maybe excluding some cutting edge LED lights).

Although CFLs are the common choice for small scale beginners, it’s important to note that MH/HPS lights are nearly as easy to set up and use. They are user-friendly and are intuitive enough to make the entire process simple for newbies. CFLs are the better choice if you don’t have a tall grow space, if you don’t have enough upfront funds, or if you want something that is easy to find locally. Additionally, since HID light setups often produce more heat, an exhaust system will likely be necessary to add into your grow space. Check out the best CFL lights at this link.
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The different parts of an HID grow setup


Every grow setup that features HID lights should have the following parts:

• Light bulbs: These will be either MH/HPS light bulbs, depending on the stage of growth your marijuana plants are in, or else they will only be HPS lights for the entire life cycle of your plants.
• Ballast: This connects the HID lights with a regular light bulb socket. It is necessary for an HID grow setup because these lights aren’t compatible with normal sockets. This will be either magnetic or digital.
• Hood: This serves as a reflector to help hone all of the light in on your plants below. It is located above or around the light bulbs and is necessary for efficient use of the light energy. Some hoods are also used for the containing and dispelling of heat.
• Exhaust: This will be necessary to get rid of the hot air in your growing area. It generally includes a fan and ducting to keep the temperature at a healthy level for your plants. It may also include odor control, such as a carbon scrubber or filter.
• Timer: This works with the lights according to your settings. It will switch them on and off automatically so that you don’t have to.
• Grow tent (optional): This helps make the walls reflective and waterproof, help with exhaust, protect the plants from leaks in light or from dust, and adds extra security to your growing operation. I highly recommended this.

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MH vs. HPS grow lights


Now that you know the different elements that make up most grow setups with HID lights, you are probably ready to buy each part and get started. You will, therefore, need to answer the question: should you buy MH lights or HPS lights?

Essentially you either need to buy MH lights and HPS lights, or only HPS lights. It does not make sense to buy only MH lights. MH bulbs are bright and blueish in color (because they emit light that is mostly in the blue spectrum) to act like the spring sun, making it promote photosynthesis better. Therefore, these lights work best for the vegetative growing period of your marijuana plants.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more about grow lights

For the flowering stage, however, your marijuana plants are going to need a light that is more similar to the fall sun -- the HPS lights, colored yellow or gold (since they are in the orange and red spectrum), are best for this stage. Therefore, many growers opt to use MH lights at first and HPS lights at the end; if you want to do this, just make sure you choose a ballast that works with both lamps. Change from MH lights to HPS lights at the same time that you change your duration of light each day to 12 hours on, 12 hours off to begin the flowering phase.

Using HPS lights alone will still produce good -- not optimal, but good -- results for your marijuana plants, so for convenience and less hassle you can always use those types of lights.

Some recent reports claim that using both lights at the same time during the flowering phase can actually produce the best results because it is complex enough to be nearer to the sun’s light. This is not officially confirmed, however, so proceed at your own risk. Check out the best MH lights at this link and the best HPS lights at this link.
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Buying a ballast


No matter which of the two HID lights you choose from, you are going to need a ballast. That being said, the smaller (150W or 250W) HID lights do usually come with a built-in ballast, so pay attention and proceed accordingly.

When buying in concurrence with your lights, ballasts are simple to figure out. If you are going to buy a 400W or 600W light (recommended for beginners), then you simply need to purchase a 400W or 600W ballast. The 600W ballasts are supposed to be the most efficient ones, with the 1000W ballast coming in a close second. Although you probably wouldn’t need to buy one, it is worth mentioning that 150W ballasts are likely the least efficient when compared to their larger counterparts.

The next decision you need to make is whether to buy a digital or magnetic ballast. Magnetic ballasts are trickier because they need to be paired with certain types of lights, while digital ballasts, though more expensive, will save you effort, efficiency, and money in the long run. Digital ballasts are highly recommended. The best type of ballast will be digital, dimmable, and versatile (works for both MH and HPS bulbs). The more expensive the ballast, the longer it will probably last, so don’t skimp on the price.
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Buying the bulbs


It’s important to note that, when buying HID light bulbs, you should never buy used ones as they won’t last for long enough. If you bought a ballast that is digital and dimmable, you need to make sure that the bulbs you buy support those features. The best bulbs should last between one and two years although you should probably replace them after 3-4 grows anyway because they will dim over time -- even if your eyes aren’t able to perceive this dimming.

HID bulbs degrade the quickest from being switched on or off rather than from burning for long periods of time. Always avoid turning on an HID light that hasn’t cooled off properly since the last time it was turned on. Double check the specifications on the bulb and the ballast to make sure they match up, or else you could blow the bulb right off the bat. Be sure that there is some sort of exchange or return policy from the place where you bought the bulbs just in case the worst should happen.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more grow tips

When deciding on which “size” of bulbs and ballast to buy, think about the number of plants you are trying to grow. For instance, if you would like to grow between 3 and 5 plants, you should have a bulb (and ballast) of 250W, placed 6-8 inches away from the canopy. For growing 6-9 plants, choose a bulb with 400W and place it 9-12 inches from the canopy. For 9-12 plants, buy a lamp that is 600W and put it 12-18 inches from the canopy. For a growing operation of 12 or more, you will need at least 1000W that should be placed between 18 and 26 inches above the canopy. Use the hand check (see below) to confirm that this distance is indeed good for your plants.

When buying your bulbs, make sure they are coming from a reputable brand. Many products are good at sounding impressive, being labeled things like “full spectrum” and “dual spectrum,” but that might mean nothing if it’s not from a brand you can trust. Some of the leading brands for grow lights are iPower, Lumatek, Sunmaster, Hortilux, Solaar, Philips, Osram, and Sylvania. There are surely other good brands out there, so do your homework before buying a bulb.
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Buying a hood


The most important thing to consider when choosing a hood for your setup are the seal, the ease of opening, and how wide and smoothly curved the reflector is. The seal should be just about airtight so that there is ventilation without any odor problems. The hood should be easy to open so that lights can be easy changed whenever necessary. A wider and more smoothly curved reflector will perform the reflecting feature the best, doing so evenly for a healthy grow area.

There are three main types of hood that you should think about buying: winged reflectors, cool tubes, and air-cooled hoods. Winged reflectors have lots of surface area and, therefore, are great for the reflecting part of their job; they aren’t as good with keeping cool, however. Cool tubes are better at keeping cool, but have a smaller reflector and, therefore, aren’t as good on the reflecting side of things.

Air-cooled hoods are the best of both worlds, as long as you take advantage of their handy design feature to easily be hooked up to an exhaust system. They will trap the heat right near the bulb so it doesn’t reach your plants, and then will be sucked out through your exhaust system. Generally speaking, air-cooled hoods (the wider, the better) are the most popular and most effective choice for indoor marijuana growers with an HID light setup.
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Setting up and using your MH/HPS lights


When setting up and adjusting your HID grow lights in your indoor setup, there is one main thing to consider: distance from your marijuana plants. You can never perform too many “hand tests” to ensure that it is not too close to your plants, as it may then cause them to burn (and will therefore negatively affect your yield).

In order to check this, simply hold your hand underneath the lights for ten seconds near where the tops of your marijuana plants are. If you can stand the heat, this is too hot for your plants and you should move the grow lights up, further away from them.

The following distances will be useful when you are initially estimating what the distance should be:

150W 5-11 inches
250W 6-13 inches
400W 8-19 inches
600W 9-25 inches
1000W 11-31 inches
You should also think about how much space these lights are going to cover. Check the following measurements to know exactly how many lights and how strong of lights you will need:

150W area of 2x2 feet
250W area of 2x2 to 2.5x2.5 feet
400W area of 3x3 to 3.5x3.5 feet
600W area of 3.5x3.5 to 4x4 feet
1000W area of 4x4 to 5x5 feet
Moving the lights up further will cover a larger area, but the light intensity will also be decreased. Remember this when setting up your light system.

Some growers invest in a lux meter to measure how bright the light is from different distances. If you have one of these, keep in mind that for a healthy vegetative stage, it should measure between 15,000 and 70,000 lux, with 40,000 being ideal. During the flowering stage, it should be between 35,000 and 85,000 lux, with 65,000 being ideal. If you use LED lights, don’t bother getting a lux meter because it won’t measure it accurately.

The cost of your HPS grow light
Figuring out how much running your grow lights will cost is a critical step for growers on a budget- or just about anyone, for that matter. Use the following information to accurately establish how much an HPS grow light will cost you to run.

First of all, you will need to figure out how much your electricity costs per unit. You should be able to find this on any electricity bill you have received, marked as price per kilowatt hour (kW/h). This basically means that you are paying this much to use one kilowatt (1000 Watts) of electricity for one hour.

Let’s say this unit price is 12 cents per kW/h. That means that, if you have a light that is 1000W, it costs exactly 12 cents per hour to use when it is turned on. A 600W bulb would use 60% of that price, which in this example is 7.2 cents while a 250W bulb would use just 25% of that price (3 cents per hour). Calculate the cost per hour for the bulbs that you have.

Now take that number and multiply it by the number of hours you run the HPS per week. Don’t forget to also add in the wattage of the ballast. For example, if you have a 1000W bulb and a 100W ballast, that would be 1100 Watts per hour, which would cost 13.2 cents per hour for this example. If you have the lights running 24 hours a day (like during the vegetation stage), this means it will be $22.18 per week. Flowering (half of the day with lights on, half with lights off) would cost $11.09 per week.

Once you have this information, you should be able to budget accurately. While HPS lights are certainly more expensive to run than other kinds of lights, the effectiveness and proven quality of these lights makes it well worth it for many growers nonetheless. If you are looking to cut energy waste and costs, however, you should consider LED lights instead. More about setting up grow lights in my free marijuana grow bible.
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Setting up an exhaust system


An efficient exhaust system is there to both lower the temperature of a brightly lit grow room as well as keep the odor problem to a minimum. When building an exhaust system, there are a few important elements to consider. For example, remember to keep the temperature between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the “daytime” (lights on) and 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the “night time” (lights off).

The entire air within the grow room needs to be replaced every 1-3 minutes. Keep this in mind while designing your exhaust system. If you take the time to completely understand the flow of air in the room as it is already, you should be able to make a much more efficient exhaust system than if you didn’t know much beforehand. You should also use a fan along with the exhaust system to make sure that it works as thoroughly as possible.

Download my free marijuana grow guide at this link for more grow tips

To calculate the strength of the exhaust fan, you will need to figure out the appropriate “CFM” (cubic feet per minute) rating for your grow area. You only need to multiply the cubic area of the space (length x width x height) by 2 if the exhaust path is efficient (no bends or turns, but a short, straight route), or by 3 for an inefficient one. Then use the resulting number to choose an appropriate fan that has that same number or higher.

You should also consider the intensity of the lights you are using. Make sure to do the research to determine the total the appropriate fan for the wattage of the light and the area of your grow space. When in doubt, use a larger exhaust fan than you think you need.

The best type of fan for indoor growing areas is an internal circulation fan to keep a constant flow of air around the area. This will help the temperature remain stable and will bring in fresh air with CO2. Fans placed beneath the lights are perfect.

The strength of your exhaust system may also depend on the type of lights you are using. If you are using a 400W HPS grow lamp, for instance, the temperature of the room could be raised by as much as 15 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

The stealthy exhaust method
If you would like to design an exhaust system that is particularly stealthy, there is one inexpensive and simple method that will definitely do the trick. All you need are wicker blinds, foam, corrugated plastic, duct tape, ducting, super glue or hot glue, and a staple gun. Hang the wicker blankets over the window where you will send the exhaust from as the air can get through without allowing people to see in and become suspicious. Glue the corrugated plastic to a large piece of foam, then trace around the ducting on the layer of foam and plastic to cut out a duct-sized hole. It should be somewhere towards the top.

Next, put the ducting through this hole until it is right against the blinds. Tape the foam and plastic layer there, right over the window, using duct tape. Staple the duct tape in place for added security later. The combination of the foam and plastic will mute the sound while the wicker shade will prevent it from looking like anything but a normal wicker shade over a window, without causing suspicion.

 

[roots69]

The Rise Of Hemp


Photo Credit: Eileen Mellon

On Saturday, April 21, approaching The Camel on Broad Street, I was hit with the pungent smell of marijuana. As I entered the music venue, I didn’t walk through a cloud of hazy smoke, though, and I didn’t see anyone passing joints. The aroma that filled the building came from New Belgium Brewing’s newest beer release, The Hemperor HPA, one of the first beers made using hops and hemp.

The golden beer is perfect for warm-weather drinking, offering a slightly earthy taste — it’s a smooth 7 percent IPA with a subtle hop — and a not-so-subtle scent.

“There’s a very distinct aroma, and when you pour it, your friend at the table next to you will smell it,” says Jared Burton, activation manager for New Belgium. “It smells like a loud bag of cannabis, and it’s very aromatic. The beer itself is going to drink super smooth and doesn’t taste like it smells.”

The scent behind the beer is emblematic of one of the biggest issues surrounding hemp — the misconception that it’s marijuana. Though it’s one of the oldest and fastest-growing plants in the Northern Hemisphere, hemp is also currently illegal in the United States at the federal level.

In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act classified all forms of cannabis, which includes hemp, as a Schedule I drug, making it illegal to grow in the U.S. In 2014, the Hemp Industries Association estimated that the retail value of hemp products sold in the U.S. was $620 million. All the hemp materials used to make them had to be imported from other countries at the time.

Although illegal on a national level, there are 13 states that allow industrial hemp farming for research and commercial purposes, including California, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia. Most of the hemp for cultivation comes from Europe and Canada.

However, that could change: In early April, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, which seeks to treat hemp like any other agricultural commodity.

Dr. Wondi Mersie, associate dean and director of research at Virginia State University, is one of the leaders conducting hemp research in the commonwealth, but he says it hasn’t always been easy to study.

Before the Virginia General Assembly’s 2015 enactment of the Industrial Hemp Law, which made it possible for universities to conduct hemp research, it it was illegal to do so. In 2016, VSU began field research to identify the uses of hemp as a crop and its role in the farming system.

Mersie says that in two years of research, he has seen promising varieties of hemp that could grow well in Virginia.

“It’s adapted to the mid-Atlantic region, and I hope [the law] changes to give our farmers one more alternative crop to grow,” Mersin says. “The research began because people realized that it has a lot of potential, and the seed and the stalk can be sources of many products.”

Those products include clothing; paper; oil-based products like paint, fiber and nontoxic diesel fuel; personal-care products such as body lotions; food; and, of course, beer.

New Belgium, based out of Colorado and Asheville, North Carolina, spent three years crafting its recipe for The Hemperor, mostly because of legality. Colorado leads the nation in hemp cultivation, planting 9,700 acres of the crop last year, according to the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Even though the hemp plant produces no psychedelic components, federal law says that the hemp plants are illegal to use in goods that are consumed.

The brewery instead uses hemp hearts — shelled seeds of the industrial hemp plant that are essentially the meat of the hemp seed. Hemp hearts are coincidentally cousins of hops, the flowers used to give beer its flavor, and both produce similar aromatic compounds that complement one another.

Burton says the stringent laws made releasing the beer a laborious process, and it took months after they crafted the recipe before they were able to bring it to market. Kansas didn’t allow the beer to be released in its state, and Texas only approved it at the very last minute.

Burton says he hopes the release of The Hemperor will spark conversation in the Southeast about hemp’s benefits, and he believes Richmond is a city to get the conversation started.

“We chose to do a release in Richmond because it seems a little more hip-friendly, and when I’m here, it feels like it wants to be counterculture, and that’s basically what this beer is,” Burton says. “The hemp plant being illegal never made sense in industrial terms … we would love to see it made easier for people to access.”

There are currently three different kinds of industrial hemp varieties — oilseed, which is primarily grown for the seed and used for food; fiber used for making clothes; and hybrid (dual-purpose) that is good for seed and fiber.

Mersie says that besides its industrial uses, hemp also improves soil quality. It detoxifies the soil, prevents soil erosion, releases nutrients into the soil and requires few pesticides, if any. “You get so much biomass per unit area, and the roots, which remain in the soil, improve the health,” he says.

Despite its obvious benefits and uses, hemp remains illegal for one equally obvious reason: “Because of its association with marijuana,” Mersin says. “It is a cousin of marijuana, and you cannot tell the difference between the two plants, but industrial hemp has less than .03 of the chemical [THC] that makes people high. They are identical when you look at them, so it’s a challenge sometimes.”

Although they are physically identical, they are not chemically identical.

“You cannot obtain a high from the plant or stalk, there is no way to get high,” Mersin says.

When Mersie and his colleagues receive seeds to plant for research, their acquisition is conducted through the Virginia Department of Agriculture. Although they use seeds from specific vendors, they cannot contact the vendors directly, and most vendors are worried about transporting the seeds.

Mersie hopes that hemp can be promoted as a crop for the future.

“I think the times are changing, and we had a hemp field day last year at VSU, and there was a lot of discussion,” Mersin says. “I think the bill out there [the Hemp Farming Act of 2018], if that passes, that would change everything.”

New Belgium also hopes the release of The Hemperor will shed some light on the potential of this versatile crop. The brewery partnered with GCH Inc., Willie Nelson’s advocacy brand that supports hemp legalization through the Hemp for Victory campaign. For every barrel of The Hemperor sold, $1 is donated to promote hemp legalization and shed light on its industrial uses.

 

[roots69]

15 Mind-Blowing Ways Hemp Can Save The World


Hemp is one of the world’s oldest crops. It also happens to be one of the most versatile. From plastics to paper, the hemp plant provides the means for humanity to live in harmony with the environment and the ecosystems that support it — without us wanting for anything.

Just to give you an idea how far this plant can take us, here are 15 amazing ways hemp can be a game-changer for planet Earth…

#1) Growing hemp prevents pesticide pollution
Did you know hemp is naturally resistant to pests? Unlike cotton or flax (which are estimated to consume 50% of all pesticides) growing hemp does not require pesticides or herbicides.

When pesticides are sprayed on land, they can easily seep into water sources such as a river, ocean, or pond. If pesticides contaminate a body of water it can harm the living creatures within that water source (fish, frogs, insects, and more) along with anyone ingesting it.

Pesticides have been linked to cancer, birth defects, ADHD, and Alzheimer’s Disease to name a few. So not only are pesticides dangerous for the environment, they are also a hazard to our health.

By integrating hemp, we can significantly reduce our exposure to unnecessary toxins and pollutants.

#2) Hemp helps restores soil fertility
Hemp can grow in a wide variety of terrains and soil types. It forms deep roots helping to hold the soil together. This in turn prevents soil erosion. In fact, hemp also increases the microbial content of the soil. And the incredible benefits don’t end there.

The stem and leaves of the hemp plant are rich in nutrients. After harvesting, these nutrient-dense remnants of the hemp plant can be returned to the soil, rejuvenating it for a richer yield the following year.

#3) Hemp can produce biodegradable plastics
Americans used over 45 billion plastic water bottles in 2015 alone. Even crazier: plastic water bottles can take anywhere between 400 and 1,000 years to decompose.

Considering the United States’ recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, there is room for improvement to say the least. [Recycling is also a one-time-only deal, meaning plastics are actually down-cycled into other forms of plastic before ultimately reaching landfill — Editor.]

The basic building blocks of plastics are cellulose derived from petroleum. Yet petroleum is highly toxic. Hemp on the other hand happens to be the greatest cellulose producer on earth. It also happens to be biodegradable.

Why not use non-toxic and biodegradable hemp for producing plastics? Instead of stuffing our landfills with toxic chemicals we could reuse and recycle natural products.

#4) The hemp plant absorbs toxic metals
Soil sustains life. The plants that feed, clothe, and house us originate from the earth. Yet we’ve become increasingly detached from this basic human need. Meanwhile, man-made waste has contaminated soil across the globe. Both our planet’s health and our personal health are under duress, and the need for change is imminent.

It has already been proven that hemp can eliminate toxins from the environment. Hemp is so effective at absorbing toxic materials it has even been used for removing nuclear radiation from Fukushima and Chernobyl.

#5) Hemp is an outstanding renewable biofuel
Imagine if there was a non-toxic fuel source that could be domestically produced and was totally renewable. Turns out that material already exists. It’s been on this planet for hundreds and thousands of years.

Hemp converts to biodiesel at a 97 percent efficiency rate. It also burns at a lower temperature than any other type of biofuel. Plus, when burned in a diesel engine, hemp eradicates the exhaust odor of petroleum with the pleasant smell of hemp.

With over 4,000,000 miles of roads in the United States, transitioning to hemp biodiesel could help heal our planet one mile at a time.

#6) Fabrics made from hemp do not contain chemical residue
Did you know the majority of synthetic fibers we use today are manufactured from polymer-based petrochemical materials (AKA highly toxic materials)? Producing these synthetic materials requires an energy-intensive process, burning large amounts of gas, coal, or crude oil. And if that wasn’t enough, this type of manufacturing process releases toxic emissions into the air while also leaving toxic residues within the fibers. Not exactly a pleasant notion.

Yet, this problem can be avoided by switching to hemp. Hemp fibers are easily removed from the plant and can create clothing with zero chemical residue. Hemp is also a highly durable fabric and UV resistant.

#7) Hemp can balance effects of carbon emissions
Industrial hemp has the power to transform the environment. Hemp is unique in that it is one of the few crops capable of balancing human carbon emissions through rapid carbon dioxide uptake. It does this through a process known as carbon sequestration.

When cultivated, hemp actually captures carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Essentially, hemp helps sequester or “trap” carbon from the air into plants. For every ton of hemp produced, 1.63 tons of carbon is removed from the air.

#8) Cultivating hemp prevents deforestation
Deforestation is increasing across the globe at alarming rates. Scientists now believe the rate of deforestation equates to a loss of 48 football fields every minute. Within 100 years, it is estimated there will be no rainforests. Shamefully, the United States has less than 5% of the world’s population but consumes more than one-third of the world’s paper.

But there is hope. Hemp can easily replace trees as the source of raw material for wood and paper. Once acre of hemp can produce as much paper annually as four acres of trees. While trees take years to mature, hemp can be grown and rapidly reproduced within months. Hemp paper is also more durable than paper produced from trees.

In other words, this is a no-brainer – transitioning to hemp could literally save our trees, and ultimately, our planet.

#9) Industrial hemp conserves water
It can take more than 5,000 gallons of water to produce 2.2 pounds of cotton. In fact, cotton is one of the most water-dependent crops around and is quickly depleting our limited freshwater sources.

Meanwhile, hemp requires minimal irrigation in comparison to cotton. A study in the UK comparing cotton production to hemp production found that hemp required 634-898 gallons of water to produce 2.2 pounds of hemp.

Considering hemp is suitable for fiber production, it is clear to see the superior option.

#10) Hemp supports sustainable farming practices
Farmers who practice sustainable farming techniques know the importance of rotating crops by season. Not only does it keep the soil nutrient-rich, it also increases the overall yield.

Hemp happens to be an ideal plant for crop rotation. It enriches the soil while also removing toxins. Growing hemp helps keep the soil and air more habitable for years to come.

#11) Growing hemp prevents soil compaction and erosion
Did you now soil compaction and erosion are some of the biggest problems plaguing farmers today? This is particularly true for farmers within the Midwest who depend on two staple crops – soybeans and corn.

Corn contains a deep and fibrous root system that penetrates the ground deep below the surface. Over time, these roots can lead to soil compaction during the winter and spring. Soybeans also have a strong root system but do not penetrate below the topsoil. As a result, soil erosion can frequently occur.

However, hemp is capable of repairing damaged soils. In fact, introducing hemp into crop rotations not only adds diversity but can also reverse the effects of soil compact and erosion. Hemp contains deep roots that can reach up to nine feet below the surface. These hearty roots help to break up soil compaction while also increasing nutrient absorption.

#12) Hemp builds stronger and healthier homes
The use of the hemp plant can extend into every aspect of our lives – including our homes. Fiberboards made from a hemp-based composite are stronger and lighter than those made from wood. Not to mention the combination of hemp and lime (hempcrete) results in a soundproofing system and insulation superior to that of concrete.

Hemp homes are also shown to have incredible durability. One hemp home in Japan is estimated to be over 300 years old!

Perhaps even more astonishing, hemp homes also provide a healthier living environment. Unlike fiberglass or drywall, hempcrete is nontoxic and mold-resistant.

If we’re smart about this, hemp homes will be the future of green living.

#13) Hemp reduces air pollution
Air pollution is not only harmful to human health but can also cause a number of devastating environmental effects. While China is the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the United States is close behind at number 2.

Should we choose to ignore this reality, these problems are likely to increase even further. Meanwhile, hemp can break down pollutants and improve air quality. Hemp can even be used as a paper source, eliminating the need for chlorine bleaching – a direct cause of excess carbon dioxide in the environment.

#14) Hemp grows in almost any environment
Imagine if there was a crop that could be cultivated almost anywhere in the world. In fact, this crop required zero pesticides and could produce over 25,000 products. Better yet, this crop could mature within months and keep producing for years to come. Surprise – that crop is hemp. Hemp is an incredibly durable plant. While hemp thrives in a mild climate and humid atmosphere, it can survive almost anywhere.

From China to Colorado, hemp can grow in a broad range of climate types, which means hemp has the potential to be sourced locally. A source of food, income, and more – hemp farming could change lives for the better. Hemp can also lead to more sustainable farming, which in turn will bolster local economies while having a positive impact on the environment.

#15) Hemp can help curb world hunger
Around 795 million people are undernourished globally. In developing countries (where 92 percent of children live) 30 out of every 100 will experience stunted growth due to a lack of nutrition.

Now, imagine if hemp were in the picture. Not only is hemp inexpensive, it can be grown almost anywhere. In fact, hemp seeds are considered to be one of the most nutritionally dense food sources on this planet. A complete protein – hemp seeds supply the body with amino acids, vitamins, and much more!

In addition, hemp seeds can also produce two vital food products – oil and flour. So not only is hemp nutritionally rich but also versatile.

Cultivating hemp as a staple crop could change people’s lives for the better worldwide, especially if you consider the vast number of people that could not only be fed but also nourished by this superfood.

It’s Time We Return to Our Roots.
Humankind have been cultivating hemp for thousands of years. Some anthropologists even believe hemp was the first agricultural crop domesticated by humans over twelve thousand years ago.

It is time we return to our roots.

Switching to hemp products may not solve all of the world’s problems but it is a start. Hemp has the potential to leave a cleaner and greener planet for future generations. So what are we waiting for? It is high time to let the hemp shine once and for all.

 

[roots69]

The 6,000-Year History Of Medical Cannabis


Photo Credit: MedReleaf

Since the early 20th century, the use of cannabis for any purpose fell out of favor by both regulators and Western culture at large.

In the United States, a wave of regulations made access to cannabis more difficult starting from the late 1900s, ultimately culminating in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which effectively made cannabis use a federal offense. Meanwhile, prohibition in Canada lasted for 85 years until being lifted by recent developments.

Interestingly, however, this recent period of 20th century opposition is actually just a small speck in the wider 6,000-year timeline of cannabis. After all, the plant has been widely regarded for its therapeutic potential for many millennia by different cultures around the world.

6,000 Years of Medical Cannabis

Today’s infographic comes to us from MedReleaf, and it focuses on the medical uses of cannabis discovered by many cultures over time. With uses dating back to Ancient empires such as Rome, Egypt, and China, it helps to put into perspective recent legal and cultural developments regarding cannabis on a broader historical scale.

4000 BC: Pan-p’o village
Cannabis was regarded among “five grains” in China, and was farmed as a major food crop.

2737 BC: Pen Ts’ao Ching
Earliest record of cannabis as a medicinal drug. At this time, Emperor Shen-Nung recognized its treatment properties for over 100 ailments such as gout, rheumatism, and malaria.

2000-1400 BC: Scythians
Nomadic Indo-European peoples used cannabis in steam baths, and also burned cannabis seeds in burial rituals.

2000-1000 BC: Atharva Vedas
Cannabis was described as a “source of happiness”, “joy-giver”, and “bringer of freedom” in these Hindu religious texts. At this time, cannabis was smoked at daily devotional services and religious rituals.

2000-1000 BC: Ayurvedic Medicine
Open religious use of cannabis allowed for exploration of medical benefits. During this period, it was used to treat a variety of ailments such as epilepsy, rabies, anxiety, and bronchitis.

1550 BC: Ebers Papyrus
Egyptian medical papyrus of medical knowledge notes that medical cannabis can treat inflammation.

1213 BC: Ramesses II
Cannabis pollen has been recovered from the mummy of Ramesses II, the Egyptian pharaoh who was mummified after his death in 1213 BC.

900 BC: Assyrians
Employed the psychotropic effects of cannabis for recreational and medical purposes.

450-200 BC: Greco-Roman use
Physician Dioscorides prescribed cannabis for toothaches and earaches. Greek doctor Claudius Galen noted it was widely consumed throughout the empire. Women of the Roman elite also used cannabis to alleviate labor pains.

207 AD: Hua T’o
First recorded physician to describe cannabis as an analgesic. He used a mixture of cannabis and wine to anesthetize patients before surgery.

1000 AD: Treats Epilepsy
Arabic scholars al-Mayusi and al-Badri regard cannabis as an effective treatment for epilepsy.

1025 AD: Avicenna
The medieval Persian medical writer publishes “Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine”, stating that cannabis is an effective treatment for gout, edema, infectious wounds, and severe headaches. His work was widely studied from the 13th to 19th centuries, having a lasting impact on Western medicine.

1300 AD: Arab traders
Arab traders bring cannabis from India to Eastern Africa, where it spreads inland. It is used to treat malaria, asthma, fever, and dysentery.

1500 AD: Spanish Conquest
The Spanish brought cannabis to the Americas, where it was used for more practical purposes like rope or clothes. However, years later, it would be used as a psychoactive and medicinal drug.

1798: Napoleon
Napoleon brought cannabis back to France from Egypt, and it was investigated for its pain relieving and sedative qualities. At this time, cannabis would be used to treat tumors, cough, and jaundice.

1839: William O’Shaughnessy
Irish doctor William O’Shaughnessy introduced the therapeutic uses of cannabis to Western medicine. He concluded it had no negative medicinal effects, and the plant’s use in a pharmaceutical context would rapidly rise thereafter.

1900: Medical Cannabis
Medical cannabis was used to treat nausea, rheumatism, and labor pain. At this point in time, it is available over-the-counter in medications such as “Piso’s cure” and “One day cough cure”.

1914: Harrison Act
Drug use was declared a crime in the U.S., under the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act in 1914.

1937: Marihuana Tax Act
The Marihuana Tax Act banned the use and sales of cannabis in the United States.

1964: Discovery of THC
The molecular structure of THC, an active component of cannabis, was discovered and synthesized by Israeli chemist Dr. Raphael Mechoulam.

1970: Classified as Schedule 1 Drug
Cannabis became categorized as a Schedule 1 Drug in the U.S., which limited further research into the plant. It was listed as having “no accepted medical use”.

1988: CBD Receptors Discovered
The CBD1 and CBD2 cannabinoid receptors were discovered. Today, we know they are some of the most abundant neuroreceptors in the brain.

2000-2018: Medical cannabis legalization
Governments, such as those of Canada and various states, begin to legalize cannabis for medical purposes from licensed producers. Recreational legalization quickly starts to follow.

 

[roots69]

Chronology of Cannabis

12,000BC: Hemp was first used for paper and medicine in China

2737 BC: Cannabis referred to as a "superior" herb in the world's first medical text, or pharmacopoeia, Shen Nung's Pen Ts'ao, in China

1500 BC: Cannabis-smoking Scythians sweep through Europe and Asia, settling and inventing the scythe.

1400 BC: Cultural and religious use of ganja or cannabis, and charas or hashish (resin) recorded used by Hindus in India.

c600 BC: Zend-Avesta, Indian scripture, speaks of hemp's intoxicating resin.

c500 BC: Gautama Buddha said to have survived by eating hempseed. Cannabis used in Germany (Hochdorf Hallstatt D wagon burial site).

450 BC: Herodotus records Scythians and Thracians as consuming cannabis and making fine linens of hemp.

300 BC: Carthage and Rome struggle for political and commercial power over hemp and spice trade routes in the Mediterranean.

100 BC: Chinese make paper from hemp and mulberry.

70 BC: Roman Emperor Nero's surgeon, Dioscorides, praises cannabis for making the stoutest cords and for its medicinal properties.

c30 AD: Jesus teaches :Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man (Matthew 15:11). The Gospels refer to the New Wine and declare that it is best when the clusters are ripe.

100 AD: Roman surgeon Dioscorides names the plant cannabis sativa and describes various medicinal uses. Pliny reported of industrial uses and wrote a manual on farming hemp.

400 AD: Cannabis cultivated for the first time in the UK at Old Buckenham Mere

500 AD: First botanical drawing of hemp in Constantinopolitanus

600 AD: Germans, Franks, Vikings etc all use hemp fiber.

800 AD: Mohammed allows cannabis but forbids the use of alcohol.

1000 AD: The English word "hempe" first listed in a dictionary. Moslems produce hashish medicine and social use.

1150 AD: Moslems use hemp to start Europe's first paper mill. Most of the paper is made from hemp for the next 750 years, including Bibles.

1379 AD: Emir Soudon Sheikhouni of Joneima prohibits cannabis consumption amongst the poor, destroys the crops, and punishes offenders by pulling out their teeth.

14 AD48: Inquisitor Pope Innocent VIII outlaws hashish.

1494 AD: Hemp paper industry starts in England.

1545 AD: Hemp agriculture arrives in China.

1554 AD: The Spanish grow hemp in Peru.

1563 AD: English Queen Elizabeth I decree that land owners with more than 60 acres must grow hemp or be fined 5 pounds.

1564 AD: King Philip of Spain orders hemp grown throughout his empire from modern Arhentina to Oregon.

1600 AD: Dutch achieve the "Golden Age" through hemp commerce. Explorers find "wild hempe" in North America.

1606 AD: The British take cannabis to Canada for maritime uses.

1611 AD: The British start growing cannabis in Virginia.

1619 AD: Virginia colony makes hemp cultivation mandatory, followed by most other colonies. Europe pays hemp bounties.

1621 AD: The Anatomy of Melancholy claims cannabis is a treatment for depression.

1631 AD: Hemp used as money throughout American colonies.

1632 AD: The Pilgrims take cannabis to New England.

1637 AD: The General Court at Hartford, Conneticut, orders that all families plant one teaspoon of cannabis seeds.

1639 AD: Massachusetts Courts follow Hartford.

1753 AD: Cannabis Sativa classified by Linneaus.

1763 AD: New English Dictionary says cannabis root applied to skin eases inflammation.

1776 AD: Declaration of Independence drafted on hemp paper.

1791 AD: President Washington sets duties on hemp to encourage domestic industry. "Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed" ........President George Washington. (Library of USA Congress 1794 vol. 33 p.270). President Jefferson calls hemp a necessity and urges farmers to grow hemp instead of tobacco.

1800 AD: Cotton gins make cheaper fiber than hemp. Napoleon prohibits his men in Egypt from using cannabis, but to little effect.

1835 AD: The Club de Hashichines is founded.

1839 AD: Homeopathy journal 'American Provers' Union' publishes first report on effects of cannabis.

1840 AD: "Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded"...........Abraham Lincoln (December 1840)

1841 AD: Dr. W.B.O'Shaughnessy,"On the Preparation of the Indian Hemp or Ganja" introduces cannabis to western science.

1845 AD: Psychologist and inventor of modern psychopharmacology and psychotimimetric drug treatment, Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours documents physical and mental benefits of cannabis.

1850 AD: Petrochemical age begins. Toxic sulphite and chlorine processes make paper from trees: steamships replace (hemp) sails; tropical fibers introduced.. USA census records 8327 hemp plantations of over 2000 acres each.

1854 AD: Bayard Taylor essay Visions of Hashish.

1857 AD: Fitz Hugh Ludlow publishes "The Hasheesh Eater"

1857 AD: Smith Brothers of Edinburgh market cannabis indica extracts.

1860 AD: First governmental commission study of cannabis and hashish conducted by Ohio State Medical Society. It catalogues the conditions for which cannabis is beneficial: neuralgia, nervous rheumatism, mania, whooping cough, asthma, chronic bronchitis, muscular spasms, epilepsy, infantile convulsions, palsy, uterine hemorrhage, dysmenorrhea, hysteria, alcohol withdrawal and loss of appetite.

1868 AD: The Emir of Egypt makes the possession of cannabis a capital offence.

1869 AD: Tales of Hashish by A.C. Kimmens

1870 AD: Cannabis listed in US Pharmacopoeia as a medicine.

1870 AD: South Africa worried about cannabis use among Indian workers, passes a law forbidding the smoking, use or possession of hemp by Indians.

1876 AD: Hashish served at American Centennial Exposition.

1877 AD: The Sultan of Turkey makes cannabis illegal, to little effect.

1894 AD: British Indian Hemp Drugs Commission studies social use of cannabis and comes out
firmly against its prohibition.

1895 AD: First known use of the name "marijuana" for smoking, by Pancho Villa's supporters in Sonora, Mexico.

1909 AD: Shanghai Conference: first international meeting on drugs is held to discuss opium. The USA passes an act to prohibit the buying or selling of opium for non-medicinal purposes.

1910 AD: African-American "reefer" use reported in Jazz Clubs in New Orleans, said to be influencing white people. Mexicans smoking marijuana in Texas. South Africa prohibits cannabis.

1911 AD: Hindus reported to be using ganja in San Francisco.

1911 AD: South Africa bans cannabis.

1912 AD: "Essay on Hasheesh" by Victor Rolson. Possibilities of putting controls on cannabis use is first raised.

1912 AD: Hague Conference; second international meeting on drugs. 46 nations discuss opium, morphine, *******, ****** and cannabis. The Hague Convention for the Suppression of Opium and Other Drugs, was drawn up, requiring parties to confine to medical and legitimate purposes the manufacture, sale and use of opium, ******, morphine and *******; Cannabis was not included. (From Mandeson, D. From Mr Sin to Mr Big, A history of Australian Drug Laws, Oxford University Press Melbourne 1995)

1912 AD: First suggestions that cannabis should be banned internationally, at the First Opium Conference.

1915 AD: Utah State, then California and Texas outlaw cannabis. ******* banned in the USA.

1916 AD: USDA Bulletin 404 calls for a new program of expansion of hemp to replace uses of timber by industry.

1919 AD: Texas outlaws cannabis. Alcohol is prohibited throughout the USA. Cannabis is still legal in most States.

1920 AD: DuPont experiments with petrochemicals. Gang war takes over the alcohol industry, homicides increase drastically.

1923 AD: South African delegate at League of Nations calls for international controls on cannabis, claiming that it makes mine workers less active. Britain insists on further research.

1923 AD: Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington outlaw cannabis.

1924 AD: At the Second International Opiates conference Egyptian delegate claims serious problems are associated with hashish use and calls for immediate international controls. Sub-committee listens to Egypt and Turkey. Cannabis declared a narcotic. Cannabis Ruderalis identified by Lamarck.

1927 AD: New York outlaws cannabis.

1928 AD: UK Dangerous Drugs Act (September 28th) 1925 becomes law and makes cannabis illegal.

1929 AD: The Panama Canal Zone Report concludes that there is no evidence that cannabis use is habit-forming or deleterious, recommending no action be taken against cannabis use or sale.

1929 AD: South West states make cannabis illegal as part of a move to oust Mexican immigrants.

1930 AD: Henry Ford makes his motor cars out of hemp with hemp paint and hemp fuel. New machines invented to break hemp, process the fiber and convert the pulp or hurds into paper, plastics etc. 1200 hash bars in New York City. Racist fears of Mexicans, Asians and African-Americans lead the cry for cannabis to be outlawed.

1930's AD: New mechanized hemp harvesting methods invented

1930 AD: Louis Armstrong arrested in Los Angeles for possession of cannabis.

1931 AD: Federal Bureau of Narcotics formed with Anslinger at the head. By now 29 US states have banned non-prescription cannabis

1934 AD: Anslinger refers to "ginger-haired ******s" in FBI official circulars.

1936 AD: South Western states call for FBI to ban cannabis.

1937 AD: Marijuana Tax Act forbids hemp farming. The Act was based on the Machine Gun Transfer Act which made it illegal to pass on machine guns without a government stamp - there being no such stamps available. By applying this strategy to marijuana, Anslinger was able to effectively ban hemp without contravening constitutional rights.

1937 AD: DuPont files patents for nylon, plastics and a new bleaching process for paper. Anslinger testifies to congress that Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug known to man. The objections of the American Medical Association are ignored. The Marijuana Transfer Tax Bill (14th April) introduced to US House, Ways and Means Committee, passed December, prohibits industrial and medical uses and calls flowering tops a narcotic. Violations attract 200 dollar fines. Birdseed, rope and cordage are exempted from tax.

1937 AD: DuPont patents plastics, seizing the opportunity created by cannabis hemp prohibition

1939 AD: LaGuardia Report started

1941 AD: Cannabis dropped from USA Pharmacopoeia

1941 AD: Henry Ford's car is made from and runs on cannabis.

1943 AD: Hemp for Victory program urges farmers to grow hemp to help war effort.

1943 AD: US Military Surgeon magazine declares that smoking cannabis is no more harmful than smoking tobacco.

1944 AD: New York Academy of Medicine reports marijuana use does not cause violent behavior, provoke insanity, lead to addiction or promote opiate usage. Anslinger describes the authors as dangerous and strange.

1944 AD: New York Mayor's La Guardia Report "The Marijuana problem in the City of New York" concludes that smoking marijuana does not lead to addiction in the medical sense of the word, that juvenile delinquency is not associated with marijuana smoking and that the publicity concerning the catastrophic effects of marijuana smoking in New York is unfounded.
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1944 AD: Anslinger threatens doctors who carry out cannabis research with imprisonment.

1945 AD: USA 'Newsweek' reports over 100,000 Americans use cannabis.

1948 AD: Anslinger now says cannabis users are peaceful and that cannabis could be used during a communist invasion, to weaken American will to fight.

1948 AD: United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights

1948 AD: Hollywood star Robert Mitchum arrested for cannabis.

1951 AD: UN Bulletin of Narcotic Drugs states over 200 million cannabis users in the world.

1952 AD: First UK cannabis arrest at Number 11 Club, Soho, London.

1955 AD: Hemp farming outlawed again.

1960 AD: Hippies, Vietnam Veterans, pop fans adopt cannabis.

1961 AD: UN Treaty 406 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs seeks to outlaw cannabis use and cannabis cultivation worldwide and eradicate cannabis smoking within 30 years (by 1991). USA representative is Anslinger.

1962 AD: President Kennedy sacks Anslinger. Kennedy using cannabis as a pain relief.

1963 AD: Kennedy assassinated.

1964 AD: Thelin Brothers open first US 'Head Shop'.

1964 AD: THC, tetrahydracannabinol, first isolated

1966 AD: Donovan becomes first UK celebrity to be busted for cannabis.

1967 AD: SOMA Times Petition in the UK urges legalization of cannabis. The Beatles sign it. 3,000 people hold a 'smoke-in' in Hyde Park.. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones are arrested and imprisoned for cannabis. This prompts a Times editorial 'Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?'. The convictions are quashed on appeal.. In the UK 2,393 persons arrested for cannabis offences.. In the USA over 3,000 joints mailed to addresses at random by Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies.

1968 AD: John Lennon arrested for cannabis possession.

1968 AD: 1 November, UK Government Wootton Report recommends cannabis possession should not be an offence. "Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee (1944 - LaGuardia) that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects."

1968 AD: Campaign to stop US soldiers in Vietnam from taking cannabis - they switch to ******.

1969 AD: James Callaghan, UK Labour Prime Minister, rejects the findings of the Wootton Report.

1969 AD: George Harrison arrested for cannabis.

1970 AD: Social use of cannabis receives widespread acceptance despite illegality; policy of decriminalization sweeps across USA and Britain.

1970 AD: LeDain Report (Canada) recommended that serious consideration be given to the legalization of personal possession of marijuana. It finds that cannabis use increases self-confidence, feelings of creativity and sensual awareness, facilitates concentration and self-acceptance, reduces tension, hostility and aggression and may produce psychological but not physical dependence. The report recommends that possession laws be repealed

1970 AD: R. Keith Stroup founds NORML 'National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws', in UDSA.

1970 AD: USA Marijuana Transfer Tax declared unconstitutional.

1971 AD: British Misuse of Drugs Act classifies cannabis as a Class B drug with stiff sentencing. This bans the medical use of cannabis, ignoring the Wootton Report.

1971 AD: UN Convention on Psycho topic Substances

1972 AD: US President Richard Nixon says 'I am against legalizing marijuana'.

1972 AD: Baan Commission presents report to Dutch Minister of Health and suggests that cannabis trade below a quarter of a kilo ought to be considered as a misdemeanor only.

1973 AD: Oregon considering legalization

1973 AD: US Shafer Commission, appointed by Nixon, declares that personal use of marijuana should be decriminalized as should casual distribution of small amounts for no or insignificant remuneration

1973 AD: UN Convention of Psychotropic Substances: cannabis is a narcotic.

1974 AD: US Senate report on Marijuana-Hashish Epidemic and its Impact on US Security claims that cannabis use cause brain damage, a-motivation and genetic and reproductive defects

1975 AD: Hundreds of US doctors call for more research on cannabis.

1975 AD: Alaska legalizes cannabis for personal use. Limit on amount is one ounce.

1975 AD: After 3 years of campaigning to abolish penal sanctions for the consumption of drugs, Pannella forces the police to arrest him, by smoking a joint in public.

1975 AD: Jamaica Studies reveal good health amongst prolific cannabis users. "No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual performance, tests of concept formation, abstracting ability, and cognitive style, and tests of memory."

1976 AD: Holland adopts tolerant attitude to cannabis and many coffee shops and youth centers allowed to sell cannabis.

1976 AD: USA New York Times (Jan 5) declares 'Scientists find nothing really harmful about pot'.

1976 AD: Ford administration bans medical research on cannabis. Research on synthetic cannabis analogues allowed to continue. Robert Randal is the first US citizen to receive cannabis from Federal supplies made under the Investigational New Drug (IND) Program.

1976 AD: DuPont declares cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and calls for its decriminalization.

1977 AD: President Carter thinks cannabis should be legalized.

1977 AD: The Australian Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare (the Baume Committee) recommends treating drug use as a social / medical rather than legal problem. Also that criminal sanction of possession of cannabis be replaced by fines while retaining penalties for possession of hashish, oil and purified THC.

1978 AD: New Mexico allows cannabis sale for medical use.

1978 AD: The New South Wales Joint Parliamentary Committee upon Drugs recommends eliminating criminal sanctions for personal use of cannabis, implementing bond and probation penalties for first offenders and expunging records upon successful completion of these punishments. Also suggest retaining penalties for trafficking in cannabis.

1980 AD: Paul McCartney arrested for cannabis and spends 10 days in prison in Japan.

1980 AD: Costa Rica study reports good health in cannabis users.

1980 AD: May 10, Smokey Bears in Hyde Park

1981 AD: The Coptic Study claims 'No harm to human brain or intelligence' through cannabis use.

1982 AD: An Analysis of Marijuana Policy, National Research Council of the National Academy of Science, concludes that "a policy of prohibition of supply is preferable only to a policy of complete prohibition of supply and use"

1983 AD: In the UK over 20,000 convictions for possession.

1983 AD: The USA government (Reagan / Bush)orders American Universities to destroy all 1966-76 research work on cannabis.

1985 AD: Winters and DiFranza reveal radioactive material in tobacco may account for half the lung cancer deaths; no radioactive material in cannabis.

1986 AD: 8 July, UK Drug Trafficking Offences Act introduced to enable confiscation of assets from drug dealers

1987 AD: The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy says: "Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation".

1988 AD: 6 September : DEA chief administrative judge, Judge Young, rules the US government should allow the medicinal use of cannabis. He says "Marijuana in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man". DEA rejects report.

1988 AD: 20 December, UN Convention against illicit traffic in narcotic and psychotropic substances, Vienna, includes cannabis

1988 AD: UK 23,229 people arrested for cannabis offences.

1989 AD: Presidents Reagan and Bush declare war on cannabis; shops selling smoking apparatus outlawed. Urine testing introduced. Recriminalization, asset and property seizure, armed forces, prison camps, 'Just Say No' campaign, PFDA, DARE, tobacco and nuclear subsidies. Price - per - ounce cannabis worth more than gold. Worldwide prohibition entices organized crime to take control of the cannabis market and make huge profits. Reagan declares victory in War on Drugs. Secretary of State James A Baker reports global war on narcotic production is 'clearly not being won'.

1990 AD: Jack Herer, in his book 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes' offers $10,000 reward to anyone who can disprove his assertion that hemp can 'save the planet'.

1990 AD: Alaska recriminalizes cannabis possession

1990's AD: USA voters pass regional measures to allow medicinal use of cannabis. Interest in this and other uses of hemp add new support to campaign for the legal right to social / recreational use of cannabis.

1991 AD: THC receptors found in the brain.

1991 AD: UK 40,000 people arrested for cannabis.

1991 AD: 'Mr. Marijuana', Howard Marks, arrested, taken from Spain to USA, and given 25 years imprisonment for trafficking in cannabis.

1991 AD: UK Judge Pickles advocates legalization of drugs..

1991 AD: UK MP Tony Banks (labor) advocates legalization of cannabis.

1991 AD: IND program dropped in USA.

1992 AD: January 22, California Research Advisory Panel reports that prohibition has a more harmful effect on society and the individual than illegal drugs themselves.

1992 AD: February 19, UK Government issue licenses to grow cannabis for industrial uses or scientific research

1992 AD: "Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant. Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not physical they are political"... The Economist March 28th 1992

1992 AD: USA over 340,000 arrests for cannabis.

1992 AD: Australia licenses hemp farm.

1992 AD: US Investigational New Drug (IND) Program dropped.

1992 AD: USA President Clinton admits he smoked cannabis but did not inhale. Howard Marks admits that he smoked cannabis but never exhaled.

1992 AD: 17 European Cities sign Frankfurt Charter agreeing to tolerate social use of cannabis.

1992 AD: USA Jim Montgomery, a paraplegic who smoked cannabis to relieve muscle spasm, busted for two ounces of marijuana in Oklahoma, arrested and sentenced to life plus 16 years.

1993 AD: Britain eases restrictions on hemp farming. Hemp core is first British company to get a license. Hemp clothes sold in High Street shops. February 19th.

1993 AD: Commander John Grieve of the Metropolitan Police calls for decriminalization of cannabis.

1993 AD: Raymond Kendall, Head of Interpol, calls for decriminalization of cannabis.

1993 AD: British Law Lord, Lord Woolf calls for legalization of cannabis

1993 AD: 22 British MP's call for the establishment of a Royal Commission.

1993 AD: 44 British MP's call for a Royal Commission.

1993 AD: German High Court in Kruhe rules that cannabis prohibition is unconstitutional.

1993 AD: 19 British MP's 'welcome' the German court ruling.

1993 AD: 55 British MP's call for cannabis to be recognized and allowed for treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.

1993 AD: British Home Secretary Michael Howard declares 'War on drugs' and increases maximum fine for possession of cannabis to 2,500.

1993 AD: Over 72,000 UK citizens arrested for cannabis offences.

1993 AD: Canada permits a hemp farm in Ontario province.

1995 AD: Holland lowers the amount one can possess without prosecution to 5 grams (from 30) as a result of powerful international pressures from neighboring countries.

1995 AD: UK Channel 4 Pot Night (March) and BBC Panorama's High Risk (April).

1995 AD: UK Home secretary Michael Howard increases penalties for cannabis offenses.

1995 AD: Clare Short MP (Labor) calls for a Royal Commission on Cannabis and is reprimanded by her party bosses. (October)

1995 AD: European Cannabis Consumers' Union founded in Amsterdam.

1995 AD: USA Dan Perron forms Cannabis Buyers Club to distribute cannabis to the sick.

1995 AD: The European Council which defines political guidelines, orders a study of drug legislation and practice in the Union.

1995 AD: September 16, First CHIC (Cannabis Hemp Information Club) conference in London.

1995 AD: Under the Clinton administration 1,450,751 people had been arrested for cannabis, 86 being for possession only

1995 AD: November 11, British journal of the medical profession, The Lancet, states that "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health".

1995 AD: Dutch Policy in the Netherlands Studies

1995 AD: Henrion Commission Report, the official French State Commission in charge of drug policy supports decriminalization of cannabis and calls for a two-year trial period of regulated retail trade in cannabis. The French Government rejects these proposals.

1996 AD: Victoria (Australia) State Council urges decriminalization of cannabis.

1996 AD: May 17, Sow the Seeds Day, London. 1996 AD: CLCIA announce parliamentary candidates in forthcoming General Election

1996 AD: UK Liberal Democrats Party calls for a Royal Commission on cannabis.

1996 AD: Lord McCluskey calls for consideration of decriminalization in UK.

1996 AD: The Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence - Drug Notes - Cannabis 1996, p.8 says:
"All that can be said definitely is that 1) Cannabis use generally precedes the use of other illegal drugs. 2) Cannabis use does not necessarily (or even usually) lead to the use of other illicit drugs."
1996 AD: UK Janet Paraskeno, magistrate and director of National Youth Agency calls for 'legalization and not decriminalization'.

1996 AD: George Howarth MP (Labor) says his parties do not want a Royal Commission because it might conclude that cannabis should be legalized which a Labor Government would not do anyway.

1996 AD: The Parliament of Luxembourg passes a motion calling for a program 'of common measures for the liberalization of cannabis and its derivatives' along with Belgium and the Netherlands, and the harmonization of drug laws in Benelux countries.

1996 AD: UK Cannabis Awareness Month (September) on 68th anniversary of the law.

1996 AD: Ireland announces their plans to use cannabis as fuel to replace the use of the dwindling supplies of peat

1996 AD: Dutch town council at Delfzij decides to sell cannabis through their own coffee shop. They name the shop 'Paradox'. Profits used to provide information campaigns against 'soft drugs' in Dutch schools. Meanwhile the Dutch close many coffee shops, bowing to pressures from Germany and France.,br 1996 AD: The Canton of Zurich calls for legalization of cannabis.

1996 AD: UK Crown Prosecution Service dropping cases of possession and cultivation against some ill people (MS) as 'not in the public interest to proceed'.

1996 AD: California and Arizona pass Propositions allowing the use of cannabis in the treatment of certain illnesses, Clinton is re-elected and the FBI threaten Doctors with prosecution.

1996 AD: A Swiss man, Zimmermann, is given a life sentence in the Maldives, for importing three cannabis seeds, found in his luggage as he flew in from India.

1996 AD: Legalize Ganja Jamaica formed.

1996 AD: In the New Zealand general election the legalize cannabis candidate in Mittertond received 30f the vote. Overall they received 1.4f the votes, insufficient to gain a seat under proportional representation.

1996 AD: 100 Italian MP's call for legalization of cannabis in Italy.

1996 AD: The Sunday Times, 1 Dec, says that out of 45 UK judges questioned 16 wanted to see cannabis legalized.

1996 AD: CLCIA offices are destroyed by fire

1996 AD: June, Scottish Nationalist conference votes to allow cultivation for personal use and research into medical uses of cannabis
Sates "Relatively few adverse clinical effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been documented in humans. However, the criminalization of marijuana use may itself be a health hazard, since it may expose the users to violence and criminal activity."

1997 AD: An 8-year study at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, concluded that long-term smokers of cannabis do not experience a greater annual decline in lung functions than non-smokers.
Researchers said: "Findings from the present long-term follow-up study of heavy, habitual marijuana smokers argue against the concept that the continuing heavy use of marijuana is a significant factor for the development of [chronic lung disease]"
"No difference were noted between even quite heavy marijuana smoking and nonsmoking of marijuana."
Volume 155 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Clinical Care Medicine

1997 AD: January16, A court in Texas, USA, sentences medical marijuana user, William J. Foster to 93 years imprisonment for cultivation of one plant.

1997 AD: Two Swiss Cantons decide to legalize possession of cannabis in small amounts and ask the national Government to do the same.

1997 AD: The German State of Schlewig-Holstein legalizes possession of up to 5 grams of cannabis.

1997 AD: After appeals for clemency from the Swiss Government and letters from CLCIA supporters, the Maldives releases Zimmermann, the man given life for three seeds.

1997 AD: Norwich City Council ban the CLCIA from more stalls because seeds had been given out at previous stalls, the seed being fishing bait. After a letter campaign the council agrees that CLCIA can have the stall provided they agree not to give out 'anything which can be used to grow or take an illegal substance'.

1997 AD: In the USA a $2 million study to prove cannabis smoking can cause cancer fails and announces that it does not. The release of the report is delayed due to 'lack of supplies'.

1997 AD: Paul Flynn MP introduces an early Day Motion calling on the Government to recognize the medicinal uses of cannabis and to make it available in tablet form, also congratulating the citizens of California and Arizona.

1997 AD: February 11, USA Federal Government Authorities, led by Barry R. McCaffrey, Director of National Drug Control Policy, resists the medical supply or cannabis in California and Arizona, threatening to prosecute Doctor's who prescribe or supply it.

1997 AD: UK Legalize Cannabis Party, sponsored by the CLCIA, nominates Howard Marks as Parliamentary Candidate for Legalizing Cannabis in the General Election. He receives an average 1.3f the vote over the four constituencies where he stands.

1997 AD: The UK elects a new Labor Government and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, says he will not legalize cannabis.

1997 AD: Scottish Kirk (Church) comes out in favor of legalizing cannabis

1997 AD: Rob Christopher, founder of CHIC - the Cannabis Hemp Information Club - in London, changes his name to Free Rob Cannabis and invites arrest by distributing cannabis cookies on the steps of the Department of Heath in London. He is not arrested.

1997 AD: USA marines use helicopters to destroy marijuana crops in Hawaii despite objections from the people.

1997 AD: The Kaiser Permanente Study (USA) - "Marijuana Use and Mortality" April 1997 American Journal of Public Health concludes "Relatively few adverse clinical effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been documented in humans. However, the criminalization of marijuana use may itself be a health hazard, since it may expose the users to violence and criminal activity."

1997 AD: Researchers at the University of California (UCLA) School of Medicine announced the results of an 8 - year study into the effects of long-term cannabis smoking on the lungs. In Volume 155 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Dr. D.P. Tashkin reported: "Findings from the present long-term, follow-up study of heavy, habitual marijuana smokers argue against the concept that continuing heavy use of marijuana is a significant risk factor for the development of [chronic lung disease. ..Neither the continuing nor the intermittent marijuana smokers exhibited any significantly different rates of decline in [lung function] " as compared with those individuals who never smoked marijuana. Researchers added: "No differences were noted between even quite heavy marijuana smoking and nonsmoking of marijuana."

1997 AD: June, A plaque placed on a park bench in Chapelfield Gardens in Norwich, commemorates Howard Marks stand as a Legalize Cannabis Candidate

1997 AD: July, The British Medical Association (BMA) recommends the provision of medicinal cannabis in the UK.

1997 AD: July, The Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Australia, JW Shaw QC MLC, announced the end of prison sentences for young cannabis offenders, saying that "I believe many parents would see the imprisonment of their son or daughter for using cannabis as particularly harmful."

1997 AD: July, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD July 21 1997 p5 reports "A survey of a traditionally conservative NSW electorate has shown overwhelming community support for the decriminalization of cannabis." New South Wales then decriminalizes possession of cannabis - up to 5 plants, 30 grams of leaf, 3 grams of resin and 2 grams of oil.

1997 AD: August, UK, After the shooting of a five-year old boy in Bolton in a drug-related attack, Labor MP Brian Iddon calls for a Royal Commission on drugs with a view to decriminalization. The Sun conducts a poll that showed that over 40f its readers are in favor of decriminalization. Labor Home Office spokesman George Howarth says on Radio 4 News that cannabis causes harm and that Labor will never have dialogue on legalization and that the only solution is to stamp it out.

1997 AD: On September 19th, Marco Pannella is sentenced by the Rome Court to 4 months imprisonment commuted to 8 months on probation, for distributing hashish at the Porta Portese.

1997 AD: September, Sir Paul McCartney, ex-Beatle, reconfirms his call to decriminalize cannabis.

1997 AD: September 28th, UK newspaper The Independent on Sunday, starts their committed campaign to decriminalize cannabis backed by over 100 names of celebrities, doctors, academics etc.

1997 AD: September 28th, A picnic in Chapelfield Gardens, Norwich, to commemorate the sad prohibition laws is attended by over 100 people and cannabis is openly smoked on film by TV cameras. On this the 69th anniversary of the Dangerous Drugs Act, Rob Christopher and some 300 others gather in Hyde Park, London, to distribute cannabis cakes free to medical users. Rob then unsuccessfully attempted to turn himself in to the police.

1997 AD: October 8, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the most senior judge in England and Wales backed calls for a public debate on the legalization of cannabis. Just days after Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, ruled out moves to legalize cannabis

1997 AD: November 5, EU Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties suggests that soft drugs should be legalized

1997 AD: December 3, The French secretary of State for Public Health, Bernard Kouchner, in favor of the supply of ****** to people suffering from severe ****** addiction. He also supports the medical application of cannabis, according to an interview with Dr Kouchner MD in the newspaper Liberation.

1997 AD: December 11, Independent on Sunday holds their "Should cannabis be decriminalized?" conference in Westminster, London. Although all the MPs have been invited only 5 turn up. The conference was overwhelmingly in favor of legalization

1997 AD: December 19th, DEA formally asked the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct "a scientific and medical evaluation of the available data and provide a scheduling recommendation" for marijuana and other cannabinoid drugs. This DEA request of HHS means that the DEA has for the first time made its own determination that sufficient grounds exist to remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Schedule I is supposed to be limited to hard drugs with addictive propensities and with no legitimate medical usage.

1997 AD: December 20, British Home Secretary, Jack Straw (Labor) is told by the Daily Mirror that his son, William, sold 10 pounds worth of cannabis to a reporter Dawn Alford. Straw immediately escorts his own son to a police station to turn himself in. The lad is cautioned several weeks later.

1998 AD: March, Madrid - European and American scientists defended medical marihuana at an International Symposium on Cannabis and the Brain held at the Foundation Ramon Areces. According to them, the plant is effective in treating people with cancer and multiple sclerosis, but is not addictive.

1998 AD: Australia, March, Victoria's police commissioner, Mr Neil Comrie, has admitted the fight against drugs has failed and is set to introduce a radical statewide plan to keep drug users out of courts.

1998 AD: Conservative MP David Prior becomes the third British MP to publicly admit having smoked cannabis. He is against legalization.

1998 AD: MORE than 100 French artists and intellectuals signed a petition admitting to taking soft drugs and offering themselves for prosecution.

1998 AD: March 28 About 20,000 people marched from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square in the Decriminalize Cannabis March organized by the Independent on Sunday, CLCIA and others. Speakers in the Square included Howard Marks,Rosie Boycott, Paul Flynn MP and Caroline Coon. The new UK Anti-Drugs Coordinator, Keith Hallawell, arrogantly stated that the march was a Red Herring (irrelevant).

1998 AD: UK, Times 24 March 1998, A judge allowed a liver transplant patient to go free after he admitted growing and using cannabis to ease his pain. Sympathizing with him, Judge John Hopkin said: "I accept that's why you were growing it; to relieve the considerable pain you must suffer. That is against the law as it stands at the present time, but there is very substantial mitigation in your case." Richard Gifford, 49, a father of 6 was given a two year conditional discharge at Nottingham crown court after pleading guilty to producing and possessing cannabis. The judge said "Whether this substance should be obtained by prescription is a matter for parliament, but it does seem from a number of cases that appear before me that it is benefit to a number of persons." Paddy Tipping, PPS to Jack Straw, the Home secretary said the government has no plans to decriminalize cannabis "People like Judge Hopkin say the acknowledge there is a valuable medical effect, but there has been no compelling research done to suggest that".

1998 AD: April, Czech Republic - President Vaclav Havel vetoes a law banning possession of drugs for personal use and sent it back to Parliament, citing human rights concerns. "The President reached the opinion that the law would lead to the prosecution of victims rather than culprits," said spokesman Ladislav Spacek. Drug experts have warned that the legislation could lead to an increase in crime and drug prices and a decline in the willingness of addicts to be cured. - Reuters

1998 AD: 4 April, A man accused of growing and giving cannabis to his wife, a multiple sclerosis sufferer, was cleared by a jury's majority verdict of cultivating, cultivating with intent to supply, and supplying cannabis. Cab driver Alan Blythe, 52, of Runcorn, Cheshire, had used the defense of duress of circumstances, which the jury at Warrington Crown Court accepted. He claimed he had grown the cannabis and supplied it to his wife Judith, 48, because he was afraid that without it the acute symptoms of MS could trigger her suicide. The jury ignored the judge's suggestion that Mr Blythe had failed to prove duress of circumstances for the charge of cultivation. But they followed this advice in relation to possession, for which Mr Blythe was fined 100.

1998 AD: 21 April, Belgium officially decriminalizes cannabis after a decision by Minister de Clerk of Justice. That is you will not be prosecuted for possession for personal consumption.

1998 AD: SAN FRANCISCO April 22, 1998 -- A San Francisco marijuana club reopened under another name just a day after a court order shut down its predecessor.

1998 AD: Italy decriminalizes possession of drugs and permits small scale cultivation of cannabis for own use.

1998 AD: Danny Tungate polled 7.6f the vote as a Legalize Cannabis Candidate in the UK local elections, Catton Grove ward, Norwich

1998 AD: June 12, The UK Government has granted a license to grow and possess cannabis for the purposes of medical trials, to Dr Geoffrey Guy of GW Pharmaceuticals. The crop at a secret location in south-east England, is guarded by electrified razor-wire fences, security cameras and guard dogs.

1998 AD: Whilst US Federal Authorities make threats and arrests of Californian doctors who recommend cannabis and force the closure of most medical marijuana clubs in the state, Oakland by-pass federal law by appointing medical marijuana suppliers as deputies thereby making them immune from arrest.

1998 AD: Germany, A petition of 30 thousand signatures organized by the "Selbsthilfegruppe Cannabis als Medizin" in Berlin was handed in to the Senat of Berlin in March 1998. All governing parties (CDU, SPD, PDS and Bndnis 90 / Die Grnen) discussed the issue and unanimously support it!
The signatures being collected currently, will be handed to the "Petitionsausschuss des Deutschen Bundestages" together with the 30 thousand from Berlin.. ACM, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Cannabis als Medizin (Association for Cannabis as Medicine ) 1998 AD: June 5; Colin Davies acquitted of cultivation in the UK after informing the jury of his medical need and despite instructions from the judge that they had to rule on law and evidence alone. See Rights of Jurors.

1998 AD: A group of Welsh Cannabis Smokers headed by Chris Rawley lays prosecution papers upon Jack Straw, Tony Blair, Lord Bingham, a Crown Court Judge and Tenby Magistrates, in the process of a public prosecution for crimes against humanity and peace, and crimes against children, for upholding an illegal prohibition of cannabis.

1998 AD: September 5, Release and The Lindesmith Instituteorganise the symposium "Options for Control in the 21st Century", with experts from around the world gathering in London.

1998 AD: October, CLCIA Chairman challenges local Judge on cannabis safety

1998 AD: November 11, UK. The House of Lords rule that based upon the evidence presented for them the Government should make cannabis available to the sick without further delay, but that they are against legalization for recreational use. Jack Straw, Home Secretary, immediately rejects the House of Lord's Report saying that cannabis will not be made available until a suitable pharmaceutical standard preparation has been thoroughly tested.

1998 AD: November, "We.. say that on the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health, and that decisions to ban or legalize cannabis should be based on other considerations.": The Lancet, vol 352, number 9140, November 14 1998

1998 AD: December 24: Prince Charles tells a sufferer of Multiple Sclerosis that he has heard that cannabis can help.

1999 AD: January 21, USA: Medicinal Marijuana Advocate, Steve Kubby and Wife Busted

1999 AD: February 23, UK: 55-year-old arthritis sufferer jailed for one year for using cannabis to relieve his pain.

1999 AD: March 4, ALASKA: Medical Marijuana Law Starts

1999 AD: March 15, USA: Federal Judge Gives OK to Pot Case

1999 AD: March 21, USA: Government Study Labels Marijuana A Useful Medicine

1999 AD: March 21, Only 8 People Can Legally Use Pot As Medicine

1999 AD: March 23, GERMANY: Health Minister Supports Medical Marihuana

1999 AD: March 30, CANADA: Pot Users Take Fewer Road Risks Than Drunks Study Says

1999 AD: April 1, USA: Farmers Lobby to Legalize the Growing of Hemp

1999 AD: April 7, USA: Florida Supreme Court Hears Medical Marijuana Case

1999 AD: March, The LEGALISE CANNABIS ALLIANCE becomes an official political party in the UK. 1999 AD: April 9, UK: Pro-Cannabis Lobby To Stand in Norwich

1999 AD: April 23, SWITZERLAND: Legalizing Cannabis

1999 AD: May 1, Many thousands march for legalization around the world

1999 AD: May 6, UK: Local Election Results, May 6 1999, Legalize Cannabis Alliance candidates poll average 3.5BR>1999 AD: May 10, USA: NV Assembly Bill Eases Marijuana Penalties

1999 AD: May 20, UK Government objects to cannabis bill 95 MPs support MM bill. Eric Mann's parole revoked to silence him.

1999 AD: June 9, CANADA: Two Patients Get Federal Go-Ahead To Smoke Pot

1999 AD: June 11, US Kentucky: Hemp Museum Opens Doors To History Of Versatile Plant

1999 AD: June 11, NEW ZEALAND: Advice To Review Dope Law Repeated

1999 AD: June 13, UK: Cannabis Inhalers In First Legal Health Test

1999 AD: June 21, CANADA: Compassion Club To Grow Pot In Homes Of Members

1999 AD: June 21, SCOTLAND: Doctors Back Legalizing Cannabis

1999 AD: June 24, JAMAICA: Official Encourages Cultivation Of Hemp

1999 AD: June 30, UK: Jails Chief Says Drug Test Regime Is Useless

1999 AD: September 6, UK: MS Patients Recruited To Test Cannabis Pill

1999 AD: Oct. 14, Kingston, Jamaica, The Jamaican Senate has unanimously approved a resolution establishing a commission to explore the decriminalization of marijuana.

1999 AD: Nov 25, The Legalize Cannabis Alliance candidate in the Kensington and Chelsea By-election, Colin Paisley gained 141 votes, 8th out of 18 candidates.

2000 AD: Jan 12, CANADA: Hepatitis C Patient Wins Right To Smoke Pot

2000 AD: March 6, UK: First Conference Of The Legalize Cannabis Alliance

2000 AD: March 25, UK: Inquiry Calls For Softer Line On Hard Drugs - But Blair Says No

2000 AD: March 29, SWITZERLAND: Swiss Parliament Legalizes Cannabis

2000 AD: March 30, Malaysian Gets Life For Growing Cannabis Plant

2000 AD: April 4, MALAWI: Minister Steps Up Campaign To Legalize Marijuana

2000 AD: May 4, The Legalize Cannabis Alliance fields 5 candidates in Norwich local elections (Sarah Homes, Mick Pryce, Hugh Robertson, Trevor Smith, Tina Smith), one in Peterborough (Marcus Davies). Derrick Large receives over 400 votes in the Romsey by-election won by a Liberal Democrat.

2000 AD: May 6, Hundreds of thousands of people march for the end of the War on Cannabis

2000 AD: June 28, CANADA: Medical Pot Grower Cleared

2000 AD: June 28, NETHERLANDS: Dutch cannabis vote irks cabinet

2000 AD: July 17, USA CA: Federal Judge Clears Way for Oakland Club to Distribute Pot to
Seriously Ill Patients

2000 AD: July 31, CANADA: Pot Prohibition Unconstitutional, Rules Court Of Appeals

2000 AD: August 1: UK: Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment From Cannabis

2000 AD: August 15, USA CA: Appeals Court Approves Marijuana As Medicine

2000 AD: September 6, EUROPE: Dutch, Swiss and German Governments To Act on Marijuana

2000 AD: September 8, USA CA: Doctors' Rights Backed Under Pot Law

2000 AD: September 9, GUAM: High Court Ruling Backs Rastafarian's Sacrament - Cannabis

2000 AD: September 14, USA CA: Feds Rule Doctors May Recommend Pot

2000 AD: September 28, UK: MS Sufferer Cleared Of Cannabis Charge

2000 AD: October, Canadian Government Will Legalize Medical Marijuana Use

2000 AD: October 20, UK: Cannabis Less Harmful Than Aspirin, Says Scientist

2000 AD: November 24, USA: CA: Study Of Pot's Benefits To AIDS Patients Gets DEA's Blessing

2000 AD: December 22, CANADA: Legal Marijuana Operation Opens

2001 AD: 4 January, CANADA: Firm Grows Medical Pot In Mine Shaft

2001 AD: 19 January, BELGIUM: Seen Decriminalizing Cannabis Use

2001 AD: 10 March, SWITZERLAND: Move To Legalize Cannabis

2001 AD: 21 March, MEXICO: Leader Backs Call To Legalize Drugs

2001 AD: 22 March, UK: Lords Urge Legal Use Of Cannabis

2001 AD: 7 April, CANADA: Gravely Ill To Get Medical Pot

2001 AD: 26 April, USA: Legalize Marijuana, New Mexico Governor Urges

2001 AD: 11 June, Pot Smokers Just As Healthy - Study

2001 AD: 25 June, UK: Home Secretary Praises Cannabis Scheme

2001 AD: 1 July, UK: Drug Czar Recants: Cannabis Use Does Not Lead To ******

2001 AD: 4 July, CANADA: Legal-Marijuana Users To Get Photo Id Cards

2001 AD: 5 July, UK: In One Part Of London, Police Turn Blind Eye To Marijuana To Target Harder Crime

2001 AD: 19 August, FIJI: Marijuana a Fiji Election Issue: A Fijian high chief has said his people should be shot dead if found planting marijuana

2001 AD: 13 September, FRANCE: Koucher Opposes Drugs Law

2001 AD: 20 October, THE NETHERLANDS: Dutch Government Plans To Put Cannabis On Prescription

2001 AD: 14 December, INDONESIA: Marijuana Trafficker Gets Death Sentence

2001 AD: 16 December, UK: Study Finds No Cannabis Link To Hard Drugs

2002 AD: 25 January, NORWAY: Commission Set To Call For Decriminalization

2002 AD: 16 February, KENYA: Hashish Traffickers Jailed For 45 Years

2002 AD: 9 March, UK: Lib Dems back radical drug reforms

2002 AD: 12 March, CANADA: Doctors Want Marijuana Decriminalized

2002 AD: 14 March, UK: Reclassify Cannabis, Says Official Report

2002 AD: 1 June, MEXICO: Chihuahua Considers Legalizing Pot

2002 AD: 29 June, PHILIPPINES: Death For Marijuana

2002 AD: 10 July, David Blunkett's Announcement of reclassification of Cannabis, and Oliver Letwin's reply in Parliament

2002 AD: July, Australian Police Close Cannabis Cafe.

2002 AD: July, UK Drugs Tsar Hellawell Resigns Over Plans To Reclassify Cannabis Possession.

2002 AD: July, Canadian Judge Says Medical Cannabis Is Not Illegal.

2002 AD: August, Israeli Government Approves Use Of Cannabis By Terminally Ill.

2002 AD: October, Colin Davies Who Opened The Dutch Experience Cannabis Cafe In Stockport, UK, Is Sentenced To Three Years In Prison For Cannabis Offences.

2002 AD: November, Kenya Considers Legalizing Bhang.

2002 AD: November, UK Doctors Announce Cannabis Extracts Used In Trials On MS And Pain Patients Proving Effective.

2002 AD: November, Czech Doctors Claim Cannabis Helps Sufferers of Parkinson's Disease.

2002 AD: December, US Study Defies Gateway Theory That Cannabis Use Leads To Use Of Hard Drugs.

2002 AD: December, Canadian Judge Orders Police To Return Medical Cannabis.

2002 AD: December UK, Oakland, US, City Authorities Deputize Medical Marijuana Club Founders.

2003 AD: February, US Jurors Become Angry That Trial Judge Had Not Informed Them That Ed Rosenthal Was Deputized by City Authorities in Oakland, after they convicted him of cultivation.

2003 AD: February, UN Narcotics Control Board Questions Canada's Policy On Use Of Marijuana.

2003 AD: February, US Police Arrest 55 Suppliers Of Cannabis Paraphernalia.

2003 AD: March, Pharmacies in The Netherlands Sell Medical Cannabis More Expensive Than Many Coffee shops.

2003 AD: March, Danish Drug Dealers Go On Strike

2003 AD: March, JAMAICA: Bill To Legalize Ganja For Private Use

2003 AD: April, RUSSIA: Nostalgic Small Town Puts Cannabis On Its Flag

2007 AD: Hemp and Marijuana remain Illegal to possess and cultivate for medicine and natural resources. In some countries, there is even a death penalty for growing or possessing over a certain amount.

 

[roots69]

The Marijuana Conspiracy - The Real Reason Hemp is Illegal
by Doug Yurchey, June 15, 2005


Various addictions plague us all. Learn more about drug rehab and other substance abuse treatment that may be available. Don't let your addiction ruin your life and the lives of those around you. Get the help you deserve today and educate yourself on what you can do to start living a better life.


And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land.-- Ezekiel 34/29

THE REAL REASON CANNABIS HAS BEEN OUTLAWED HAS NOTHING
TO DO WITH ITS EFFECTS ON THE MIND AND BODY.

Doug Yurchey

MARIJUANA is DANGEROUS. Pot is NOT harmful to the human body or mind. Marijuana does NOT pose a threat to the general public. Marijuana is very much a danger to the oil companies, alcohol, tobacco industries and a large number of chemical corporations. Various big businesses, with plenty of dollars and influence, have suppressed the truth from the people.

The truth is if marijuana was utilized for its vast array of commercial products, it would create an industrial atomic bomb! Entrepreneurs have not been educated on the product potential of pot. The super rich have conspired to spread misinformation about an extremely versatile plant that, if used properly, would ruin their companies.

Where did the word 'marijuana' come from? In the mid 1930s, the M-word was created to tarnish the good image and phenomenal history of the hemp plant...as you will read. The facts cited here, with references, are generally verifiable in the Encyclopedia Britannica which was printed on hemp paper for 150 years:

* All schoolbooks were made from hemp or flax paper until the 1880s; Hemp Paper Reconsidered, Jack Frazier, 1974.

* It was LEGAL TO PAY TAXES WITH HEMP in America from 1631 until the early 1800s; LA Times, Aug. 12, 1981.

* REFUSING TO GROW HEMP in America during the 17th and 18th Centuries WAS AGAINST THE LAW! You could be jailed in Virginia for refusing to grow hemp from 1763 to 1769; Hemp in Colonial Virginia, G. M. Herdon.

"I grew Hemp", George Washington

* George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers GREW HEMP; Washington and Jefferson Diaries. Jefferson smuggled hemp seeds from China to France then to America.

* Benjamin Franklin owned one of the first paper mills in America and it processed hemp. Also, the War of 1812 was fought over hemp. Napoleon wanted to cut off Moscow's export to England; Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer.

* For thousands of years, 90% of all ships' sails and rope were made from hemp. The word 'canvas' is Dutch for cannabis; Webster's New World Dictionary.

* 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc. were made from hemp until the 1820s with the introduction of the cotton gin.

* The first Bibles, maps, charts, Betsy Ross's flag, the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were made from hemp; U.S. Government Archives.

* The first crop grown in many states was hemp. 1850 was a peak year for Kentucky producing 40,000 tons. Hemp was the largest cash crop until the 20th Century; State Archives.

* Oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China, although hemp industrialization probably goes back to ancient Egypt.

* Rembrants, Gainsboroughs, Van Goghs as well as most early canvas paintings were principally painted on hemp linen.

* In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs; Department of Agriculture

* Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935; Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

* Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

* Hemp called 'Billion Dollar Crop.' It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars; Popular Mechanics, Feb., 1938.

* Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.' It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th Century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.

The following information comes directly from the United States Department of Agriculture's 1942 14-minute film encouraging and instructing 'patriotic American farmers' to grow 350,000 acres of hemp each year for the war effort:

'...(When) Grecian temples were new, hemp was already old in the service of mankind. For thousands of years, even then, this plant had been grown for cordage and cloth in China and elsewhere in the East. For centuries prior to about 1850, all the ships that sailed the western seas were rigged with hempen rope and sails. For the sailor, no less than the hangman, hemp was indispensable...

...Now with Philippine and East Indian sources of hemp in the hands of the Japanese...American hemp must meet the needs of our Army and Navy as well as of our industries...

...the Navy's rapidly dwindling reserves. When that is gone, American hemp will go on duty again; hemp for mooring ships; hemp for tow lines; hemp for tackle and gear; hemp for countless naval uses both on ship and shore. Just as in the days when Old Ironsides sailed the seas victorious with her hempen shrouds and hempen sails. Hemp for victory!'

Certified proof from the Library of Congress; found by the research of Jack Herer, refuting claims of other government agencies that the 1942 USDA film 'Hemp for Victory' did not exist.

Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that Hemphemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution. From Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938:

'It has a short growing season...It can be grown in any state...The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves, 8 to 12 feet above the ground, chokes out weeds.
...hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.'

In the 1930s, innovations in farm machinery would have caused an industrial revolution when applied to hemp. This single resource could have created millions of new jobs generating thousands of quality products. Hemp, if not made illegal, would have brought America out of the Great Depression.

William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst's grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, Dupont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. Dupont's Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of Dupont's business.


THE CONSPIRACY

Andrew Mellon became Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury and Dupont's primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: 'marihuana' and pushed it into the consciousness of America.


MEDIA MANIPULATION

A media blitz of 'yellow journalism' raged in the late 1920s and 1930s. Hearst's newspapers ran stories emphasizing the horrors of marihuana. The menace of marihuana made headlines. Readers learned that it was responsible for everything from car accidents to loose morality.

Films like 'Reefer Madness' (1936), 'Marihuana: Assassin of Youth' (1935) and 'Marihuana: The Devil's Weed' (1936) were propaganda designed by these industrialists to create an enemy. Their purpose was to gain public support so that anti-marihuana laws could be passed.

Examine the following quotes from 'The Burning Question' aka REEFER MADNESS:

*

a violent narcotic.
*

acts of shocking violence.
*

incurable insanity.
*

soul-destroying effects.
*

under the influence of the drug he killed his entire family with an ax.
*

more vicious, more deadly even than these soul-destroying drugs (******, *******) is the menace of marihuana!

Reefer Madness did not end with the usual 'the end.' The film concluded with these words plastered on the screen: TELL YOUR CHILDREN.

In the 1930s, people were very naive; even to the point of ignorance. The masses were like sheep waiting to be led by the few in power. They did not challenge authority. If the news was in print or on the radio, they believed it had to be true. They told their children and their children grew up to be the parents of the baby-boomers.

On April 14, 1937, the Prohibitive Marihuana Tax Law or the bill that outlawed hemp was directly brought to the House Ways and Means Committee. This committee is the only one that can introduce a bill to the House floor without it being debated by other committees. The Chairman of the Ways and Means, Robert Doughton, was a Dupont supporter. He insured that the bill would pass Congress.

Dr. James Woodward, a physician and attorney, testified too late on behalf of the American Medical Association. He told the committee that the reason the AMA had not denounced the Marihuana Tax Law sooner was that the Association had just discovered that marihuana was hemp.

Few people, at the time, realized that the deadly menace they had been reading about on Hearst's front pages was in fact passive hemp. The AMA understood cannabis to be a MEDICINE found in numerous healing products sold over the last hundred years.

In September of 1937, hemp became illegal. The most useful crop known became a drug and our planet has been suffering ever since.

Congress banned hemp because it was said to be the most violence-causing drug known. Anslinger, head of the Drug Commission for 31 years, promoted the idea that marihuana made users act extremely violent. In the 1950s, under the Communist threat of McCarthyism, Anslinger now said the exact opposite. Marijuana will pacify you so much that soldiers would not want to fight.

Today, our planet is in desperate trouble. Earth is suffocating as large tracts of rain forests disappear. Pollution, poisons and chemicals are killing people. These great problems could be reversed if we industrialized hemp. Natural biomass could provide all of the planet's energy needs that are currently supplied by fossil fuels. We have consumed 80% of our oil and gas reserves. We need a renewable resource. Hemp could be the solution to soaring gas prices.


Hemp

THE WONDER PLANT

Hemp has a higher quality fiber than wood fiber. Far fewer caustic chemicals are required to make paper from hemp than from trees. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable. The plant grows quickly to maturity in a season where trees take a lifetime.

ALL PLASTIC PRODUCTS SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP SEED OIL. Hempen plastics are biodegradable! Over time, they would break down and not harm the environment. Oil-based plastics, the ones we are very familiar with, help ruin nature; they do not break down and will do great harm in the future. The process to produce the vast array of natural (hempen) plastics will not ruin the rivers as Dupont and other petrochemical companies have done. Ecology does not fit in with the plans of the Oil Industry and the political machine. Hemp products are safe and natural.

MEDICINES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. We should go back to the days when the AMA supported cannabis cures. 'Medical Marijuana' is given out legally to only a handful of people while the rest of us are forced into a system that relies on chemicals. Pot is only healthy for the human body.

WORLD HUNGER COULD END. A large variety of food products can be generated from hemp. The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature. ALSO: They have two essential fatty acids that clean your body of cholesterol. These essential fatty acids are not found anywhere else in nature! Consuming pot seeds is the best thing you could do for your body. Eat uncooked hemp seeds.

CLOTHES SHOULD BE MADE FROM HEMP. Hemp clothing is extremely strong and durable over time. You could hand clothing, made from pot, down to your grandchildren. Today, there are American companies that make hemp clothing; usually 50% hemp. Hemp fabrics should be everywhere. Instead, they are almost underground. Superior hemp products are not allowed to advertise on fascist television. Kentucky, once the top hemp producing state, made it ILLEGAL TO WEAR hemp clothing! Can you imagine being thrown into jail for wearing quality jeans?

The world is crazy...but that does not mean you have to join the insanity. Get together. Spread the news. Tell people, and that includes your children, the truth. Use hemp products. Eliminate the word 'marijuana.' Realize the history that created it. Make it politically incorrect to say or print the M-word. Fight against the propaganda (designed to favor the agenda of the super rich) and the bullshit. Hemp must be utilized in the future. We need a clean energy source to save our planet. INDUSTRIALIZE HEMP!

The liquor, tobacco and oil companies fund more than a million dollars a day to Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other similar agencies. We have all seen their commercials. Now, their motto is: ‘It's more dangerous than we thought.’ Lies from the powerful corporations, that began with Hearst, are still alive and well today.

The brainwashing continues. Now, the commercials say: If you buy a joint, you contribute to murders and gang wars. The latest anti-pot commercials say: If you buy a joint...you are promoting TERRORISM! The new enemy (terrorism) has paved the road to brainwash you any way THEY see fit.

There is only one enemy; the friendly people you pay your taxes to; the war-makers and nature destroyers. With your funding, they are killing the world right in front of your eyes. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY TOBACCO. HALF A MILLION DEATHS EACH YEAR ARE CAUSED BY ALCOHOL. NO ONE HAS EVER, EVER DIED FROM SMOKING POT!! In the entire history of the human race, not one death can be attributed to cannabis. Our society has outlawed grass but condones the use of the KILLERS: TOBACCO and ALCOHOL. Hemp should be declassified and placed in DRUG stores to relieve stress. Hardening and constriction of the arteries are bad; but hemp usage actually enlarges the arteries...which is a healthy condition. We have been so conditioned to think that: Smoking is harmful. That is NOT the case for passive pot.

Ingesting THC, hemp's active agent, has a positive effect; relieving asthma and glaucoma. A joint tends to alleviate the nausea caused by chemotherapy. You are able to eat on hemp. This is a healthy state of being.

{One personal note: During the pregnancy of my wife, she was having some difficulty gaining weight. We were in the hospital. A nurse called us to one side and said: ‘Off the record, if you smoke pot...you'd get something called the munchies and you’ll gain weight.' I swear that is a true story}.

The stereotype for a pothead is similar to a drunk, bubble-brain. Yet, the truth is one’s creative abilities can be enhanced under its influence. The perception of time slightly slows and one can become more sensitive. You can more appreciate all arts; be closer to nature and generally FEEL more under the influence of cannabis. It is, in fact, the exact opposite state of mind and body as the drunken state. You can be more aware with pot.

The pot plant is an ALIEN plant. There is physical evidence that cannabis is not like any other plant on this planet. One could conclude that it was brought here for the benefit of humanity. Hemp is the ONLY plant where the males appear one way and the females appear very different, physically! No one ever speaks of males and females in regard to the plant kingdom because plants do not show their sexes; except for cannabis. To determine what sex a certain, normal, Earthly plant is: You have to look internally, at its DNA. A male blade of grass (physically) looks exactly like a female blade of grass. The hemp plant has an intense sexuallity. Growers know to kill the males before they fertilize the females. Yes, folks...the most potent pot comes from 'horny females.'

The reason this amazing, very sophisticated, ET plant from the future is illegal has nothing to do with how it physically affects us…..

…POT IS ILLEGAL BECAUSE BILLIONAIRES WANT TO REMAIN BILLIONAIRES!

ps: I think the word ‘DRUGS’ should not be used as an umbrella-word that covers all chemical agents. Drugs have come to be known as something BAD. Are you aware there are LEGAL drugstores?! Yep, in every city. Unbelievable. Each so-called drug should be considered individually. Cannabis is a medicine and not a drug. We should DARE to speak the TRUTH no matter what the law is.

 

[roots69]

Important Facts About Cannabis You Should Know


Hello

The importance behind spreading Cannabis awarness and actual facts is monumental. We all must do our part to become informed, stay informed, and inform others and spread the truth about this wonderful plant and its sober sister HEMP.
It wasn't long ago our governments ran Slam Campaigns against Cannabis calling it the "devils breathe", and making outrageous claims like "it will make you psychotic". All myths and lies passed off as truth by the very people we should be trusting.

I constantly come across new and interesting facts about Cannabis that I would love to share with everyone, so pull up a chair and enjoy.

 

[roots69]

Types Of Hashish

Harder types of hashish resin - mostly from Morocco and Lebanon are made by sifting mature cannabis flowers through a series of sieves until only a resinous powder remains. This powder is compressed and heated to allow the resins to melt and stick together forming blocks. The resin is then compressed into blocks and sealed with cellophane or cloth. The result is a hard, brittle hash, usually light yellow to brown and sometimes even reddish brown. Generally, the really hard and yellow stuff which is cerebral is old Lebanese on the whole, and the slightly darker brown hash is usually Moroccan. Apparently, new Lebanese is often also malleable. The method used in Southern Asia involves rubbing the living flowers of the cannabis plants with hands, a leather apron or other implements. The aim is to get the soft and sticky resins to stick to a surface which can be taken somewhere to be processed and collated. These are then scraped off the skin or leather and rolled into lumps of various sizes and compressed into blocks. The color is usually dark-brown to black on the surface and lighter on the interior - air contact makes this hash go darker in color. The consistency is normally soft and a lump can usually be moulded into various shapes or sausages. Usually, the potency of seized hash varies from under 1% THC to 26% THC. Typically the strength is 3% to 8% THC, with the rest being vegetable matter. Remember that THC is not the only drug in cannabis - there are various others such as CBD and CBN which all add to the effect.

Strain: Afghani (Afghanistan) Cultivation: This type of Hashish is produced practically everywhere in and around Afghanistan. The best kinds of Hash originate from the Northern provinces between Hindu Kush and the Russian border (Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif). As tourist in Afghanistan it will be very difficult to be allowed to see Cannabis-Fields or Hash Production. Production: The plants which are used for Hash production are very small and bushy Indicas. In Afghanistan Hashish is pressed by hand under addition of a small quantity of tea or water. The Hashish is worked on until it becomes highly elastic and has a strong aromatic smell. In Afghanistan the product is stored in the form of Hash-Balls (because a round ball has the less contact with air), however, before being shipped, the Hash is pressed in 100g slabs. Good qualities of Afghani are signed with the stem of the producing family. Sometimes Hash of this kind is sold as Royal Afghani. Color: Black on the outside, dark greenish or brown inside. Can sometimes look kind of grayish on the outside when left in contact with the air. Smell: Spicy to very spicy. Taste: Very spicy, somewhat harsh on the throat. Afghani can induce lots of coughing in inexperienced users. Consistency: Soft, can be kneaded very easily. Effect: Almost narcotic, produces a very physical and stony high. Potency: Potent, sometimes very potent. It's easy to underestimate the potency of Afghani since the high takes about 5 minutes to reach it's full potential. (1.7%-6.5% THC). Availability: Quite rare, especially good qualities. Beside Moroccan Hash, Afghani is the most common kind of Hash on the European market. The price is usually higher than Moroccan but quality differs greatly. If I have the choice of Moroccan or Afghani then I would go for the stonier and more narcotic Afghani. Various: The softest Afghani isn't always the best - coconut or other oils are often added in the originating country. There is also some Hash-Oil which is being produced from Afghani, usually the quality is excellent. Most people I know are bored of Afghani if they have to smoke it for a long time, on the other side there are people who love this stuff. Beware: Turkish Hash is sometimes offered under the name of Red Afghani.

Strain: Charas (India) Cultivation: Cannabis is cultivated nearly everywhere around India. Production: In India the types of Hashish are produced by carefully rubbing the female buds between the hands. The resin is rolled in Hash-Balls, before shipment it's pressed in the usual slabs. Color: Black on the outside, dark greenish/brown inside. Smell: Spicy to very spicy. Distinctive aroma. Taste: Very spicy, somewhat harsh on the throat but definitively less so than Afghani. Consistency: Very soft, can be kneaded easily like Afghani. Sometimes quite powdery though always dense. Effect: Very stony and physical high. Cerebral. Potency: Potent to very potent. Like Nepali, Charas is almost always good smoke. (10-26% THC) Availability: Very rare, from time to time very small quantities become available. Most Hash of this kind is imported by private travellers to India. As expected the price is very high, in the range of Nepali. Charas is usually sold as a 'finger', which is a sausage shaped piece of hash.

Strain: Kashmiri (Kashmir/India) Cultivation: No information available. Production: Kashmir is the only Moslem country where Hashish is produced by hand like in Nepal and Afghanistan. Usually the producers in Kashmir aren't able to press the slabs decently. Color: Black on the outside, brown-greenish inside. White lines usually present. Smell: Very spicy and aromatic. Taste: Quite an acquired taste, however not harsh on the throat. Consistency: Somewhat harder than Afghani with less resin content. Natural oils are often added to render the Hash soft. Effect: Physical and stony high. Potency: Potent to very potent. (10-12% THC) Availability: Very rare types of hashish.

Strain: Lebanese (Lebanon) Cultivation: The most important Cannabis-Fields are located in the valley of Baalbek. The fields are cultivated on very large scale, many of them using modern machinery. The production is very industrially oriented, tradition is not very involved in the Hash-Business. Production: The Cannabis-Plants are left on the field until they are nearly dry. By this time they will have acquired a brown-reddish color (some Chlorophyll is destroyed by the UV-Rays of the Sun). Finally the plants are brought in a barn to be dried completely. Hashish is produced in the same way as in Morocco, basically the buds are carefully rubbed over a fine silk-cloth, the resulting powder can be pressed together. Than finer the mesh used, than better the resulting Hashish. The Hash-Powder is stored inside 35kg plastic bags, in this form it can be kept for a long time without losing much potency (because the resin glands are still closed). In the winter months the pressing begins. Hash-Powder is filled in linen or cotton bag and pressed under great pressure. On the surface of the Hashish the structure of the tissue which was used can be clearly seen. Usually the Hash is pressed in slabs of 100g, 200g (usually) or 1000g (1kg). There is some Hash which is pressed by hand like in Afghanistan, unfortunately it's usually not exported. Color: There are two kinds of Lebanese-Hash: Yellow Lebanese, which is yellowish and Red Lebanese which is reddish-brown (very similar to standard Morocco in color). The Red-Lebanese is made from riper plants. Smell: Spicy to very spicy, refreshing smell. Taste: Very spicy, harsher than Turk or Morocco. Some Lebanese-Hash is harsher than Afghani, especially when smoked in a Bong. Lebanese is quite an acquired taste. Consistency: Usually the slabs are very thick (about 2-3cm) and not elastic. However when you cut it, you can clearly see that it contains big quantities of resin and that it can be cut easily. Some kinds of Lebanese, like Afghani have the family stem on them. Very good Lebanese can be re-pressed by hand like Afghani due to it's high resin-content. Effect: Compared to most other Hash varieties the High is quite cerebral, however more stony than Morocco or Turk. Of course, the yellow kind produces a more cerebral high than the red kind (which is riper and contains more CBN than THC). Potency: Usually not very strong, somewhat stronger than Morocco. However there are also very good varieties of Lebanon which are very strong. As already mentioned the high resin content of the better varieties can be clearly seen and it can be re-pressed by hand. (1.0%-18% THC) Availability: Quite rare, good qualities are very rare. However Lebanese is the third most common kind of Hash in Europe (after Morocco and Afghani). Unfortunately most of the Lebanese which is sold is quite old and dry, fresh and resinous Lebanese is very rare in the last years. Usually the price-range can be compared to that of Afghani. I noticed that Yellow-Lebanese is somewhat rarer than the red. Various: I'm told that the best Lebanese-Hash is called Zahret el Kolch. The availability of Lebanese is likely to increase since the crop substitution programs run by the UN have been severely under funded, and farmers are returning to more traditional crops to make a living.

Strain: Manali (India/Himalaya Region) Production: These kinds of Hashish are produced by hand like in Afghanistan and Nepal. From what I heard the Hash production is organized by Europeans. Color: Black on the outside, greenish-brown inside. Smell: Reminds somewhat of Weed. Taste: Reminds somewhat of Weed. Consistency: Hard to very hard (when older). Effect: Not as physical and stony as the other black kinds. Potency: Medium to potent. Availability: Very rare. When available usually in the form of sticks, unfortunately often quite old. Sonstiges: Pieces of stems and seeds can sometimes be found in the dope. This was tried by ZZ in Amsterdam, and was the most disappointing of the gear we got. High quality varieties are probably available though - watch out for the really old stuff.

Strain: Moroccan (Morocco) Cultivation: Cannabis is cultivated in the Northern regions, especially in the province of Ketama. In 1992 Morocco cultivated at least 30'000 acres of Cannabis. This produces about 15'000 tons of Hashish, which are exported to Europe (especially Spain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy). Color: Greenish to brown. Due to the relatively short growing season the plants retain a quite green color at harvest. Smell: Lightly aromatic, not spicy. Taste: Compared to other kinds of Hash the taste is very mild. Personally speaking the taste of Morocco is one of my favorites, it's very soft on the throat (especially in good varieties like Pollen or Zero-Zero) and reminds of Weed. Consistency: Quite variable, however generally quite hard. Usually Morocco is sold in 0,5 - 1,5cm thick slabs. Pollen is less pressed than normal Morocco, ZeroZero is very soft, almost like Afghani. Effect: Compared to other kinds of Hash it produces a quite cerebral and active high. Potency: Light to medium, only rarely potent. Even very good Morocco can't be called particularly strong. (0.9%-10% THC) Availability: Moroccan is the most common kind of Hash on the European market, only recently it became possible for the average consumer to find other kinds of Hash on the street. Morocco is sold under many names: Standard, Melange, Premier, Zero, Zero-Zero, Sputnik, Pollen, Chocolate and probably many others. Unfortunately these names aren't very useful, dealers sell everything which is slightly better than Standard under a variety of names. Real Pollen is light-brown in color, sold in thick, lightly compressed slabs. When heated it expands much more than other Moroccan's. I should add that botanically speaking the definition Pollen is completely wrong. Of course the Hash is produced from Female resin glands and not from male pollens (which contain virtually no THC). Various: Even though the locals will offer you hash at very, very good prices, be very careful. Don't tell them where you're staying, don't let the hotel staff catch you with a spliff. Paranoia is a useful tool when it saves you from a five year prison sentence!!!

Strain: Moroccan Hash Oil. Cultivation: Moroccan hash oil is made from unpressed resin. Production (Self instruction): Use the smallest alcohol molecule, methanol, to perform a cold solvent extraction. The resin needs only to be soaked for an hour or two with a stir or three; wash the resin three times with at least a 4:1 ratio of methanol to resin, condensing the methanol driven off by heat from the filtered mixture each time. Boil down to a 1:1 ratio and after the third wash set fire to it, immediately give this a final methanol wash, fire it again; the flames will subside on their own, if your resin was pure, and your filter papers were fine, and then it will bubble up to the top of your pressure cooker; it is now super-hot (close all the windows) will cool slowly but needs to be poured to easily separate the crust which can be recycled. Big warnings: methanol will rot your brain and send you blind if you regularly inhale (luckily good hash oil contains none) and methanol fires are deceptively fierce, you need good practical chemistry lab habits. Incidentally, the washed residue looks exactly like hash still, but will not get you stoned at all (guess what happens to that!) Color: Dark brown as unwarmed solid, yellow and brown on rizla paper. Smell: Very little, slightly toasted; if it smells strongly of anything, just say no. Taste: Slightly acrid, not pleasant unless disguised. Consistency: When frozen will shatter; at room temperature is solid but sticky; will drip from spatula when heated gently, quickly solidifies to sticky solid again. Effect: Same as the hash you made it from, but will not deteriorate as quickly with time. Potency: Again, same as the resin you used, though the oil is clearly more concentrated so less equivalent oil is needed than the original hash. Availability: there's always resin in Morocco, but users need to love it to handle it with total success. This is the combustible that will be used in medical inhalers because it contains at least 75% less vegetable matter.

Strain: Nepalese (Nepal) Cultivation: There are small Cannabis cultivations everywhere in the Highlands of Nepal. Production: The resin is collected by carefully rubbing the buds between both hands. Later the collected resin is pressed to homogenous Hash-Balls (Temple Balls). Before shipment these balls are pressed in slabs. Color: Black on the outside, dark-brown inside. Smell: The aroma is very spicy, heavy and quite sweet. It is particularly potent if a piece of Hashish is broken-up. Taste: Highly aromatic and sweet, more so than Afghani but still less harsh on the throat. Consistency: Usually somewhat harder than Afghani but still soft enough to be kneaded at body temperature. Effect: Very physical and stony high. Potency: Potent to very potent.(11%-15% THC) Availability: Very rare. Sonstiges: The best Hash comes from Nepal. This stuff is simply the best - if it really is Nepalese and not some Afghani sold as Nepalese. Usually Nepalese is very expensive, in Amsterdam the best Hash in many Coffee-Shops is nothing else than Nepalese. Personally I think it's always worth the money, at least if you like the stony high it produces. Unfortunately Nepali has been very rare around here in the last years. From time to time small quantities become available.

Strain: Nether-Dope (Netherlands) Cultivation: This type of Hashish is produced from Cannabis plants grown in the Netherlands. Plants are usually cultivated Indoors but there are also small Outdoors and Greenhouse cultivations. Production: The manufacture method varies with the producer. Most of the Hash is produced thru screening like in Morocco, however there is also a small quantity of hand-rubbed Hash produced using the Afghani method (which of course is much better). However only a very small quantity of the Weed is transformed in Hashish. Color: Usually quite green, however this varies with the kind of Weed used and the producer. Smell: Usually quite grass or skunk - like, but depends from the kind of Weed. Taste: Same as above. Consistency: A lot of the Dutch Hashish is not pressed correctly (that's an art) and usually beaks apart too easily. However recently the consistency improved, they seem to learn quickly. The above of course doesn't refer to hand-rubbed Hash which is very soft like Afghani. Often the hash is simply the female heads crushed and pressed under huge weights to form a solid lump which very easily powders up. Effect: The kind of High depends from the strain of Weed which was used, however usually the high is quite active and cerebral. Potency: Potent to very potent, this stuff is better than any other kind of Hash available to the average user. It even beats most Nepali's and nearly every kind Afghan. (Up to 59% THC) Availability: Very, very rare outside the Netherlands and surrounding countries. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for this stuff to appear on the British market. Sonstiges: The quality varies widely however the price is always high. There isn't any standard denomination for the Dutch Hash. High quality powder can come under the name Sensi-Hash which is simply highly compressed THC crystals.

Strain: Oil Cultivation: Hash-Oil can be (and is) produced from any kind of Hash, so the cultivation method varies with the origin country. Production: Hash-Oil is very simple to make: the dried and powdered Buds are soaked in a (preferably Non-Polar) solvent for a couple of weeks, then the solvent is evaporated and what remains is Hash oil. Color: Extremely dark green to nearly black. Smell: Highly aromatic and spicy. Taste: Highly aromatic and spicy, taste however varies considerably with the source material. Consistency: Hash-Oil (even a highly pure one) is quite thick and hard at room temperature. At body temperature it becomes extremely sticky, when heated it becomes a liquid. Effect: Very physical and stony high. Most stony and physical high you can find. Potency: Potent to very potent. Availability: Quite rare but becomes available from time to time, probably a lot is produced in someone's kitchen. Sonstiges: I should add something about the solvents, nearly always some form of Alcohol is used as solvent. While this works quite well (especially if the source material is already good) there is a lot of Chlorophyll and other inactive substances in the product. A purer form of Hash-Oil, usually called Honey-Oil, is produced by extracting the material with Petroleum-Ether (or some other non-polar solvent) and separating the water soluble substances from the insolubles. Unfortunately in the origin country usually low quality Dope is used in the production of Oil. It is also quite easy to be ripped off when buying oil since it's very easy to adulterate.

Strain: Pakistani (Pakistan) Cultivation: Cannabis is especially cultivated in the North-West-Frontier- Province which isn't under government control. This region is considered tribal area. Drugs of every kind are produced, as well as weapons. Every man is permitted (and should) bear a firearm. The best Hashish is produced in the regions of Citral, Swat and Khaibar, however many of the field were converted to Opium fields. Production: The hash is produced quite exactly like in Afghanistan. Color: Black on the outside, dark-brown inside. Sometimes even kinds of greenish color can be found. Smell: Spicy to very spicy. Taste: Very spicy, quite harsh on the throat (like Afghani). Consistency: Soft, like Afghani. Effect: Very physical, somewhat stonier than Afghani. Potency: Medium to potent (2.4%-15% THC) Availability: Very rare. Sonstiges: Until 1979, when the Islamic Rule (of life) was introduced, one could purchase Opium and Hash of various qualities in the so called Government Opium Shops.

Strain: Turk (Turkey) Cultivation: Cannabis is produced in the rural regions like Anatolia. Production: The manufacture method (and the resulting product) is very similar to Morocco, the Hashish is pressed from Resin-Powder. Color: Greenish-brown. Smell: Slightly spicy. Taste: Not especially aromatic or spicy, very soft on the throat. Consistency: When pressed correctly Turk is hard like a rock. Sometimes it can look like over aged Moroccan Hash. Sometimes Turkish hash is encountered as brittle thin wafers which crumble and powder easily. Effect: Highly cerebral compared to other kinds of Hash. Probably the most cerebral high of any kind of Hash. Potency: Light to medium, rarely potent.(3.5%-8.8% THC) Availability: Very rare. Sonstiges: Turk can be recognized by the typical crack sound it makes when a slab is broken. Hashish use isn't very common in Turkey, Hash is available but you need to have contacts and be very careful.

The information on this page has been compiled from a variety of sources. These include second hand experience, a Swiss list, a German list, several other web sites, and a variety of book and magazine articles. Also a big thanks to any internet contributors!!! You know who you are!!!

 

[roots69]

Top 10 Cannabis Studies The Government Wished It Had Never Funded


10) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY:
A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.

9) HEAVY MARIJUANA USE AS A YOUNG ADULT WON'T RUIN YOUR LIFE:
Veterans Affairs scientists looked at whether heavy marijuana use as a young adult caused long-term problems later, studying identical twins in which one twin had been a heavy marijuana user for a year or longer but had stopped at least one month before the study, while the second twin had used marijuana no more than five times ever. Marijuana use had no significant impact on physical or mental health care utilization, health-related quality of life, or current socio-demographic characteristics. Eisen SE et al. Does Marijuana Use Have Residual Adverse Effects on Self-Reported Health Measures, Socio-Demographics or Quality of Life? A Monozygotic Co-Twin Control Study in Men. Addiction. Vol. 97 No. 9. p.1083-1086. Sept.
1997

8) THE "GATEWAY EFFECT" MAY BE A MIRAGE:
Marijuana is often called a "gateway drug" by supporters of prohibition, who point to statistical "associations" indicating that persons who use marijuana are more likely to eventually try hard drugs than those who never use marijuana — implying that marijuana use somehow causes hard drug use. But a model developed by RAND Corp. researcher Andrew Morral demonstrates that these associations can be explained "without requiring a gateway effect." More likely, this federally funded study suggests, some people simply have an underlying propensity to try drugs, and start with what's most readily available. Morral AR, McCaffrey D and Paddock S. Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect. Addiction. December 2002. p. 1493-1504.

7) PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK (PART I):
The White House had the National Research Council examine the data being gathered about drug use and the effects of U.S. drug policies. NRC concluded, "the nation possesses little information about the effectiveness of current drug policy, especially of drug law enforcement." And what data exist show "little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use." In other words, there is no proof that prohibition — the cornerstone of U.S. drug policy for a century — reduces drug use. National Research Council. Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us. National Academy Press, 2001. p. 193.

6) PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK (PART II):
DOES PROHIBITION CAUSE THE "GATEWAY EFFECT"?): U.S. and Dutch researchers, supported in part by NIDA, compared marijuana users in San Francisco, where non-medical use remains illegal, to Amsterdam, where adults may possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana from regulated businesses. Looking at such parameters as frequency and quantity of use and age at onset of use, they found no differences except one: Lifetime use of hard drugs was significantly lower in Amsterdam, with its "tolerant" marijuana policies. For example, lifetime crack cocaine use was 4.5 times higher in San Francisco than Amsterdam. Reinarman, C, Cohen, PDA, and Kaal, HL. The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and San Francisco. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 94, No. 5. May 2004. p. 836-842.

5) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART I):
Federal researchers implanted several types of cancer, including leukemia and lung cancers, in mice, then treated them with cannabinoids (unique, active components found in marijuana). THC and other cannabinoids shrank tumors and increased the mice's lifespans. Munson, AE et al. Antineoplastic Activity of Cannabinoids. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Sept. 1975. p. 597-602.

4) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER, (PART II):
In a 1994 study the government tried to suppress, federal researchers gave mice and rats massive doses of THC, looking for cancers or other signs of toxicity. The rodents given THC lived longer and had fewer cancers, "in a dose-dependent manner" (i.e. the more THC they got, the fewer tumors). NTP Technical Report On The Toxicology And Carcinogenesis Studies Of 1-Trans- Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, CAS No. 1972-08-3, In F344/N Rats And B6C3F Mice, Gavage Studies. See also, "Medical Marijuana: Unpublished Federal Study Found THC-Treated Rats Lived Longer, Had Less Cancer," AIDS Treatment News no. 263, Jan. 17, 1997.

3) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART III):
Researchers at the Kaiser-Permanente HMO, funded by NIDA, followed 65,000 patients for nearly a decade, comparing cancer rates among non-smokers, tobacco smokers, and marijuana smokers. Tobacco smokers had massively higher rates of lung cancer and other cancers. Marijuana smokers who didn't also use tobacco had no increase in risk of tobacco-related cancers or of cancer risk overall. In fact their rates of lung and most other cancers were slightly lower than non-smokers, though the difference did not reach statistical significance. Sidney, S. et al. Marijuana Use and Cancer Incidence (California, United States). Cancer Causes and Control. Vol. 8. Sept. 1997, p. 722-728.

2) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART IV):
Donald Tashkin, a UCLA researcher whose work is funded by NIDA, did a case-control study comparing 1,200 patients with lung, head and neck cancers to a matched group with no cancer. Even the heaviest marijuana smokers had no increased risk of cancer, and had somewhat lower cancer risk than non-smokers (tobacco smokers had a 20-fold increased lung cancer risk). Tashkin D. Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer: Results of a Case-Control Study. American Thoracic Society International Conference. May 23, 2006.

1) MARIJUANA DOES HAVE MEDICAL VALUE:
In response to passage of California's medical marijuana law, the White House had the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review the data on marijuana's medical benefits and risks. The IOM concluded, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be mitigated by marijuana." While noting potential risks of smoking, the report added, "we acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting." The government's refusal to acknowledge this finding caused co-author John A. Benson to tell the New York Times that the government "loves to ignore our report ... they would rather it never happened." Joy, JE, Watson, SJ, and Benson, JA. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press. 1999. p. 159. See also, Harris, G. FDA Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana. New York Times. Apr. 21, 2006

 

[roots69]

The Fraudulent Criminalization Of Marijuana In America


For almost 40 years, the United States has waged a war on its own citizens who have used marijuana as a part of a drug culture originally encouraged by the government. The war was commenced despite the government's own findings that marijuana posed less of a risk to American society than alcohol, and that the greatest harm that would result from criminalization would be the injury caused to those arrested for possession and use. The harm caused by the war extends beyond its 15 million prisoners; its cost has exceeded a trillion dollars, and it has benefitted only those who profit from the illegal cultivation and sale of marijuana.

Government Responsibility for the Drug Culture

Drug use became endemic among U.S. troops serving in Vietnam with more than 80% getting stoned on marijuana and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Many of the secrets are still hidden; however, we now have some information about the extent of the government's responsibility for the development of the drug culture in the military and in communities across America. These are the highlights:

- Although the U.S. was a signatory to the Geneva Convention protocols banning the use of chemical weapons, the U.S. Army engaged in extensive testing of marijuana and its active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as an incapacitating agent in warfare. A secret research program tested these substances, including highly-concentrated derivatives, on thousands of American GIs without their informed consent.
- The CIA engaged in a ten-year secret program to identify and test drugs for use as truth serums during interrogations and as incapacitating agents. Operation Midnight Climax secretly tested LSD on the unwitting patrons of a CIA-financed whorehouse.
- The U.S. Army envisioned "driving people crazy for a few hours" by spiking a city's water supply and developed a super hallucinogen known as quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ), which was tested on thousands of soldiers.

Known as "agent buzz," the Army produced more than 100,000 pounds of the chemical in a facility specifically designed for its incorporation into conventional bombs. Allegations in foreign publications that BZ was deployed against North Vietnam troops have never been confirmed, and all files on the subject remain top secret. However, it is known that the government considered using it for the control of domestic riots.

- To facilitate its alliance with the intelligence agencies of Thailand and Nationalist China, the CIA supported the transportation and refining of opium into heroin in Southeast Asia, including the opening of a cluster of heroin laboratories in the Golden Triangle in 1968-1969. The CIA remained silent as its allies, including officers of the Hmong irregular army, routinely supplied heroin to American troops in Vietnam, resulting in the addiction rates as high as 34%. In a secret report in - 1972, the CIA Inspector General said: "The past involvement of many of these officers in drugs is well-known."
- During classified testimony before a House committee in 1999, CIA Inspector General Britt Snider admitted that the CIA allowed its Nicaraguan Contra allies to smuggle huge quantities of cocaine into the United States during the 1980's, which was refined into "crack" for sale by street gangs. The House report found that "CIA employees did nothing to verify or disprove drug trafficking information, even when they had the opportunity to do so. In some of these, receipt of a drug allegation appeared to provoke no specific response, and business went on as usual."

The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse

In 1971, President Nixon appointed Governor Raymond P. Shafer of Pennsylvania to chair a national commission to "report on the effects of marijuana and other drugs and recommend appropriate drug policies. Governor Shafer was a former prosecutor, who was known as a "law and order" governor.

The "Shafer" Commission conducted the most extensive and comprehensive examination of marijuana ever performed by the US government. More than 50 projects were funded, "ranging from a study of the effects of marihuana on man to a field survey of enforcement of the marihuana laws in six metropolitan jurisdictions . . ."

"Through formal and informal hearings, recorded in thousands of pages of transcripts, we solicited all points of view, including those of public officials, community leaders, professional experts and students. We commissioned a nationwide survey of public beliefs, information and experience . . . In addition, we conducted separate surveys of opinion among district attorneys, judges, probation officers, clinicians, university health officials and free clinic personnel."

Among the Commissions findings were:

- "No significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities could be attributed solely to their marihuana smoking."
- "No verification is found of a causal relationship between marihuana use and subsequent heroin use."
- "In sum, the weight of the evidence is that marihuana does not cause violent or aggressive behavior; if anything marihuana serves to inhibit the expression of such behavior."
- "Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety."
- "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."

The Commission concluded that "society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal [use] is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective . . . Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem."

President Nixon called Governor Shafer on the carpet and pressured him to change the Commission's conclusion saying, "You see, the thing that is so terribly important here is that it not appear that the Commission's frankly just a bunch of do-gooders." Governor Shafer declined to change his conclusions, and Nixon declined to appoint him to a pending federal judgeship.

The War on Drugs

White House tapes reveal that Nixon's opinions about marijuana were based on his personal prejudices rather than the evidence. He can be heard to make statements such as: "That's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists . . . By God, we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss . . . "

When Nixon was talking with Art Linkletter about "radical demonstrators," he said "They're all on drugs.'' On another occasion, Nixon compared marijuana to alcohol use saying that marijuana users smoke it to "get high," while "a person drinks to have fun."

Wanting to be strong, "like the Russians," and to "scare" marijuana users, Nixon ordered his administration to come down hard on users and to target them as enemies in his "war on drugs."
The war on marijuana and the false myths associated with its usage have been continued by every president since Nixon. Since 1973, 15 million people, mostly young people who were committing no other crime, have been arrested for marijuana. In just the last ten years, 6.5 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges. Of the 829,625 people who were arrested in 2006, 738,915 of them were in simple possession.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. announced in March 2009 that the administration would discontinue raids on the distributors of medical marijuana, including California — which was the first state to legalize marijuana sales upon a doctor's recommendation.

Although President Obama backed off on arresting medical marijuana users, his 2010 National Drug Control Strategy continues the hard line: "Keeping drugs illegal reduces their availability and lessens willingness to use them. That is why this Administration firmly opposes the legalization of marijuana or any other illicit drug." Contrary to the findings of the Shafer Commission, the only existing comprehensive government study on the subject, Obama goes on to say, "Diagnostic, laboratory, clinical and epidemiological studies clearly indicate that marijuana use is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects, and legalization would only exacerbate these problems."

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have now followed California in passing laws permitting the use of marijuana for medical purposes; however, no state, thus far, has decriminalized personal possession for recreational use or personal enjoyment.

After spending a trillion dollars in the battle, the war on marijuana has been a complete failure. Although a marijuana user is arrested every 38 seconds, one hundred million people, or about one third of all Americans acknowledge they have used marijuana, and 15 million "criminals" used it in the last month.
The only victors in the war on drugs have been the criminals who have profited from illegal sales. There is an estimated $15 billion in illegal cannabis transactions each year just in California. These transactions are not taxed or regulated.

The cultivation of marijuana in Mexico soared 35% last year to production levels greater than any time in the last 20 years. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in 2006 more than 60% of the revenue generated by Mexican drug cartels came from cannabis sales in the U.S.

Nixon's war has been expensive; it has been a failure; and it has caused great damage to the fabric of America society. The harm has been particularly felt by its young people who suffer up to 80% of the marijuana arrests and who are disproportionately African American and Latino.

California's Initiative to Decriminalize Marijuana Possession

The penalty upon conviction for possession and use of less than an ounce of marijuana in California is now restricted to a maximum of a $100 fine. If California voters approve Proposition 19 on their November ballot, such possession by a person over the age of 21 will no longer be a crime under California law.
Just as California and New York ended criminal sanctions against the possession and sale of alcohol before prohibition was repealed, California voters again have the chance to remedy the evils caused by almost 40 years of a war without foundation or cause.

The initiative: "Changes California Law to Legalize Marijuana and Allow It to Be Regulated and Taxed." It includes the following provisions:

- Allows people 21 years or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use.
- Permits local governments to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of marijuana to people 21 years or older.
- Prohibits people from possession marijuana on school grounds, using it in public, smoking it while minors are present, or providing it to anyone under 21 years old, and Maintains current prohibitions against driving while impaired.

The California Legislative Analyst and the Director of Finance estimate there will be savings of up to several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments on the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders. In addition, there are unknown, but potentially major tax, fee, and benefit assessment revenues to state and local government related to the production and sale of marijuana products.

Conclusion

In 1972, during the same year of the Shafer Commission, I was a sergeant of police in Los Angeles and had just completed a two-year assignment to write and obtain approval of the Department's Policy Manual, which defined the principles and philosophy of policing in the city. I was also attending law school and I was "loaned" to the staff of the Police Task Force of President Nixon's National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, where I was privileged to draft the introductory chapters defining the role of the police in America.

Following graduation the next year and passing the state bar examination, I moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the Justice Department's Law Enforcement Assistance Administration to implement national criminal justice standards and goals. As a result of these initiatives, the quality of policing in America has been vastly improved over the years, and today, law enforcement is a profession which I am proud to have been a part of.

Several times I had to fight for my life while enforcing the law, and three of my law enforcement friends were murdered in the line of duty. I am not naive. I have walked through too much blood and have seen too much pain and suffering during my career. Everything I have learned during almost 50 years in the justice system compels a conclusion that the criminalization of marijuana was a fraud on the American people from the very inception of the war on drugs.

I am not alone in this conclusion, which has been joined by a large number of active and retired law enforcement officials and judges in the United States and other countries.
Every voter has a duty to honestly consider the issues presented by Proposition 19 and vote as though one of his or her children, a niece or nephew, or a friend's child will be caught experimenting with marijuana in the future. How will you want the matter handled? By creating a criminal, or by using the occasion as an educational opportunity?

We hopefully remember the danger to society caused by the prohibition of alcohol and we have seen how education and reasonable regulation has substantially reduced the use of tobacco in our society.
Let us rely on the true facts, our experience, our best judgement, and our consciences, instead of our prejudices or the misleading myths that continue to be perpetuated by our government. Let us bring an end to the fraudulent war on marijuana.

 

[roots69]

Hashish & the War on Terror - a soldiers perspective


Hashish & the War on Terror
Drugs in Uniform

In the late 1970s, I used to visit with a Lebanese fellow who lived next door to my friends in Anaheim, California. This man had been a member of the rightwing Phalangist militia and had escaped the guns of other Lebanese militias with the help of the Israelis.

Usually our conversations revolved around safe topics like his children, his wife, and his growing interest in baseball, but on those occasions when he joined my friends and I in draining a fifth or two of bourbon, darker stories would emerge from the recesses of his memory. I was always careful to never let him know of my sympathies for the Palestinian cause, given my understanding that the Phalangists were intimately involved in Israel's campaign to wipe that phenomenon from the earth.

It became apparent over the course of these conversations that my acquaintance was mostly involved with the fundraising side of things in the Phalange movement. His tales of bank robberies and other types of fund transfers made for good adventure stories no matter what the politics behind them were.

The last time I saw him was on Christmas Eve of 1979. The rest of my friends were already asleep on the couches and chairs that sat in their living room. The former Phalangist and I were finishing the second fifth of bourbon and waiting for Santa. I decided to dig into my backpack for a pipeful of weed that I had brought along. I didn't know if my drinking buddy smoked, but I was getting tired of the alcohol buzz and needed something to lift its fog from my brain.

As I lit the pipe, he looked at me and told me that I must put it out. I asked him why and he grabbed the pipe from my hand, put out the ember with his thumb, went to the window and threw the pipe into the street. I was a bit startled by his actions and also unwilling to find out how pathological he was about marijuana so I said nothing. He explained that he was trying to become a citizen and did not want to do anything illegal, so he took away my pipe. I nodded. He continued, telling me that he smoked "many kilos" of hashish in Lebanon, but had sworn it off when he moved to the US. In fact, he had been a hashish smuggler during his last two years in the Middle East. (As it turned out, the Israelis had also helped him escape the clutches of Interpol and the US Drug Enforcement Agency after he was busted in a smuggling operation).

I must have looked interested, because he proceeded to tell me a story of how the Phalangist militia had occupied a region of Lebanon where marijuana was grown and turned into hashish. The region had been under the control of another faction in the multi-sided war then going on in Lebanon, but when the Phalange took it over, the hashish makers began doing business with them-money was money to them. The profits went to the movement and the movement bought guns with them. In this part of the world, said my drinking buddy, everybody made money from the drugs: Christian, Jew, Moslem, Lebanese, Palestinian, Israeli, everyone.

In the past month there have been at least three publicized hashish seizures in the various bodies of water that the US patrols in the Middle East. According to the Pentagon and its shills, the drugs in these seizures are being sold to make money for Al Queda and other non-state terror organizations. Now, I don't know about you, dear reader, but I find this just a little too convenient. How the hell does the Pentagon know who is buying and selling these drugs, unless it's a Pentagon/CIA operation? Never the less, let's assume that the Pentagon is telling the truth. In that case, one has to wonder who is making the money from the increased opium production in liberated Afghanistan? Is the situation like that in Latin America, where the armed peasant organizations pay a reasonable price and take their cut from coca growers in their zones while the government supported militias see the drug from cultivation to production and rarely suffer any consequence (while also turning a tidy profit)? Or, is it like it was in Laos and other parts of Southeast Asia during the war there, with the CIA providing deniable transport for drug shipments to those warlords who do the US's dirty work? If this is the case, then is the war in Afghanistan just another drug dealing operation and are the captured shipments owned by drug producers who won't work with the CIA for ideological or other reasons?

If one recalls the various US wars on Central American countries during the 1980s, s/he will certainly remember the so-called Iran-Contra affair. In essence, this was a US operation that was run out of the Vice President's office (Pappy Bush) that traded guns for ******* to the CIA proxy army in Nicaragua (the Contras) and in turn traded weapons parts and technology via Israel to the Khomeini government in Iran for cash. This cash came from the sales of the contra ******* to various drug dealers in the United States-some of whom were enterprising enough to turn the coca paste and powder into a substance that would turn many of our country's inner cities into *******-fueled war zones. The substance I am referring to became known as *****.

The tale related to me by my Lebanese acquaintance and the endless reports of secret US involvement in drug dealing prove only one thing. That is that there is probably no armed organization, local or international, that has not been involved in this business. It is a quick and sure way to make money that cannot be traced and does not need to be accounted for. When the US trumpets a drug seizure in the Gulf or in the deserts of Texas, remember to ask yourself how many others they let through, either because of individual corruption or because of those shipments' role in funding their national security.

Aha! Is this one more reason to keep drugs illegal? If so then, not only does the "war on drugs" provide an easy method to lock up unruly and potentially unruly elements of society as a means of maintaining internal security for the elites and their supporters, it also provides a rationale that can be used to wrongfully board and seize ships suspected of carrying illegal drugs in international waters. In a complementary manner, the pretext of potential terrorism as a reason to violate previously agreed to international laws and standards as to various human and sovereignty issues, when combined with anti-drug with anti-terror laws has created an authoritarian international military and intelligence apparatus composed of government and private military entities that is capable of investigating on and incarcerating virtually any of the earth's citizens.

In an aside, one has to wonder how long it will be before US troops begin to use some of the drugs they are capturing. After all, in a war-torn land where they must celebrate New Year's with non-alcoholic beer, the desire of some soldiers for some kind of mood modification and stress release will eventually override any fear they have of the military's anti-drug regimen. Sure, it's not the 1960s or Vietnam, but many human psyches can take only so much of a life without the type of release afforded by alcohol and other mood altering substances. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan their military also suffered from a drug problem thanks to the easy availability of hashish and opium combined with troop morale as low as that of the American soldiers during the last few years of America's war in Vietnam

 

[roots69]

The Drug Czar is required by law to lie

Most people know that the "drug czar" -- the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) -- is an advocate for the government position regarding the drug war. But not everyone knows that he and his office are mandated to tell lies as part of their Congressional authorization.

According to Title VII Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998: H11225:

Responsibilities. --The Director-- [...]

(12) shall ensure that no Federal funds appropriated to the Office of National Drug Control Policy shall be expended for any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812) and take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form) that--

1. is listed in schedule I of section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812); and
2. has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration;

Now, let's take as a simple example, the issue of medical marijuana. If the government finds that marijuana Has "currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States" or "accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision," then by law, marijuana cannot remain in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, which would immediately legalize it for medical purposes.

But by law, the drug czar must oppose any attempt to legalize the use (in any form).

Therefore, despite the fact that there is extensive evidence of medical marijuana's safety and effectiveness (including the fact that even the federal government supplies it to patients), and clearly the drug czar would know about all this information, he is required by law to lie about it.

The job description also means that since he must oppose any attempt to legalize, he has no choice but declare that the drug war is working, that legalization would fail, etc., regardless of any... facts.

On April 2, 2003, Congressman Ron Paul wrote a letter to the United States General Accounting Office (GAO) asking for an investigation into ONDCP lobbying activities and their dissemination of "misleading information" (a polite euphemism for "lying")

The GAO responded (pdf):

Finally, apart from considerations of whether any particular law has been violated, you have asked whether the Deputy Director's letter disseminated misleading information in connection with statements relating to the debate over legalization of marijuana. [...]

ONDCP is specifically charged with the responsibility for "taking such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use" of certain controlled substances such as marijuana --- a responsibility which logically could include the making of advocacy statements in opposition to legalization efforts. The Deputy Director's statements about marijuana are thus within the statutory role assigned to ONDCP. Given this role, we do not see a need to examine the accuracy of the Deputy Director's individual statements in detail.

Translation: Since lying is in the job description of the ONDCP, there's no point in bothering to see whether they're telling the truth.

Keep in mind that this requirement to avoid the truth if it interferes with the mission of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is not limited to the current drug czar, John Walters.

The next drug czar, even if appointed by a President who tepidly supports certain reform measures, will be constrained by the same job description defined by Congress.

(One may also wonder, of course, if the nature of the job attracts the type of person who perversely enjoys the power of lying to the country.)

Turning this travesty around requires more than the right person for the job. The offending phrases must be struck from the authorizing language (or perhaps a future President will simply not bother to appoint a new czar).

Given the frequency that the drug czar is quoted in the press, either much of the media is not aware that he and his staff are required to lie, or they simply feel obligated to print what they say despite the falsehoods.

After all, don't all politicians lie some of the time? Yes, but who else is actually required to do so by law?


Lie (verb)

1. : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2. : to create a false or misleading impression

The ONDCP staff lies all the time (and specific examples abound all over the web), but not all lies are mere simple statements. One of the most noxious lies (and a common type of lie used by drug warriors) is the intent to deceive through the use of conjoined statements. Here's an example of the drug czar lying to me in an Ask the White House session.

Actually Pete, you've got the question exactly backwards. Marijuana is a much bigger part of the American addiction problem than most people [^] teens or adults [^] realize. There are now more teens going into treatment for marijuana dependency than for all other drugs combined.

Note the combination of the two sentences. Marijuana is a bigger addiction problem than we realize -- there are more teens going into treatment... This is a specific intent to deceive, since the drug czar knows that the increase of teens in treatment for marijuana has nothing to do with addiction, and everything to do with an increase in governmental referrals. But by placing the two statements together, he attempts to convince me of the lie.

Here's another example of the conjoined statement lie:

But marijuana is far from "harmless" -- it is pernicious. Parents are often unaware that today's marijuana is different from that of a generation ago, with potency levels 10 to 20 times stronger than the marijuana with which they were familiar.

Here's another common ONDCP example:

"Quite a few people think that smoking pot is less likely to cause cancer than a regular cigarette," reads the ad. "You may even have heard some parents say they'd rather their kid smoked a little pot than get hooked on cigarettes. Wrong, and wrong again," it continues. "One joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one cigarette." According to ONDCP drug czar John Walters, the idea behind the ads is to "give parents some hard facts that they can use to have informed conversations with their kids about the negative consequences of marijuana. ..."

Sometimes they'll talk about "carcinogens." Same idea. The intent is to deceive -- to convince people that marijuana causes cancer -- something they know is not true, so they fall back on the deception. The lie.

 

[roots69]

Your Government Is Lying To You (Again) About Marijuana


ALLEGATION #1
"There is a serious drug problem in this country."

TRUTH
America does have a serious drug problem and our public policy needs to better address this issue with health and science-based educational programs, and by providing more accessible treatment to those who are drug-dependent. Unfortunately, the bulk of America's anti-drug efforts and priorities remain fixated on arresting and jailing drug consumers — particularly recreational marijuana smokers.1

In this sense, there is a serious drug enforcement problem in this country. Despite the notion that America's drug war focuses primarily on targeting so-called hard drugs and hard drug dealers, data compiled by the FBI reports that 46 percent of all drug arrests are for marijuana.2

In 2003, the last year for which statistics are available, law enforcement arrested an estimated 755,186 persons for marijuana violations.3 This total far exceeds the total number of arrests for the violent crimes of murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.4 Today, state and local taxpayers spend between $5.3 billion5 and $7.7 billion6 dollars annually arresting and prosecuting individuals for marijuana violations. The federal government spends an additional $4 billion per year on marijuana-related activities.7 These monies would be far better spent targeting violent crime and protecting national security.

Since 1990, over 7.2 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges,8 more than the populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming combined.9 Nearly 90 percent of these arrests were for simple possession, not cultivation or sale.10

Despite the fact that reported adult use of marijuana has remained relatively constant for the past decade, annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled since 1990.11 Arrests for cocaine and heroin have declined sharply during much of this period,12 indicating that increased enforcement of marijuana laws is being achieved at the expense of enforcing laws against the possession and trafficking of more dangerous drugs.

Rather than stay this course, federal officials ought to take a page from their more successful public health campaigns discouraging teen pregnancy, drunk driving, and adolescent tobacco smoking — all of which have been significantly reduced in recent years.13 America did not achieve these results by banning the use of alcohol or tobacco products or by targeting and arresting adults who engage in these behaviors responsibly, but through honest, fact-based public education campaigns. There is no reason why these same common sense principles and strategies should not apply to marijuana and responsible adult marijuana use.

ALLEGATION #2
"Nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana."

TRUTH
This statement is pure hyperbole. By overstating marijuana's potential harms, America's policy-makers and law enforcement community undermine their credibility and ability to effectively educate the public of the legitimate harms associated with more dangerous drugs like heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine.

In fact, almost all drugs — including those that are legal — pose greater threats to individual health and/or society than does marijuana.14 According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 46,000 people die each year from alcohol-induced deaths (not including motor vehicle fatalities where alcohol impairment was a contributing factor), such as overdose and cirrhosis.15 Similarly, more than 440,000 premature deaths annually are attributed to tobacco smoking.16 By comparison, marijuana is non-toxic and cannot cause death by overdose.17 In a large-scale population study of marijuana use and mortality published in the American Journal of Public Health, marijuana use, even long-term, "showed little if any effect ... on non-AIDS mortality in men and on total mortality in women."18

After an exhaustive, federally commissioned study by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999 examining all of marijuana's potential health risks, authors concluded, "Except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications."19 (It should be noted that many risks associated with marijuana and smoking may be mitigated by alternative routes of administration such as vaporization.)20 The IOM further added, "There is no conclusive evidence that marijuana causes cancer in humans, including cancers usually related to tobacco use."21 A 2001 large-scale case-controlled study affirmed this finding, concluding that "the balance of evidence ... does not favor the idea the marijuana as commonly used in the community is a major causal factor for head, neck, or lung cancer."22 More recently, a 2004 study published in the journal Cancer Research concluded that cannabis use is not associated with an increased risk of developing oral cancer "regardless of how long, how much, or how often a person has used marijuana."23

Numerous studies and federally commissioned reports have endorsed marijuana's relative safety compared to other drugs, and recommended its decriminalization or legalization.24 Virtually all of these studies have concluded that the criminal "classification of cannabis is disproportionate in relation both to its inherent harmfulness, and to the harmfulness of other substances."25 Even a pair of editorials by the premiere British medical journal, The Lancet, acknowledge: "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health.26 ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco."27 Indeed, by far the greatest danger to health posed by the use of marijuana stems from a criminal arrest and/or conviction.

ALLEGATION #3
"60 percent of teenagers in treatment have a primary marijuana diagnosis. This means that the addiction to marijuana by our youth exceeds their addiction rates for alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy and all other drugs combined."

TRUTH
This statement is purposefully misleading. Although admissions to drug rehabilitation clinics among marijuana users have increased dramatically since the mid-1990s, this rise in marijuana admissions is due to a proportional increase in the number of people arrested by law enforcement for marijuana violations and subsequently referred to drug treatment by the criminal justice system.28 Primarily, these are young people arrested for minor possession offenses,29 brought before a criminal judge (or drug court), and ordered to rehabilitation in lieu of jail or juvenile detention. As such, this data is in no way indicative of whether the person referred to treatment is suffering from any symptoms of dependence associated with marijuana use; most individuals are ordered to attend supervised drug treatment simply to avoid jail time. In fact, since 1995, the proportion of admissions from all sources other than the criminal justice system has actually declined, according to the federal Drug and Alcohol Services Information System (DASIS).30 Consequently, DASIS now reports that 58 percent of all marijuana admissions are through the criminal justice system.31 Referrals from schools and health care/drug abuse care providers comprise another 15 percent of all admissions.32 By comparison, only 38 percent of those admitted to treatment for alcohol and only 29 percent of those admitted to treatment for cocaine are referred by the criminal justice system.33

ALLEGATION #4
"We may never rid this country of every crack pipe or marijuana plant. However, research proves that we have made substantial success in reducing drug use in this country."

TRUTH
In fact, marijuana enforcement has had no discernable long-term impact on marijuana availability or use. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, teenagers report that marijuana has surpassed tobacco and alcohol as the easiest drug to obtain.34 This result is hardly surprising, given that annual federal data compiled by the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future project reports that an estimated 86 percent of 12th graders say that marijuana is "fairly easy" or "very easy to get."35 This percentage has remained virtually unchanged since the mid-1970s36 — despite remarkably increased marijuana penalties, enforcement, and the prevalence of anti-marijuana propaganda since that time.

The percentage of adolescents experimenting with marijuana has also held steady over the long-term. According to annual data compiled by Monitoring the Future, 47.3 percent of 12th graders reported having used marijuana in 1975.37 Despite billions of dollars spent on drug enforcement and drug education efforts (such as the federally funded DARE program) since that time, today's number (for the Class of 2004) is 49 percent.38

In addition, according to data compiled by the federal National Household on Drug Abuse survey, an estimated 2.6 million Americans tried marijuana for the first time in the year 2003, up from 1.5 million in 1990 and 0.8 million in 1965.39 Today, nearly one out of every two American adults acknowledges they have used marijuana, up from fewer than one in three in 1983.40

ALLEGATION #5
"The truth is that marijuana is not harmless."

TRUTH
This statement is correct; marijuana isn't harmless. In fact, no substance is, including those that are legal. However, any risk presented by marijuana smoking falls within the ambit of choice we permit the individual in a free society.41 According to federal statistics, approximately 80 million Americans self-identify as having used marijuana at some point in their lives,42 and relatively few acknowledge having suffered significant deleterious health effects due to their use. America's public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it.

Marijuana's relative risk to the user and society does not support criminal prohibition or the continued arrest of more than 750,000 Americans on marijuana charges every year. As concluded by the Canadian House of Commons in their December 2002 report recommending marijuana decriminalization, "The consequences of conviction for possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal use are disproportionate to the potential harm associated with the behavior."43

ALLEGATION #6
"As a factor in emergency room visits, marijuana has risen 176 percent since 1994, and now surpasses heroin."

TRUTH
This statement is intentionally misleading as it wrongly suggests that marijuana use is a significant causal factor in an alarming number of emergency room visits. It is not.

Federal statistics gathered by the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) do indicate an increase in the number of people "mentioning" marijuana during hospital emergency room visits. (This increase is hardly unique to marijuana however, as the overall number of drug mentions has risen dramatically since the late 1980s — likely due to improved federal reporting procedures.)44 However, a marijuana "mention" does not mean that marijuana caused the hospital visit or that it was a factor in leading to the ER episode, only that the patient said that he or she had used marijuana previously.45

For every emergency room visit related to drug use (so-called "drug abuse episodes"), hospital staff list up to five drugs the patient reports having used recently, regardless of whether or not their use of the drug caused the visit. The frequency with which any drug is mentioned in such visits is generally proportional to its frequency of use, irrespective of its inherent dangers.46

It is foolish for anyone — especially those in the administration's anti-drug office — to imply that marijuana is in any way potentially more dangerous to one's health than heroin. Marijuana is mentioned to hospital staff more frequently than heroin, not because it's more dangerous, but simply because a far greater percentage of the population uses marijuana than uses heroin. It is also worth noting that alcohol is by far the drug most frequently reported to DAWN, even though it is reported only when present in combination with another reportable drug. Moreover, marijuana is rarely mentioned independent of other drugs.47

ALLEGATION #7
"Smoked marijuana leads to changes in the brain similar to those caused by the use of cocaine and heroin."

TRUTH
Allegations that marijuana smoking alters brain function or has long-term effects on cognition are reckless and scientifically unfounded. Federally sponsored population studies conducted in Jamaica, Greece and Costa Rica found no significant differences in brain function between long-term smokers and non-users.48 Similarly, a 1999 study of 1,300 volunteers published in The American Journal of Epidemiology reported "no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis" over a 15-year period.49 More recently, a meta-analysis of neuropsychological studies of long-term marijuana smokers by the National Institute on Drug Abuse reaffirmed this conclusion.50 In addition, a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in April 2002 reported that even former heavy marijuana smokers experience no negative measurable effects on intelligence quotient.51

Most recently, researchers at Harvard Medical School performed magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of 22 long-term cannabis users (reporting a mean of 20,100 lifetime episodes of smoking) and 26 controls (subjects with no history of cannabis use). Imaging displayed "no significant differences" between heavy cannabis smokers compared to controls. "These findings are consistent with recent literature suggesting that cannabis use is not associated with structural changes within the brain as a whole or the hippocampus in particular," authors concluded.52

Claims specifically charging that marijuana leads to brain changes similar to those induced by heroin and cocaine are based solely on the results of a handful of animal studies that demonstrated that THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) can stimulate dopamine production under certain extreme conditions, and that the immediate cessation of THC (via the administration of a chemical blocking agent) will initiate some mild symptoms of withdrawal. These findings have little bearing on the human population because, according to the US Institute of Medicine, "The long half-life and slow elimination from the body of THC ... prevent substantial abstinence symptoms" in humans.53 As a result, such symptoms have only been identified in rare, unique patient settings — limited to adolescents in treatment for substance abuse, or in clinical research trials where volunteers are administered marijuana or THC daily.54

ALLEGATION #8
"One recent study involving a roadside check of reckless drivers (not impaired by alcohol) showed that 45 percent tested positive for marijuana."

TRUTH
Though portrayed by politicians and police as a serious problem bordering on "epidemic," actual data is sparse concerning the prevalence of motorists driving under the influence of drugs, and more importantly, what role illicit drug use plays in traffic accidents.55

While it is well established that alcohol increases accident risk, evidence of marijuana's culpability in on-road driving accidents is less understood. Although marijuana intoxication has been shown to mildly impair psychomotor skills, this impairment does not appear to be severe or long lasting.56 In driving simulator tests, this impairment is typically manifested by subjects decreasing their driving speed and requiring greater time to respond to emergency situations.57

This impairment does not appear to play a significant role in on-road traffic accidents when THC levels in a driver's blood are low and/or THC is not consumed in combination with alcohol. For example, a 1992 US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration review of fatally injured drivers found, "THC-only drivers [those with detectable levels of THC in their blood] had a responsibility rate below that of drug-free drivers."58 A 1993 study conducted by the Institute of Human Psychopharmacology at the University of Maastrict (the Netherlands) evaluating cannabis' effects on actual driving performance found, "THC in single inhaled doses ... has significant, yet not dramatic, dose-related impairing effects on driving performance. ... THC's effects on road-tracking ... never exceeded alcohol's at BACs of .08% and were in no way unusual compared to many medicinal drugs."59

A 2002 review of seven separate crash culpability studies involving 7,934 drivers reported that "crash culpability studies [which attempt to correlate the responsibility of a driver for an accident to his or her consumption of a drug and the level of drug compound in his or her system] have failed to demonstrate that drivers with cannabinoids in the blood are significantly more likely than drug-free drivers to be culpable in road crashes." 60

More recently, a 2004 scientific review of driver impairment and motor vehicle crashes suggested that "recent cannabis use may increase crash risk, whereas, past use of cannabis as determined by the presence of THC-COOH (marijuana's inactive metabolite) in drivers does not."61 An additional review by Drummer and colleagues further suggested that higher THC blood levels -- particularly those above 5 ng/ml, indicating that the cannabis use had likely been within the past 1-3 hours -- may be correlated with an elevated accident risk, noting, "The odds ratio for THC concentrations of 5 ng/ml or higher [are] similar to those drivers with a BAC of at least 0.15%."62 However, a meta-analysis by a German research team of 87 experimental studies on cannabis did not find such elevated impairment, suggesting "that a THC level in blood serum of 5ng/ml ... produces the same overall reduction in test performance as does a BAC of 0.05%."63

But, unlike with alcohol, the accident risk caused by cannabis -- particularly among those who are not acutely intoxicated -- appears limited because subjects under its influence are generally aware of their impairment and compensate to some extent, such as by slowing down and by focusing their attention when they know a response will be required.64 This response is the opposite of that exhibited by drivers under the influence of alcohol, who tend to drive in a more risky manner proportional to their intoxication.65

In short, the quantitative role of cannabis consumption in on-road traffic accidents is, at this point, not well understood. However, marijuana does not appear to play a significant role in vehicle crashes, particularly when compared to alcohol.66 As summarized by the Canadian Senate's exhaustive 2002 report: "Cannabis: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy," "Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving." 67

ALLEGATION #9
"The truth is that marijuana is addictive. ... Marijuana users have an addiction rate of about 10%, and of the 5.6 million drug users who are suffering from illegal drug dependence or abuse, 62 percent are dependent on or abusing marijuana."

TRUTH
Marijuana use is not marijuana abuse. According to the US Institute of Medicine's 1999 Report: "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," "Millions of Americans have tried marijuana, but most are not regular users, ... [and] few marijuana users become dependent on it."68 In fact, less than 10 percent of marijuana users ever exhibit symptoms of dependence (as defined by the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV criteria.)69 By comparison 15 percent of alcohol users, 17 percent of cocaine users, and a whopping 32 percent of cigarette smokers statistically exhibit symptoms of drug dependence.70

Marijuana is well recognized as lacking the so-called "dependence liability" of other substances. According to the IOM, "Experimental animals that are given the opportunity to self administer cannabinoids generally do not choose to do so, which has led to the conclusion that they are not reinforcing or rewarding."71 Among humans, most marijuana users voluntarily cease their marijuana smoking by their late 20s or early 30s — often citing health or professional concerns and/or the decision to start a family.72 Contrast this pattern with that of the typical tobacco smoker — many of whom begin as teens and continue smoking daily the rest of their lives.

That's not to say that some marijuana smokers do not become psychologically dependent on marijuana or find quitting difficult. But a comprehensive study released in 2002 by the Canadian Senate concluded that this dependence "is less severe and less frequent than dependence on other psychotropic substances, including alcohol and tobacco."73 Observable withdrawal symptoms attributable to marijuana are also exceedingly rare. According to the Institute of Medicine, these symptoms are "mild and short lived"74 compared to the profound physical withdrawal symptoms of other drugs, such as alcohol or heroin, and unlikely to persuade former smokers to re-initiate their marijuana use.75

ALLEGATION #10
"Average THC levels rose from less than 1% in the late 1970s to more than 7% in 2001, and sinsemilla potency increased from 6% to 13%, and now reach as high as 33%"

TRUTH
This statement is both inaccurate and misleading. No population en masse has ever smoked marijuana averaging less than one percent THC since such low potency marijuana would not induce euphoria. In many nations, including Canada and the European Union, marijuana of one percent THC or less is legally classified as an agricultural fiber crop, hemp.76

Although annual marijuana potency data compiled by the University of Mississippi's Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences does show a slight increase in marijuana's strength through the years,77 this increase is not nearly as dramatic as purported by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In addition, quantities of exceptionally strong strains of marijuana or sinsemilla (seedless marijuana) comprise only a small percentage of the overall marijuana market. The NIDA-sponsored Marijuana Potency Monitoring Project reports that less than 10 percent of DEA seized marijuana samples are above 15 percent. Less than 2 percent of marijuana seized from the domestic market contains more than 20% THC.78 Data from Europe also refutes claims of increased cannabis potency, concluding "the potencies of resin and herbal cannabis ... have shown little or no change, at least over the past ten years."79 The drug czar's upper-level THC figures are clearly a scare tactic.

Moreover, it's worth noting that more potent marijuana is not necessarily more dangerous.80 Marijuana poses no risk of fatal overdose, regardless of THC content, and since marijuana's greatest potential health hazard stems from the user's intake of carcinogenic smoke, it may be argued that higher potency marijuana may be slightly less harmful because it permits people to achieve desired psychoactive effects while inhaling less burning material.81 In addition, studies indicate that marijuana smokers distinguish between high and low potency marijuana and moderate their use accordingly,82 just as an alcohol consumer would drink fewer ounces of (high potency) bourbon than they would ounces of (low potency) beer.

ALLEGATION #11
"The truth is that marijuana and violence are linked."

TRUTH
Absolutely not. No credible research has shown marijuana use to play a causal factor in violence, aggression or delinquent behavior, dating back to former President Richard Nixon's "First Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse" in 1972, which concluded, "In short, marihuana is not generally viewed by participants in the criminal justice community as a major contributing influence in the commission of delinquent or criminal acts."83

More recently, the Canadian Senate's 2002 "Discussion Paper on Cannabis" reaffirmed: "Cannabis use does not induce users to commit other forms of crime. Cannabis use does not increase aggressiveness or anti-social behavior."84 In contrast, research has demonstrated that certain legal drugs, such as alcohol, do induce aggressive behavior.

"Cannabis differs from alcohol ... in one major respect. It does not seem to increase risk-taking behavior," the British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs concluded in its 2002 report recommending the depenalization of marijuana. "This means that cannabis rarely contributes to violence either to others or to oneself, whereas alcohol use is a major factor in deliberate self-harm, domestic accidents and violence."85

Most recently, a logistical retrogression analysis of approximately 900 trauma patients by SUNY-Buffalo's Department of Family Medicine found that use of cannabis is not independently associated with either violent or non-violent injuries requiring hospitalization.86 Alcohol and cocaine use were associated with violence-related injuries, the study found. Accordingly, fewer than five percent of state and local law enforcement agencies identify marijuana as a drug that significantly contributes to violent crime in their areas.87

ALLEGATION #12
"The truth is that we aren't imprisoning individuals for just 'smoking a joint.' ... Nationwide, the percentage of those in prison for marijuana possession as their most serious offense is less than half of one percent (0.46%), and those generally involved exceptional circumstances."

TRUTH
This statement is grossly inaccurate and misleading. Police have arrested more than six million Americans for marijuana violations since 1994, and now average more than 750,000 arrests per year.88 The overwhelming majority of these arrests — 88 percent in 2003 — are for simple possession only, not marijuana cultivation or sale.89

While not all of those individuals arrested are eventually sentenced to long terms in jail, the fact remains that the repercussions of a marijuana arrest alone are significant — including (but not limited to):

* probation and mandatory drug testing
* loss of driving privileges
* loss of federal college aid
* asset forfeiture
* revocation of professional driver's license
* loss of certain welfare benefits such as food stamps
* removal from public housing
* loss of child custody
* loss of employment.

In other words, whether or not marijuana offenders ultimately serve time in jail, hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens are having their lives needlessly destroyed each year for nothing more than smoking marijuana.

Specific totals on marijuana offenders behind bars are seldom available because federal statistics do not categorize drug offenders by drug type or drug offense. However, according to a 1997 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of federal and state prisoners, approximately 19 percent federal and 13 percent of state drug offenders are incarcerated for marijuana offenses.90 Based on those statistics, a 1999 paper published by the Federation of American Scientists estimated that nearly 60,000 inmates (roughly 1 in every 7 drug prisoners) were incarcerated for marijuana offenses at that time.91 A more recent analysis performed by the Washington DC think-tank The Sentencing Project now estimates this total to exceed 68,000 marijuana prisoners.92

ALLEGATION #13
"The truth is that marijuana is a gateway drug. ... People who used marijuana are 8 times more likely to have used cocaine, 15 times more likely to have used heroin, and 5 times more likely to develop a need for treatment of abuse or dependence on ANY drug."

TRUTH
Nonsense. According to the Canadian Senate's 2002 study: "Cannabis: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy," "Cannabis itself is not a cause of other drug use."93 This finding concurs with the conclusions of the US National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine 1999 study, which stated that marijuana is not a "gateway drug to the extent that it is a cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse."94 (The IOM further noted that underage smoking and alcohol abuse typically precede marijuana use.)95 Statistically, for every 104 Americans who have tried marijuana, there is only one regular user of cocaine, and less than one user of heroin, according to annual data compiled by the federal National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.96

For the overwhelmingly majority of smokers, pot is a 'terminus' rather than a gateway.97

ALLEGATION #14
"The truth is that marijuana legalization would be a nightmare in America. After Dutch coffee shops started selling marijuana in small quantities, use of the drug nearly tripled ... between 1984 and 1996. While our nation's cocaine consumption has decreased by 80 percent over the past 15 years, Europe's has increased ... and the Dutch government has started to reconsider its policy."

TRUTH
This statement is inaccurate and greatly distorts the well-documented European drug policy experience. Most European countries — including Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland — do not criminally arrest marijuana users.98 Yet virtually every European nation, including the Netherlands, has drastically lower rates of marijuana and drug use among their adult and teen population compared to the United States.99 In fact, the national drug policy trends in Europe are currently moving toward more liberal marijuana laws, and away from US-styled drug policy.100 For example, Great Britain's Parliament formally downgraded marijuana in 2003 so that its possession is no longer an arrestable offense.101

As to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's specific claims regarding Dutch marijuana use, the truth is that lifetime reported use of marijuana by Dutch citizens aged 12 and older is less than half of what is reported in America.102 In addition, Dutch policy-makers downgraded marijuana offenses in the mid-1970s; this makes it unlikely that any purported increase in Dutch marijuana use during the 1980s was directly attributable to the change in law. In fact, most experts agree that marijuana's illegality has little impact on marijuana use.103 According to a 2001 study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, "The Dutch experience, together with those of a few other countries with more modest [marijuana] policy changes, provides a moderately good empirical case that removal of criminal prohibitions on cannabis possession (decriminalization) will not increase the prevalence of marijuana or any other illicit drug; the argument for decriminalization is thus strong." 104

ALLEGATION #15
"The truth is that marijuana is not a medicine, and no credible research suggest that it is."

TRUTH
This allegation is a lie, plain and simple. According to a 2001 national survey of US physicians conducted for the American Society of Addiction Medicine, nearly half of all doctors with an opinion on the subject support legalizing marijuana as a medicine.105 Moreover, no less than 80 state and national health care organizations — including the American Public Health Association,106 The American Nurses Association,107 and The New England Journal of Medicine108 — support immediate, legal patient access to medical marijuana.109 The medical community's support for medical marijuana is not based on "pseudo-science," but rather on the reports of thousands of patients and scores of scientific studies affirming marijuana's therapeutic value.

Modern research suggests that cannabis is a valuable aid in the treatment of a wide range of clinical applications. These include pain relief — particularly of neuropathic pain (pain from nerve damage) — nausea, spasticity, glaucoma, and movement disorders.110 Marijuana is also a powerful appetite stimulant, specifically for patients suffering from HIV, the AIDS wasting syndrome, or dementia.111 Emerging research suggests that marijuana's medicinal properties may protect the body against some types of malignant tumors112 and are neuroprotective.113

Recent scientific reviews supporting marijuana's use as a therapeutic agent include a 1998 report by Britain's House of Lords Science and Technology Committee concluding: "The government should allow doctors to prescribe cannabis for medical use. ... Cannabis can be effective in some patients to relieve symptoms of multiple sclerosis, and against certain forms of pain. ... This evidence is enough to justify a change in the law."114

A 1999 review by the US Institute of Medicine (conducted at the request of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy) added, "The accumulated data indicate a potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation,"115 and recommended the US government allow immediate single patient clinical trials where upon patients could legally use inhaled marijuana medicinally in a controlled setting.116 It should be noted that the IOM also reviewed the medical efficacy of the legal synthetic THC drug Marinol, which it found to have "poor bioavailability," slow onset, and adverse effects such as "anxiety, depersonalization, dizziness, euphoria, dysphoria, [and] somnolence" in approximately one-third of patients who use it.117 As such, authors noted that many patients prefer whole smoked marijuana over this legal alternative.

An overview of marijuana's medical efficacy was conducted by the Canadian Senate's Special Committee on Illegal Drugs in 2002. The study advised Parliament to revise existing federal regulations legalizing the drug to qualified patients so that any "person affected by one of the following [medical conditions]: wasting syndrome; chemotherapy treatment; fibromyalgia; epilepsy; multiple sclerosis; accident-induced chronic pain; and some physical conditions including migraines and chronic headaches, whose physical state has been certified by a physician or an individual duly authorized by the competent medical association of the province or territory in question, may choose to buy cannabis and its derivatives for therapeutic purposes."118 Today, Canadians can legally choose between using medical cannabis, as authorized by Health Canada, or the natural marijuana extract spray known as Sativex.119

Clearly, the policy issue of medical marijuana is a public health issue, and should not be held hostage by the war on drugs. Basic compassion and common sense demand that our nation allows America's seriously ill citizens to use whatever medication their physicians deem safe and effective to alleviate their pain and suffering, and the scientific record supports their use of therapeutic cannabis.
Your Government Is Lying To You (Again) About Marijuana - NORML

 

[roots69]

Reefer Racism

Even when it was not against the law, marijuana was used by very few Americans. Those who used it were typically from minority groups like the Mexicans and the Negroes, and this made them and their drug preferences highly visible. The fact that these people smoked marijuana for pleasure made marijuana a vice that was doubly suspect, since the American work ethic never recognized anything like an "artificial paradise".

At the root of America's preoccupation with the potential dangers of drugs such as marijuana was a xenophobia that seems to characterize the history of the country almost from its very beginnings. Although settled by foreigners, native-born Americans blamed newcomers to the United States for many of the country's ills. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, newly arrived foreigners were blamed for the sprawling urban slums, depressed paychecks, and labor unrest - conditions beyond the ken of frontier America's whelps. Although America was built by the sweat of toiling immigrants, the newcomers were seldom welcomed. This was especially true when the blue-eyed, blond-haired, fair-skinned, Protestant migrations gave way to the brown- and green-eyed, black-haired, swarthy non-Protestants from Southern and Eastern Europe who settled in the coastal cities of America.

Penniless when they arrived, they were grateful for whatever jobs they could get. Their readiness to toil for the lowest of wages was seen by native Americans as a stab in the back. These foreigners, they felt, were nothing less than strikebreakers.

In the southwest, the sudden increase in Mexican immigration to the Untied States around 1910 set off yet another round of ethnic confrontation. The Mexicans were lower-class immigrants. They were crude, loud, uneducated. They lived in dirty shanties, ate strange food, and spoke a foreign language. The more resentful of these foreigners Americans became, the readier they were to attribute other negative characteristics to the Mexican. The fact that the Mexicans were Catholics made their situation even more touchy since Protestant America considered Catholicism a religion of dark superstition and ignorance.

The Mexican was the Negro of the southwestern United States. While not a slave or a sharecropper, he was a peasant. The stereotype of the Mexican was that of a thief, an untamed savage, hot-blooded, quick to anger yet inherently lazy and irresponsible.

When revolution broke out in Mexico in 1910, it was inevitable that the fighting would spill across the Rio Grande. When Pancho Villa attacked the tiny outpost at Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, the attitude toward the Mexicans worsened considerably. As General Pershing's army crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico in pursuit of the bandit, his soldiers marched to the tune of a song that reflected America's attitude toward all Mexicans:

It's a long way to capture Villa
It's a long way to go;
It's a long way across the border
Where the dirty greasers grow. [1]

Villa's followers rode to a different song "La Cucaracha" - the cockroach who can't walk any longer because he doesn't have any marijuana to smoke:

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque no tiene
Marihuana que fumar.

The song was adopted as Villa's battle hymn after his capture of Torreon and subsequent overthrow of the Mexican government because many of his men had smoked marihuana before going into battle, much like other soldiers drinking alcohol before battle.

When the 1930s devastated the American economy, the Mexicans bore the brunt of the scapegoat mentality in the southwest. Everything about them was abhorrent to many Americans, and there was a general hew and cry to kick them out of the country. Harassment was commonplace. The Mexicans were censured for almost everything they did or failed to do, including smoking marijuana. Marihuana, in fact, became the pretext for vexing the Mexicans just as opium had been the pretext for vexing the Chinese years before.

Outlawing Marihuana

The campaign to outlaw marihuana in America began unexpectedly. Hamilton Wright, chief US delegate to the international conference at The Hague in 1911, had wanted an expert on international law as part of his team, but was forced to accept a California pharmacist, Henry J. Finger, instead, by Secretary of State P. C. Knox (Finger's appointment was an act of patronage to Knox's brother). During the conference, Finger unexpectedly rose from his seat to plead that cannabis be put on the list with opium and other narcotic drugs to be censured on a worldwide basis. The reason for such an unprecedented move, he said, was San Francisco's concern over the "large influx of Hindoos", who were introducing "whites into their habit".

Italy was also in favor of restrictions on cannabis, and in fact stipulated that only if the cannabis issue were placed on the agenda would it attend the conference. Italy's interest in cannabis was anything but altruistic. Although it had no major cannabis problem of its own (and in fact was one of the world's major producers of fine hemp fabric), the Italians had just gone to war with Turkey and had won jurisdiction over the African colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, where such a problem did exist.

The other delegates, however, did not view San Francisco's plight or Italy's consternation seriously, and no recommendations regarding cannabis were adopted.

At the same time, the US House Ways and Means Committee, which also met in 1911 to hear proposals for federal antinarcotics legislation, were presented with arguments regarding whether cannabis should be outlawed domestically. Heading the anticannabis forces was Charles B. Fauns, a well-known director of a drug and alcohol hospital in New York City. Fauns berated those who minimize the dangers of cannabis. "To my mind it is inexcusable," he told the congressional hearing, "for a man to say that there is no habit from the use of that drug. There is no drug in the pharmacopoeia today that would produce the pleasurable sensations you would get from cannabis, no not one - absolutely not a drug in the pharmacopoeia today, and of all the drugs on earth I would certainly put that on the list..." [2] Dr. William J. Schieffelin concurred with Fauns, although he felt that Fauns had overstated the case. Although very little cannabis was being used in the United States, he had heard that New York City's Syrian colony were smoking it and therefore perhaps it should be outlawed. [3]

Charles A. West, chairman of the National Wholesale Druggists' Association, and Albert Plaut, representing Lehn and Fink, a New York pharmaceutical firm, spoke against the proposal, claiming that the notion that cannabis was in any way a harmful drug was based more on literary fantasy such as that found in The Count of Monte Cristo than on fact. West and Plaut were the more convincing speakers and cannabis was not even included in the subsequent debate over national restrictions on narcotic drugs.

Unable to secure national support to outlaw cannabis, various state legislators moved on their own to prohibit its possession unless prescribed by a physician. In 1915, California passed the first such law. Shortly thereafter, nearly every state west of the Mississippi followed California's lead, e.g. Utah (1915), Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927).

Yet, references in the newspapers to the adoption of these laws clearly show that the marihuana was relatively unknown, even in states with considerable Mexican populations. In Texas, for instance, the Austin Statesman explained to its readers that "marihuana is a Mexican herb and is said to be sold on the Texas Mexican border". [4]

Many northern states, however, also had anticannabis laws as early as 1915. To the legislators of Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York, a narcotic was a narcotic, whatever its name. Cannabis was considered a narcotic and therefore was accorded the same status as opium, morphine, ******, and codeine, all of which were proscribed. Thus, when New York City's Board of Health prohibited cannabis from the city's streets in 1914, the New York Times (July 30, 1914) reported that the drug was a "narcotic [with] practically the same effect as morphine and *******... [and] the inclusion of cannabis indica among the drugs to be sold only on prescription is only common sense. Devotees of hashish are now hardly numerous here to count, but they are likely to increase as other narcotics become harder to obtain."

The motive behind these antimarihuana laws was obvious. Finger had alluded to San Francisco's "Hindoos" and Schieffelin had had New York City's "Syrians" in mind when they spoke out against the drug. But the Mexican connection was to outshadow these groups by far in future laws enacted against marihuana.

The Mexican Connection

In 1910, the revolution south of the Rio Grande drove thousands of Mexicans north into the United States. The main border crossings were El Paso, Texas; Nogales and Douglas, Arizona; and Calexico, California. The immigrants who passed through these points of entry usually took up temporary residence on the outskirts of these towns, and the Mexican ghetto or barrio became a common sight in parts of the southwest.

At first the newcomers were welcomed, especially by the wealthy landowners and the railway companies. These people were willing to work for cheap wages. As bad as the pay was, it was still worse in Mexico. While many Mexicans were ferried as far north as Chicago to work in the rail yards, most were recruited as fruit and vegetable pickers in California's Imperial and San Joaquin Valleys, in Texas's Rio Grande Valley, in Arizona's Salt River Valley, and in the sugar beet fields of Colorado. So valuable a labor commodity were the Mexicans that big business pressured Congress to exclude them from the literacy test and head-tax payments that had been written into the Immigration Act of 1917.

Small businessmen also reaped dollars from the newcomers, and as late as 1930 they fought all attempts to restrict Mexican immigration. Said one Los Angeles shopkeeper:

Mexican business is for cash. They don't criticize prices. You can sell them higher priced articles than they intended to purchase when they came in. They spend every cent they make. Nothing is too good for a Mexican if he has the money. They spend their entire paycheck. If they come into your store first, you get it. If they go to the other fellow's store first, he gets it. [5]

The reaction of the townspeople, however, was less favorable:

The evils to the community at large which their presence in large numbers almost invariably brings may more than over-balance their desirable qualities. Their low standards of living and morals, their illiteracy, their utter lack of proper political interest, the retarding effect of their employment upon the wage scale of the more progressive races, and finally their tendency to colonize in urban centers, with evil results, combine to stamp them as a rather undesirable class of residents. [6]

Small farmers, unable to compete with large growers because of the cheap wages paid to the Mexicans, were being driven out of business. Labor unions likewise complained of the competition from cheap labor. Local governments were unhappy about the number of Mexicans on relief. Business interests countered that the Mexicans were the most preferable of all the cheap labor available and were more suited than American whites at working at menial tasks. Caught in the middle, the Mexicans became the scapegoats for the economic conflict between business and labor. It was largely in this role of monkey-in-the-middle that the habits and customs of the Mexicans began to be attacked as un-American, and at the top of the list of un-American-like activities was their use of marihuana.

The American Hemp Drug Commissions

As the numbers of Mexican immigrants began to increase, especially in the border towns of the southwest, they were the object of close scrutiny by the townsfolk. Suspicious and often resentful of these newcomers, the townspeople humiliated, harassed, and abused them to make them feel as unwelcome as possible. When the Mexicans lashed back at their tormentors, their actions were often attributed to the influence of marihuana, which to many Americans symbolized the Mexican presence in America.

A early as 1914, the town of El Paso passed a local ordinance outlawing the sale or possession of marihuana. Like the outlawing of opium, the ordinance was meant to annoy and harass a class of people. The pretext for the law was said to have been a fight started by a Mexican who was allegedly under the influence of the drug, but the real reason was dislike, if not hatred, of the foreigners from across the Rio Grande.

Relations between Americans and Mexicans were not helped very much by the antics of the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Villa frequently led his bandits on raids against towns on the American side of the Rio Grande and then fled back into Mexico. When finally the Americans had had enough, they sent General "Black Jack" Pershing in pursuit of the elusive bandit.

When Pershing returned from Mexico, there was some concern that marihuana had infiltrated the American ranks, although an official inquiry failed to turn up any proof to that effect. However, in 1921, the commandant of Fort Sam Houston expressly forbade marihuana anywhere on the grounds of the military post, ostensibly because American soldiers were smoking the drug while on duty.

In 1916, military authorities in the Panama Canal Zone began to suspect that army personnel were also smoking marihuana, but little attention was given to the issue at that time.

Six years later, in 1922, the provost marshall became concerned about reports that American soldiers were smoking marihuana and were becoming disobedient as a result. The following year, the army prohibited possession of marihuana by American personnel in the Canal Zone.

On April 1, 1925, a formal committee was convened to investigate the traffic in marihuana in the Canal Zone and to consider steps to prevent its usage. The committee invited army officers to express their opinions on the use of the drug by American soldiers, and at a hospital for the insane the committee watched while some soldiers, four physicians, and two policemen smoked marihuana in their presence. The committee also examined the military records of delinquent soldiers for any evidence that marihuana had produced unruliness.

A Colonel Chamberlain spoke for most of the committee's members when he concluded: "I think we can safely say, based upon the samples we have had smokes here and upon the reports of the individuals concerned, that there is nothing to indicate any habit forming tendency or any striking ill effects. All of the statements to the effect that two or three puffs produce remarkable effects are nonsense, judging from our experience."

A Mr. Johannes concurred and added that Dr. Cornell, a physician participating in the experiment, "was about the only man who was actually affected."

A third member of the committee, a Dr. Hesner, explained, however, that Dr. Cornell "had previously seen a marihuana smoker at my place and I think he must have had similar symptoms to what he would have had if he had smoked any other kind of cigarette."

"In other words," Colonel Chamberlain noted, "the same effects might have been produced by any other kind of vapor."

To which Mr. Johannes replied: "I have seen firemen on ship's fires overcome by smoke, overcome by peculiar symptoms, run around without knowing what they are doing, acting peculiarly, and lacking coordination."

Up to this point, the committee seemed admirably objective in their assessment of the evidence. They had witnessed an experiment which allowed them to observe the effects of marihuana firsthand and had found nothing to be alarmed about. But a Colonel Rigby now interjected the possibility that marihuana "seems to affect some individuals pretty seriously and doesn't seem to affect others."

In response to a suggestion by Dr. Hesner that if the committee could get some other men to use it, they might be able to observe some "susceptible cases", a Mr. Calhoun proposed what would eventually become a clandestine military practice. "It might well be," opined Calhoun, "to have some who would not know whether they were smoking it or tobacco for the purpose of ascertaining exact effects." To his credit, a Dr. Bates recognized the ethical implications and denounced such a scheme. "I feel that if the matter can be demonstrated scientifically," he replied to Calhoun, "it should be so demonstrated rather than by sneaking up on them."

On the basis of the testimony given, their own personal observation, and examination of military files, the committee finally concluded that marihuana was not habit forming nor did it have "any appreciable deleterious influence on the individual using it". Previous orders forbidding possession of marihuana were subsequently rescinded in 1926.

Despite the thoroughness of the probe, some high-ranking army officers refused to accept the committee's findings and ordered that a new investigation be conducted. In 1929, the department surgeon in charge of the new inquiry reported that "use of the drug is not widespread and... its effects upon military efficiency and upon discipline are not great. There appears to be no reason for renewing the penalties formerly enacted for the possession and the use of the drug."

Nevertheless, in December 1930 the department commander ordered that since "the smoking of marihuana impairs the efficiency of the soldiers [it] is forbidden. Soldiers smoking marihuana or using it in any way will be brought to trial for each and every offence."

In June 1931, a third Canal Zone investigation was begun. Once again the committee found no evidence to link marihuana with problems of morale or delinquency. "The evidence obtained," the committee said, "suggests that organization Commanders in estimating the efficiency and soldierly quality of delinquents in their commands have unduly emphasized the effects of marihuana, disregarding the fact that a large proportion of the delinquents are morons or psychopaths, which conditions themselves would serve to account for delinquency."

But the army brass would not be deterred. Morale was down and a scapegoat had to be found. Orders forbidding possession of marihuana on military installations were to be continued in force.

Marihuana and Violence

As the most conspicuous users of marihuana, Mexicans were oftentimes accused of being incited to violence by the drug. A letter written in 1911 by the American consul at Nogales, Mexico, stated that marihuana "causes the smoker to become exceedingly pugnacious and to run amuck without discrimination." [7] A Texas police captain claimed that under marihuana's baneful influence, Mexicans became "very violent, especially when they become angry and will attack an officer even if a gun is drawn on him. They seem to have no fear, I have also noted that when under the influence of this weed they have enormous strength and that it will take several men to handle one man while under ordinary circumstances one man could handle him with ease." [8]

Prison officials throughout the southwest had no doubt about marihuana's capacity to provoke violence. In the words of the warden of the state prison in Yuma, Arizona: "Under its baseful influence reckless men become bloodthirsty, terribly daring, and dangerous to an uncontrollable degree." [9]

The Butte Montana Standard reflected the thinking of the state's legislators when they outlawed marihuana in 1927:

When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff... he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." [10]

When challenged, these statements were never supported. Dr. M. V. Ball, one of America's few authorities on marihuana, visited the border towns in 1922 as a representative of the American Medical Association to get a firsthand look at the alleged dangers of marihuana to the citizenry. Ball had previously noted that whenever cannabis drugs were mentioned in the old scientific literature, they were invariably mixed with opium, [11] and he was sceptical of the reports he had heard about the drug as far as its criminogenic properties were concerned.

During a site visit to a Texas jail, the warden gave an inmate a marihuana cigarette to smoke so that Ball could see for himself what it did to a man. "To the surprise of the American Prison Physician and the jailer who assured me three wiffs would drive fellows so wild that they become exceptionally difficult to subdue," the smoker remained calm and unperturbed. "There is no evidence whatever that I can discover," Ball subsequently reported, "to warrant the belief that marihuana smoking is on the increase among Americans or that it is prevalent or common, there is no evidence worthy of belief that marihuana is a habit forming weed or drug, or that its use is increasing among Mexicans in Mexico or in America." [12]

Four years later, Dr. W. W. Stockberger, a scientist at the US Bureau of Plant Industry, issued a similar statement. "We have had correspondence with El Paso and other border cities in Texas for a good many years about this situation," he said. However, "the reported effects of the drug on Mexicans, making them want to clean up the town, do not jibe very well with the effects of cannabis, which so far as we have reports, simply causes temporary elation, followed by depression and heavy sleep..." [13]

Several years later still, Dr. Walter Bromberg clearly demonstrated the carelessness of police officers in attributing criminal activity to marihuana. Among ten patients whose cases he pulled form the files of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Bromberg became especially interested in a J. O., a prisoner "described as having confessed how he murdered a friend and put his body in a trunk while under the influence of marihuana." Bromberg had J. O. brought to his clinic for a detailed interview. The interview convinced Bromberg that J. O. was no more a user of marihuana than was the commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics. "Although he [J. O.] was a psychopathic liar and possibly homosexual," Bromberg concluded, "there was no indication in the examination or history of the use of any drug. The investigation by the probation department failed to indicate use of the drug marihuana." [14]

Yet another example of the way facts were deliberately falsified or distorted is a case cited by Dr. Lawrence Kolb. [15] As reported by the press, a fight which ended in the death of one of the combatants was described as a vicious, marihuana-induced murder. The facts, as best Kolb could uncover them, were the two men who were drinking heavily smoked one marihuana cigarette during the night. Sometime later a quarrel ensued. A fight erupted and one of the men was killed. Since marihuana had been used, the newspapers attributed the death to marihuana although there is little doubt that if any drug was responsible for what happened, it was alcohol.

During the 1930s the most sensationalistic of all the crimes to be attributed to marihuana's baneful influence was that of the death of a Florida family. On October 16, 1933, Victor Licata axed his mother, father, two brothers, and a sister to death in their Tampa home. The following day the Tampa chief of police declared "war on the marihuana traffic here," after reading the investigating officer's report that "the weed used as a cigarette had been indirectly to blame for the wholesale murder of the Michael Licata family..." [16] The link between the crime and marihuana was that Victor Licata had been a known user of marihuana.

On October 20, a Tampa Times editorial blared: "Stop This Murderous Smoke": "...It may or not be wholly true that the pernicious marihuana cigarette is responsible for the murderous mania of a Tampa young man in exterminating all the members of his family within his reach - but whether or not the poisonous mind-wrecking weed is mainly accountable for the tragedy its sale should not be and never have been permitted here or elsewhere." [17]

Victor Licata was subsequently turned over to a psychiatrist for evaluation. The examining psychiatrist found that not only was Licata criminally insane, but that he had a history of insanity in his family and many of his relatives had been committed to mental institutions. In fact, the Tampa police had made an attempt to have Licata committed to an institution a year earlier (and a half year prior to his using marihuana), but his parents argued that they could take better care of him in their own home and he was remanded to their custody.

Licata was ultimately sentenced to the Florida state mental hospital, where he was again examined and diagnosed as suffering from a long-lasting psychosis which was probably responsible for his crime. In 1950, Licata hanged himself.

Although there was no evidence to show that Licata had killed his family while under the influence of marihuana, Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics, cited the case during the hearings on the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 as just one example of the dangers of marihuana:

In Florida, a 21-year old boy, under the influence of this drug killed his parents and his brothers and sister. The evidence showed that he had smoked marihuana. [18]

In his book The Murderers, Anslinger once again turned to the Licata case:

Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and killing that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication... A sixteen-year-old [sic] kills his entire family of five in Florida... Every one of these crimes has been preceded by the smoking of one or more marihuana "reefers". [19]

Anslinger's attitude was typical of other police officers in regard to the marihuana issue. Without any evidence to back them up, more than a few law enforcement officers adamantly denounce marihuana as a "killer drug".

The campaign against the drug picked up especially during the Depression as marihuana became yet another issue on which to harass Mexican immigrants. The Mexicans were accused of spreading the marihuana vice throughout the nation:

While the plant is a native to the Torrid Zone, its cultivation has been taken up through the United States and it is, at the present time, to be found in practically every state in the Union - in fact wherever Mexicans are located. So far north and east of its natural habitat has the weed spread under cultivation, that the New York Narcotics Forces have discovered patches of it which were grown within city limits. Again the Mexican influence is shown, the supply being found near the Pennsylvania Railroad Yards, in the Borough of Queens, where the Mexicans are employed. [20]

Labor groups and antiforeigner groups like the American Coalition badgered California's legislators to kick the Mexicans out of the state on grounds that marihuana was undermining American morality. Said C. M. Goethe, a spokesman for the coalition:

Marihuana, perhaps now the most insidious of our narcotics, is a direct by-product of unrestricted Mexican immigration. Easily grown, it has been asserted that it has recently been planted between rows in a California penitentiary garden. Mexican peddlers have been caught distributing sample marihuana cigarets to school children. Bills for our quota against Mexico have been blocked mysteriously in every Congress since the 1924 Quota Act. Our nation has more than enough laborers. [21]

A report from the Missionary Educator Movement in California also called attention to the widespread use of marihuana among the Mexicans and its alleged connection with lack of morality:

The use of marihuana is not uncommon in the colonies of the lower class of Mexican immigrants. This is a native drug made from what is sometimes called the "crazy weed". The effects are high exhilaration and intoxication, followed by extreme depression and broken nerves. [Police] officers and Mexicans both ascribe many of the moral irregularities of Mexicans to the effects of marihuana. [22]

Los Angeles's chief of detectives, Joseph F. Taylor, likewise hammered away at the crime-inducing effects of marihuana on the Mexican:

In the past we have had officers of this department shot and killed by marihuana addicts and have traced the act of murder directly to the influence of marihuana, with no other motive. [23]

Elsewhere throughout the southwest, where there were heavy concentrations of Mexicans, newspapers carried on a vigorous campaign against marihuana, aimed ostensibly at the evils of the drug but the real object of their indictment was crystal clear: "Four men, including a deputy sheriff, were seriously injured last night by a marihuana-raged Mexican before the bullets of another officer killed him, as he charged this officer with a knife." [24]

In 1933, the arrest of a "dope ring" specializing in marihuana, in Longmont, Colorado, prompted the remark from one journalist that marihuana was "highly intoxicating and constitutes an ever recurring problem where there are Mexicans or Spanish-Americans of the lower classes." [25]

Readers were likewise informed that while "appalling in its effects on the human mind and body as narcotics, the consumption of marihuana appears to be proceeding, virtually unchecked in Colorado and other Western states with a large Spanish-American population." [26] And if this were not dire warning enough, readers were also told that marihuana was "kin to loco weed... [and] when mixed with hay causes death to horses!" [27]

In 1931, the California State Narcotic Committee reported that marihuana usage was "widespread throughout Southern California among the Mexican population there," [28] and cited statistics from the city of Los Angeles that marihuana was frequently listed as being involved in criminal arrests. On the other hand, although "widespread" among the Mexicans, no other city in the state could produce comparable statistics. In fact, surveys of crime and delinquency among the Mexicans clearly demonstrated that they exhibited "delinquent tendencies less than their proportion of the population would entitle them to show." [29] When the records of one officer who had been adamant in his denunciation of the Mexican crime wave were examined, it was discovered that he had overestimated the proportion of Mexican arrests by 60 percent! [30]

It was not their antisocial behavior nor their use of marihuana that made the Mexicans persona non grata. As long as the economy had been viable, differences between the Mexicans and Anglos were rarely belligerent. When the Depression hit, however, jobs in the city disappeared. Anglo workers now began looking to farm labor as a means of livelihood. It was then that real competition for jobs became an issue.

Relief programs for the unemployed were a related issue. During the 1920s, the Mexican population in Los Angeles alone increased by 226 percent. [31] By 1930, there were over 97,000 Mexicans in the city. When these immigrants lost their jobs and went on relief, the business sector, which had once regarded them as an exploitable asset, now began to view them as an intolerable burden.

To reduce the relief burden, labor groups led by the AFL began urging that the Mexicans be shipped back across the border. Repatriation became law in the 1930s, and beginning in 1931 thousands of Mexicans were shipped back across the Rio Grande. The cost to repatriate one Mexican to Mexico City was $14.70. An average family ran about $71.14, including food and transportation. Los Angeles County paid out $77,249.49 to repatriate one covey of 6024 Mexicans and figured it had got itself a bargain compared to the $424,933.70 it estimated charitable relief would have cost had these people remained. [32]

Mexicans who did not wish to return voluntarily were subjected to varying forms and degrees of harassment. Many were charged with vagrancy. Others were arrested for violation of state marihuana laws. When they began to resist efforts to jail and deport them, their resistance was attributed to the influence of marijuana and these charges lent further weight to the accusation that marijuana incited violence.

 

[roots69]

The History of music and marijuana (part one)


The story of 20th century music is intertwined with the story of cannabis.

Jazz and Mary Warner

The 20th century stories of music and marijuana both begin in Storyville, the red light district of New Orleans. This is where Louis Armstrong was born in 1901, and where the first recorded American use of "marihuana" occurred in 1909.

According to cannabis historian Ernest Abel, "It was in these bordellos, where music provided the background and not the primary focus of attention, that marihuana became an integral part of the jazz era. Unlike booze, which dulled and incapacitated, marihuana enabled musicians whose job required them to play long into the night to forget their exhaustion. Moreover, the drug seemed to make their music sound more imaginative and unique, at least to those who played and listened while under its sensorial influence."1

Growing up in this milieu, as Armstrong told his biographers, much later, "We always looked at pot as a sort of medicine, a cheap drunk and with much better thoughts than one that's full of liquor."2

Jazz and swing music was declared to be an "outgrowth of marihuana use" by the white authorities. They expressed concern that itinerant black musicians were spreading a powerful new "voodoo" music and that they also sold the weed which made decent folks abandon their inhibitions.

According to music historian Harry Shapiro, "In the early 20's, marihuana, muggles, muta, gage, tea, reefer, grifa, Mary Warner, Mary Jane or rosa maria was known almost exclusively to musicians."3

Since smoking marijuana was associated with wild music and crazy behavior – and with Negroes and Mexicans – the Man moved quickly to stamp it out, conducting a racist press campaign that was to set an unseemly precedent for all the anti-pot propaganda to come. New Orleans banned the weed in 1923 and all Louisiana followed suit in 1927.

Official disapproval of pot didn't become an issue for Louis Armstrong until one night in 1931, when he was busted while blasting a joint between sets in the car park of the Cotton Club in Culver City, near Hollywood. The cops were pretty decent about it, being fans of the great man, but a rival band leader had dropped a nickel on Satchmo and they were obliged to take him downtown, where he spent nine days in the Los Angeles City Jail.

The first genius of jazz faced a possible sentence of six months, but the judge turned out to be a fan, too, and gave him a suspended sentence. "I went to work that night – wailed just like nothing happened. What struck me funny though – I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana they thought Mary Warner was a chick. Woo, boy – that really fractured me!"

Experience taught Satchmo to be reticent about his fondness for sweet Mary Warner and he never recounted the story of his bust until shortly before his death in 1971, when he agreed to "tell it like it wuz" for his biographers.

"We did call ourselves Vipers," he admitted, "which could have been anybody from all walks of life that smoked and respected gage. That was our cute little name for marijuana..." Louis Armstrong was the foremost celebrity, or "King" of Harlem – the capital city of black America – over the period when the early jazz scene spawned numerous recordings that referred to marijuana.


Dance of the vipers

"When I came to New York in 1937," wrote Dizzy Gillespie in his autobiography, "I didn't drink nor smoke marijuana. 'You gotta be a square muthafucka!' Charlie Shavers said and turned me on to smoking pot. Now, certainly, we were not the only ones. Some of the older musicians had been smoking reefers for 40 and 50 years. Jazz musicians, the old ones and the young ones, almost all of them that I knew smoked pot, but I wouldn't call that drug abuse."

References to marijuana, under various aliases, abound on early recordings with titles like Tea for Two, Lotus Blossom and Smoking Reefers, many of which have now been reissued on American compilation albums with titles like Reefer Songs and Viper Mad Blues.

Conjure the image of the hissing viper for a second: taking a swift, sly suck on a skinny little joint. A viper is a toker, which practically all jazz musicians were, and the viper songs celebrated a new social hero: the dude who supplied the inspirational but illegal herb that made the rent parties go with a swing.

Satchmo was surrounded by a crowd of vipers that included a cat by the name of Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow, a Jewish kid from Chicago who started hanging out with black musicians he met at the reformatory and resolved to "become" a Negro. First Mezzrow learned to play the horn, and pretty soon he was getting high with the boys in the band.

During the Roaring Twenties, Mezzrow played in the speakeasies that proliferated in Capone-era Chicago. As Prohibition ended and the Depression set in, Mezz achieved his goal by moving to Harlem, the capital city of black America. On arrival, he found the local reefer to be decidedly ropy and, if he couldn't compete with the talented local musicians, he certainly knew where to score superior weed.

Mezz used his powerful Mexican loco-weed as a way into a community where he was desperate to be accepted and the community embraced him so warmly that, before long, his name had become a byword for good quality marijuana. Mezz was the toast of Harlem!

That the great Fats Waller was a mighty good friend of Mezz's cannot be doubted, for so he testified on If You're A Viper: "Dreamed about a reefer five foot long/ Mighty Mezz but not too strong/ You'll be high, but not for long/ If you're a viper."

Time dilation

Mezzrow's own contribution to the canon of pot songs is a tune called Sendin' the Vipers, but his musical legacy is eclipsed by his autobiography, Really the Blues,4 which vividly recalls the early jazz era and contains this account of the effect of the first joint he ever smoked had upon his skills as a musician:

"The first thing I noticed was that I began to hear my saxophone as if it was inside my head... Then I began to feel the vibrations of the reed much more pronounced against my lip and my head buzzed like a loudspeaker. I found I was slurring much better and putting just the right feeling into my phrases. I was really coming on. All the notes came easing out of my horn like they'd already been made up, greased and stuffed into the bell, so all I had to do was to blow a little and send them on their way, one right after the other, never missing, never behind time, all without an ounce of effort."

Compare these words to the testimony of one Dr James Munch, a pharmacologist who was the top official expert on the effects of marijuana in the US throughout the 1930's and 40's and a close associate of the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J Anslinger, who was chiefly responsible for prohibition.

Years after the fact, Dr Munch was quizzed by Larry "Ratso" Sloman, author of a popular social history of marijuana use in America, Reefer Madness. Ratso asked him why Anslinger went after musicians who smoked pot:

"Because the chief effect as far as they were concerned was that it lengthens the sense of time, and therefore they could get more grace beats into their music than they could if they simply followed the written copy... In other words, if you're a musician, you're going to play the thing the way it's printed on a sheet. But if you're using marijuana, you're going to work in about twice as much music between the first note and the second note. That's what made jazz musicians. The idea that they could jazz things up, liven them up, you see."5

So Anslinger hated marijuana for the same reason jazz musicians loved it! One of the reasons Anslinger was motivated to stop people smoking pot in the first place was because it inspired unconventional jazz music!

Even after he'd managed to get marijuana banned in 1937, Anslinger was so vexed by pot-smoking musicians that he instructed his agents across the country to keep an eye on all local jazz musicians and prepare for the day when they would all be rounded up in one fell swoop!6

The planned Jazz Pogrom was abandoned in 1948, when Anslinger went before a Congressional Committee to plead for more funds to carry out his dastardly plan and shot himself in the foot: newspaper reports of his denunciation of jazz musicians prompted thousands of letters of objection from the jazz-loving American public.

Malcolm X as Staggerlee

In 1943, before he transformed himself into Malcolm X, a crazy seventeen-year-old hepcat who travelled by the handle of Detroit Red came to Harlem looking for a hustle and wound up "peddling reefers" to the jazz musicians he idolized.

"In every band, at least half the musicians smoked reefers," he told Alex Haley 20 years later. "I'm not going to list names; I'd have to include some of those most prominent in popular music, even a number of them around today. In one case, every man in one of the bands, which is still famous, was on marijuana."

Malcolm told how he would score through a friend called Sammy and sell ready-rolled joints (or "sticks" since they were no bigger than matchsticks) "wherever musicians congregated."

When Harlem got too hot, Crazy Red hit the road. "I'd turn up in towns were my friends were playing. 'Red!' I was an old friend from home. In the sticks, I was somebody from the Braddock Hotel. 'My man! Daddy-o!' And I had Big Apple reefers."7
In Mystery Train, his classic collection of essays about American rock and roll, Greil Marcus explores the myth of Staggerlee, the boldest, baddest black man on the block. No slave he, Staggerlee is the archetypal glamorous outlaw: flashily dressed, not to be crossed, and living for kicks.

Or, as Marcus quotes Bobby Searle, a leading member of the Black Panthers: "Staggerlee is Malcolm X before he became politically conscious. Livin' in the hoodlum world."8 Indeed, the conked and Zoot-suited, Lindy-hopping Harlem Red might well have been the Reefer Man Cab Calloway sang about.

Long before he became the most radical black politician of his generation, Malcolm X personified white middle America's worst nightmare: an arrogant black man who didn't know his place and openly consorted with white women. In fact, Harlem Red conformed only too closely to the image of the evil pusher portrayed by the anti-pot propaganda of the era. Portrayed in popular songs as romantic heroes, drug dealers were condemned by prohibitionist propaganda as wicked villains, hell-bent on corrupting the innocent and destroying young lives.

The great divide

The great divide between straight and stoned yawned widest – according to legend – in the 1960's. The prophet of the decade was Bob Dylan, who sang in nasal whine garbled lyrics that defied interpretation even to those who had ears to hear them. What Dylan was singing about was open to conjecture, but to begin to appreciate him required an ability to tune into his words without being distracted by his terrible singing.

Listen to Dylan while under the influence of marijuana, however, and his caterwaul starts to make some kind of sense. One effect of being stoned that Charles T Tart describes as "very characteristic" is an ability to understand the words of songs which are not clear when straight. This, Tart notes, tartly, "is an experience clearly relevant to understanding rock music, which seems incomprehensible to many ordinary people."9 Dylan himself explained it rather more forcefully in the refrain to Rainy Day Women #12 & 35: "Everybody must get stoned!"

The Swingin' Sixties officially kicked off on August 28, 1964, when Bob Dylan met the Beatles in their hotel suite during their first visit to New York and turned them on to pot. Paul McCartney told Barry Miles how Ringo took Dylan's proffered reefer and – not knowing that etiquette dictates that the skinny cigarette be passed around – smoked the whole thing.10 From that day forward, throughout what is universally accepted to be the most creatively fertile period of any pop group in history, the Beatles were stoned out of their ever-expanding minds on a daily basis.

Any and every mention of "high" or "grass" or "smoke" in a Beatles song, said Paul, was always intentional. By the time they made Help, at the height of Beatlemania in the Summer of '65, according to John Lennon: "The Beatles had gone beyond comprehension. We were smoking marijuana for breakfast. We were well into marijuana and nobody could communicate with us, because we were just glazed eyes, giggling all the time."11

Ever the rebel, Lennon claimed that the Fab Four had even shared a furtive joint in the loo at Buckingham Palace when they went to collect their MBEs in October, 1965 (although George Harrison's more recently revealed memory was that it was just a straight ciggy).

In 1968, John Lennon, aged 28, was fined £150 for possession of 219 grains (about half an ounce) of cannabis resin, a conviction that weighed heavily against him in later years when he sought to become a US resident.

John's old mucker, Macca, also had hassle with the law, most famously at Tokyo Airport in 1980, when he was caught carrying 219 grams (nearly half a pound) of cannabis through customs and was subsequently deported from Japan after spending nine days in jail. Paul McCartney didn't learn his lesson, though, and in 1984, at the ripe old age of 42, the multi-millionaire musician and confirmed family man faced his fourth prosecution for possession of cannabis in a glittering career that has led to a knighthood (and beyond).

In 1972, Lester Grinspoon appeared as an expert witness on John Lennon's behalf. Grinspoon testified at the hearings that the US Attorney General had engineered as a way of getting John and Yoko Ono out of the country on marijuana charges, after they had become involved in anti-Vietnam War activities.

Over dinner, Grinspoon recalls, "I told John... how cannabis appeared to make it possible for me to 'hear' his music for the first time in much the same way that Allen Ginsberg had 'seen' Cezanne for the first time when he purposely smoked cannabis before setting out for the Museum of Modern Art, to determine if he could, with the help of marijuana, break through his incapacity to relate to Cezanne. John was quick to reply that I had experienced only one facet of what marijuana could do for music, that he thought it did wonders for composing and making music as well as listening to it."12

High-profile punishments

Donovan, the UK's home-grown, hippy-dippy Dylan surrogate who was fined for possessing marijuana in July 1966, was one of the first to have to suffer a lecture from a pompous judge about his status as a role model for young people. The prurient British press, ever ready to perceive a threat to decent society, joined the chorus of disapproval and stoked the fires of moral outrage.

The campaign against those pop stars denounced by the Daily Mail for their "decadence" reached its zenith with the police raid on Redlands, Keith Richards' house in West Sussex, in February 1967. Tipped off by The News of The World, the officers discovered a small, stoned party in progress that included a young woman – singer Marianne Faithfull, enticingly referred to in press reports as "Miss X" – stark naked under a fur rug and allegedly under the influence of marijuana.

At the trial, the judge directed the jury to disregard Faithfull's evidence that she hadn't been smoking pot at the time, and sentenced Richards to 12 months in prison, plus costs, for allowing his house to be used as a venue for smoking what the law quaintly referred to as "Indian hemp."

At the same time, Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones' ringleader and Parental Enemy No. 1 of the period, was given three months for possessing four pep pills that had been purchased perfectly legally in Italy.

This blatant injustice prompted the famous editorial column Who breaks a butterfly on the wheel? in The Times on July 1, 1967. While quoting William Blake and denouncing the phenomenon of social revenge in which "a single figure becomes the focus for public concern about some aspect of public morality," author William Rees-Mogg failed to mention marijuana. Indeed, he pointed out that "Mr Jagger was not charged with complicity in any other drug offense that occurred in the same house."

While the injustice done to Jagger may have appeared more clear-cut, the omission of any mention of his partner in crime, Richards, was pertinent. The only person found in possession of cannabis at Redlands was a Canadian drug dealer named David Scheidermann, who had since disappeared and whom Richards had denounced from the witness box during his trial as an informer planted by The News of the World in order to entrap the Stones.

Although Keith was facing a year's incarceration for doing nothing, his debauched image was deemed to be less defensible. On appeal, however, the evidence relating to the naked girl was deemed to be "extremely prejudicial" and the case against Keith Richards was quashed. Mick Jagger was given the standard lecture about being a responsible role model and let off with a conditional discharge.

On July 24, 1967, an advertisement appeared in The Times declaring that "the law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice," signed by more than 60 luminaries of the time.

Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced Tory politician, was top of the alphabetical list, followed by Tariq Ali. Also featured were such familiar names as David Dimbleby, Herbert Kretzmer, George Melly, and all four members of the Beatles. The ad, placed by an organization called SOMA (after Aldous Huxley's euphoriant in Brave New World) cited medical opinion that cannabis is innocuous, quoted Spinoza ("All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at") and proposed a five-point plan for the repeal of cannabis prohibition.

At that time, no more than half a million people in Britain had actually tried cannabis. The London drug scene of the 60's, in which the Beatles and the Stones were lauded like sheiks, was an exclusive club where the in-crowd understood that true wealth is not calculated in terms of material possessions, but in love, peace and the kind of chemically-enhanced consciousness that was being proselytized by the American academic turned Acid Guru, Timothy Leary.

References

1. Ernest L. Abel, Marihuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years. Plenum Pub Corp. (US), 1980.
2. Max Jones and John Chilton, Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900-1971. Da Capo Press (US), 1988.
3. Harry Shapiro, Waiting For The Man: The Story of Drugs and Popular Music. Helter Skelter (UK), 2000.
4. Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow, Really The Blues. Carol Publishing Corp. (US), 1990.
5. Larry "Ratso" Sloman, Reefer Madness: A History of Marijuana. St. Martin's Griffin (US), 1998.
6. For a full account of Anslinger's planned pogrom of Jazz musicians, see The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States.
7. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley. Grove Press (US), 1964.
8. Greil Marcus, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n Roll Music. Plume Books (US), 1997.
9. Charles T Tart, On Being Stoned: A Psychological Study of Marijuana Intoxication. Archived at www.druglibrary.org/special/tart/tratcont.htm
10. Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. Secker & Warburg (UK), 1997.
11. John Lennon interviewed by David Sheff for Playboy Magazine, January 1981.
12. Lester Grinspoon, Some Introductory Remarks For The Uses Of Marijuana Project. www.marijuana-uses.com/examples/intro.html.

 

[roots69]

The history of music and marijuana (part two)


From funk to flower power, reggae to rock, stoners expand musical boundaries.

Love and Haight

The Mecca for beautiful people during the Summer of Love was San Francisco – where you had to be sure to wear flowers in your hair – and the city's most revered precinct was the Haight-Ashbury district, where flower power had first been fomented in the "happenings" chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. L$D provided the inspiration for free-form events at which rock groups performed lengthy improvisations before back-projections of swirling colors while the audience would loon around wildly, or sit quietly on the floor, as the mood took them. However, as Harry Shapiro put it, "if L$D was the icing on the counter-cultural cake, marijuana was its basic ingredient."1

As the influence of flower power and of the bands that grew out of the San Francisco scene became more pervasive, so did pot smoking and, at the large outdoor rock festivals that superseded the acid tests, smoking pot became almost obligatory. During the hippie era, which was formally inaugurated at the Monterey festival in June 1967, climaxed at Woodstock, and came to an abrupt end at Altamont in December 1969, smoking pot ceased to be a minority activity. For a generation of young people, igniting a joint was a defiant, quasi-political act indicating dissatisfaction with conventional society, identification with the hippie values of peace and love, and a sure-fire way to worry your parents.

For the hippies, sharing a joint was a ritualistic way of affirming a communality of purpose, however vague that purpose may have been. In 1969, Dennis Hopper's film, Easy Rider, depicted two white Staggerlee-types riding across America and turning on the relatively straight character played by Jack Nicholson with a joint at breakfast to change his perspective on the day. Together with the film record of Woodstock, Easy Rider is the most enduring celluloid evocation of hippiedom; its soundtrack contains several of the period's quintessential songs about cannabis, such as Don't Bogart that Joint by Country Joe & the Fish.

Solid stone

The hippie movement may have turned a lot of white people on to cannabis for the first time, but black people – black musicians in particular – had always smoked. The highlight of Woodstock (and of Monterey, too) was an electrifying performance by the most important instrumentalist in the history of rock music: James Marshall Hendrix. Hendrix had caused a sensation in London in 1966, where he impressed the elite coterie of rock stars on the insular London scene of the 60's not only with his astonishing guitar technique, but also with his authenticity. Not only was Jimi really American, but he was black. Even if he had been less forthright about his fondness for cannabis – pronouncing, in 1967, that he reckoned it would be legal within five years – who could doubt that Jimi smoked pot?

A lesser star of Woodstock, but one who was in the ascendant, was Sly Stone, whose inspirational performance resulted in two tracks on the live album, including the anthemic I Want to Take You Higher, which insinuated Sly & the Family Stone into white middle class homes across America and beyond. Sly was brought up in the Bay Area and had hung out in the Haight during the crucial period before coming out with an infectious style of dance music with optimistic, politically-conscious lyrics that he declared to be "a whole new thing."

Sly Stone was one of the key innovators of funk, the style of black dance music popularized by James Brown and characterized by a rhythmic sensibility that is implicitly informed by cannabis. The etymology of "funk" is opaque. Its dictionary meaning, "fear," may provide a clue to the title of James Brown's classic, In a Cold Sweat, but its received meaning referred first to smell and later to style. Could it be that the term was coined to describe music that evoked the atmosphere of a hot and sweaty room crowded with dancers and sweet with the smell of pot smoke?

* The funk flag was flown most prominently throughout the 70's by Parliament, led by George Clinton, who had their first top-10 hit on Billboard magazine's Black Music Chart in 1974 and peaked in 1978, when Parliament scored two number one hits with Flashlight and Aquaboogie in the same year that Clinton's other group, Funkadelic, had a world-wide hit with One Nation Under a Groove. While the lyrics of these songs may not refer specifically to cannabis (unlike other Clintonic titles such as Pot Smokin' Tots, or Munchies for Your Love) there's small doubt that it was pot that put the P in Clinton's own special brand of music, P-Funk.

Put simply, the P is the best of anything; P-Funk is the purest form of funk – uncut funk – also known as "the bomb." The P represents a state of mind, an alternative reality, and if the stoned subtext of these songs eludes you, well, you may be irredeemably lost in the zone of zero funkativity. Clinton created a universe of his own over a series of albums like Chocolate City, the title track of which postulated an alternative government with Mohammed Ali as President, Aretha Franklin as First Lady and Stevie Wonder the Secretary of Fine Art.

Little Stevie, who had his first hit at the age of 14 with Fingertips, is acclaimed as the leading songwriter of his generation. He was introduced to pot by his fellow musicians on the Motown Revue and, before long, had dropped the "Little" tag and was producing albums with titles like Music of My Mind and writing pot-influenced songs with far-out lyrics, like Too High, the opening track of his 1973 album, Innervisions.

Easy skanking

On the Caribbean island of Jamaica during the late 1960's, the local pop stars equivalent to the Beatles were a vocal trio comprising of Neville "Bunny" Livingston, Peter MacIntosh and Robert Nesta Marley: the Wailers. They first made their mark dressed as gangsters, or "rude boys," wearing sharp suits and shades and singing songs such as Simmer Down. They found their true style after teaming up with the rhythm section of Jamaica's premier session band, the Upsetters, and defined it in a series of classic recordings made with the legendary producer, Lee Perry. To the lilting strains of crude reggae, Bob Marley brought the sweetest melodies and the most passionate lyrics, which the Wailers rendered in sublime harmony while the Barrett brothers – Curly on drums, Aston on bass – ground out a profound and irresistible rhythm.

The Wailers were among the first musicians to overtly adopt the trappings of Rastafarianism, a religious cult that grew up in the Kingston slums from the teachings of a radical black activist called Marcus Garvey, to become the spiritual nationality of Jamaica and the island's most compelling cultural force. Garvey believed that former slaves must be repatriated, back to Africa, to establish their own nation state. He also prophesied that a black king would arise to lead them. When, in 1930, a tribal warlord was crowned the 111th Emperor of Ethiopia in a line of descent traced back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and took a new name, Ras Tafari – "Power of the Holy Trinity" – he was acclaimed in Kingston as a living god.

Rastafarianism refers back to the Old Testament, identifying its adherents as the lost tribes of Israel, sold into slavery in Babylon and awaiting their return to Zion, the promised land. Rastas characteristically grow their hair into dreadlocks, for no razor shall touch the heads of the righteous; they eschew meat and shellfish for "I-tal" food – grains, fruit, roots and vegetables – and they revere cannabis as the sacramental herb; it is "the healing of the nations."

Cannabis had always played a part in the medicinal and mystical rituals of ancient Africa and was probably well known to the slaves who worked the West Indian sugar plantations, but anthropologists contend that the herb didn't arrive in Jamaica until after slavery was abolished there in 1838, when it was brought by contract workers from the Indian sub-continent who were drafted in to fill the subsequent labor shortage. The Jamaican term for herbal cannabis, "ganja," is a Hindi word meaning "sweet smelling," but also "noisy," which is not a bad description of roots reggae.


Bob Marley: The ultimate marijuana musician.
The deep rhythmic bass of reggae combined with the effects of smoking large quantities of ganja – particularly the herb's tendencies to enhance one's appreciation of tonal resonance and to distort one's perception of time – when mixed together in primitive recording studios, begat Dub. It was the custom within the Jamaican music industry to fill out the flip-sides of 45rpm singles with instrumental versions of the song featured on the A side and, under the creative influence of cannabis, record producers such as Lee Perry started twiddling their knobs idiosyncratically, dropping out the treble and pumping up the bass, cutting up the vocal track and adding masses of reverb to haunting phrases that echo through the mix. No other music sounds more like the way it feels to be stoned.

Bob Marley summed up the influence of cannabis on emerging Rasta consciousness in an interview with Stephen Davis: "Rastaman sit down and smoke some herb, with good meditation, and a policeman come see him, stick him up, search him, beat him, and put him in prison. Now, what is this guy doing these things for? Herb grows like yams and cabbage. Just grow. Policemen do these things fe evil... System don't agree with herb because herb make ya too solid. Y'see, when ya smoke herb ya conscience come right in front of ya. Ya see it? So the devil see ya not guan fe do fool thing again. Yes, Rasta! Herb is the healing of the nation."2

In 1972, the Wailers secured their ticket to Babylon via a deal with Chris Blackwell of Island Records. They began to record a series of classic albums that would introduce reggae to a world-wide audience. Despite this success, or perhaps because of it, the Wailers split up in 1974 when Bunny Livingston and Peter Tosh quit, ostensibly because the pair didn't want to go on tour. Bob Marley replaced them with three female backing singers, the I-Threes, who included his wife, Rita, and went on to become a superstar, eclipsing even Elvis over some parts of the globe.

Peter Tosh may not have been as talented as Bob Marley, but he was less willing to compromise. Soon after breaking with the Wailers, he recorded what was to become the pot smokers' anthem – the title track on his first solo LP: Legalize It. The song is a litany of ganja's medicinal uses – telling us that it's good for the "flu, for asthma, for tuberculosis and even 'umara composis'" (whatever that might be) – and a roll-call of those who use it, including doctors, nurses, judges and lawyers as well as singers and "players of instruments, too." The chorus has became a rallying cry: "Legalize it, don't criticize it."

In 1976, Tosh told Stephen Davis: "My song about herb, called Legalize It, was played here for a while on the radio, but the herb dealers who live in Beverley Hills don't want the small man to live... I was taught as a boy that herb is a natural drug and medicine... But then I was terribly brutalized by the police and charged with ganja. Can you imagine? Herb? Vegetables? We are the victim of Ras clot circumstances. Them that don't want to legalize it have to do with the business of it... Every time I smoke herb my imagination is burning and I'm writing my best music... Herb is for the ills of man. It's the healing of the nations. But in Jamaica a man can go to prison for one seed. It might as well be one ton of herb. I smoke herb every minute, every hour, every day. Then I lie down and rest and get up and smoke again."2

Roll another number

In 1973, Eric Clapton's version of Bob Marley's song, I Shot the Sheriff, introduced reggae to a world-wide, predominantly white audience whose musical palate had become more than slightly jaded. A couple of years later, Clapton also recorded what has become the definitive version of the JJ Cale song, Cocaine, a paean to the South American substance which increasingly became the rock 'n rollers' drug of choice throughout the 1970's.

In the early 70's, Dylan had gone to ground and his nearest rival as a lyricist, Neil Young, was navel-gazing and grieving for lost friends who had become casualties of the drug culture (although he was back on form by 1975, when he wrote Homegrown with Crazy Horse). It seemed as if everyone had gone to California, at least in spirit, but the key figures that animated the Californian scene of the 60's were gone. Janis Joplin, whose anguished wail had cut through the haze of peace and love, was dead. Pigpen was dying and the Grateful Dead sounded mournful without his earthy, bluesy influence. Having single-handedly invented the genre of Country Rock, Gram Parsons, the Grievous Angel, crash-landed in 1973, leaving his musical legacy to the likes of the Eagles.

Throughout the early half of the 1970's, rock music became increasingly synonymous with bland boogie bands like the Doobie Brothers – "doobie," *******, being teen code for a joint – and by the smooth and mellow West Coast sound exemplified by Steve Miller who was, like, a total pothead. Miller's entire band had been busted and deported from England in 1968 while recording their first album, and in 1973 the Miller Band had a huge hit with The Joker, in which song the singer is cast in the role of a laid-back player: a joker, a smoker, a "midnight toker."

The other most marked tendency within rock was for "progressive" musicians to produce LP records full of more ambitious, not to say pretentious, pieces of music stretched far beyond the traditional three-minute format of pop singles designed to be played on the radio. Two of the biggest-selling records of the 1970's were The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield, both released in 1973.

The first is a sort of concept album, loosely about the pressures of being a high-earning star in the vulgar field of popular music, performed by a group who disdained the conventional marketing strategies of the music business and whose live shows were characterized by elaborate visual effects; the latter is a quasi-orchestral 50-minute composition by a young, reclusive multi-instrumentalist who was too shy to perform it live. Both records were designed to be listened to right through in a sitting and, as such, they provided the ideal soundtrack to many a pot smoking session held in school dormitories and college common rooms throughout the rest of the decade.

The biggest rock group of the 70's, however, was Led Zeppelin, renowned for excess in all areas. They played the heaviest music and took the hardest drugs in the most copious quantities and are widely condemned as the progenitors of Heavy Metal, the kind of pretentious stadium rock perpetrated by boorish rock stars who snorted so much c*****e that they're headed for platinum septums. C****e became the essential rock 'n roll accessory in the 1970's and, consequently, rock music had become deadly dull.

References:

1) Shapiro, Harry, Waiting for the Man; The Story of Drugs and Popular Music, London, Quartet books Ltd, 1988, pp 137.
2) Davis, Stephen, Reggae Bloodlines: In Search of the Music and Culture of Jamaica, London, Heinemann Educational Books, 1977

 

[roots69]

Reefer Madness revisited



REEFER MADNESS
......................

Reporters were apparently too stoned to question
two hopelessly flawed studies "proving" that
marijuana is a gateway to heroin.

BY CYNTHIA COTTS | there's a new campaign to call marijuana a hard drug -- and once again, the press is contributing to the hype.

At the heart of the campaign are two studies on the neurochemical effects of THC, marijuana's effective ingredient, published recently in Science magazine. The putative results: Marijuana is not only a "gateway" drug to heroin, but addictive in its own right. Just like alcohol and cocaine, marijuana is capable of "hijacking the brain's so-called reward system," Science reported, and priming it for future addiction.

These bold claims were publicized in a press release by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and subsequently reported by newspapers across the country. "Studies back gateway role of pot," said the Los Angeles Times, while USA Today took the other tack: "Marijuana's active ingredient may cause addiction."

Although Science cautioned that "More work will be needed to confirm these ideas," the mainstream media parroted NIDA's spin on the story. Only Newsday bothered to quote independent researchers who found the data less than compelling. And despite disclaimers that they had no direct evidence, two of the scientists involved were eager to simplify matters for the press. "I would be satisfied," Gaetano di Chiara of the University of Cagliari in Italy told a reporter, "if, following all this evidence, people would no longer consider THC a soft drug." George Koob, from Scripps Research Institute in California, chimed in, "We're blurring the line between hard and soft drugs."

The marijuana-heroin link is an old saw. But this summer, when confronted with studies using pharmaceutical analogs and fancy brain dialysis, the reporters were either too lazy or too loathe to question the hype. Moreover, the media failed to report that the new studies are being promoted by the same government that is busy fighting California and Arizona's successful grass-roots campaigns to allow marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes. Given the shaky status of U.S. drug policy, it's quite possible that a Clinton operative asked NIDA to put the spin on two inconclusive experiments and rush out a press release. After all, as Nixon's National Commission on Marijuana noted in 1972, "Science has become a weapon in a propaganda battle."

The policy of distorting the pharmacological effects of marijuana became official in 1970, when Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, classifying marijuana as an illegal drug with no medical value. Safely out of reach of the hoi polloi, cannabis was turned over to scientists. In 1973, NIDA began funding every type of cannabis research, with one exception: Scientists wishing to prove that marijuana is a safe and effective medicine need not apply.

The media rarely reports on a notably lucrative corner of the cannabis business: the secret labs where technicians inject dogs, monkeys and mice with massive doses of synthetic THC, in order to provoke harmful results. For example, you may have heard the conclusion that marijuana impairs the immune system, but you probably haven't read about the evidence that is often used to support it: In the mid-1980s, researchers injected female guinea pigs with THC, and then smeared the herpes virus directly on their genitalia.

The drug warriors' latest canard -- that marijuana is addictive -- is so novel that it wasn't cited in 1992, when the Bush administration closed down its experimental medical marijuana program. NIDA studies have failed to prove addiction in people who smoke marijuana, because natural THC takes so long to be excreted that it doesn't provoke withdrawal. Given that rats don't sit around passing a joint, the latest studies inject them with pure pharmaceuticals -- a sure-fire recipe for addiction, either in mice or men.

Rats and humans have one thing in common. Their brains produce the neurotransmitters dopamine and corticotropin, which are now all the rage in addiction studies. Dopamine is released in response to pleasurable activities, which include hitting a home run, listening to Mozart and french-kissing as well as drinking vodka and snorting cocaine. Corticotropin, which is linked to stress and pain, is released by animals going through withdrawal. Thus, when the authors of the new studies set out to prove that marijuana is addictive, they did so by getting rats high, then measuring the dopamine and corticotropin in their brains. They used a process called intracranial microdialysis, which means tying the rats down, cutting through their skulls, and inserting probes into their gray matter.

In the dopamine study, scientists at the University of Cagliari managed to give the rats enough THC to release dopamine in the pleasure circuits in their brains. Earlier THC studies had failed to "induce that telltale dopamine rush," as Science put it, but this one did, which made it a breakthrough. The study followed this line of logic: A) Addictive drugs trigger dopamine release. B) THC triggers dopamine release. C) Thus, pot-smoking may prime the brain for heroin addiction.

Now, any reporter worth her salt should be able to spot the faulty logic in that equation. But more importantly, it would only take that reporter a few minutes to call the press office of one of the many drug reform organizations, say she's on deadline and get the number of an expert on addiction studies. By doing so, she would learn that the NIDA press release had conspicuously singled out marijuana as a stepping stone to heroin. As Time magazine recently reported, most drugs, including alcohol, nicotine, opiates and tranquilizers, send dopamine racing down the pleasure tracks in the brain. If any dopamine trigger leads to heroin, then today's Ritalin-and-Budweiser kid may be tomorrow's junkie.

The corticotropin study, funded by NIDA and conducted at Scripps Research Institute and Complutense University in Madrid, was designed to prove the addiction theory once and for all. You wouldn't know it from reading the clips, but they had a major hurdle to overcome: Rats hate pot. In repeated studies, NIDA researchers have never been able to get rats to self-administer THC. So the Scripps guys took no chances. They hired a team of rats, strapped them down and gave them daily injections of THC for two weeks. When the party was over, they injected a blocker, which strips THC out of the brain receptors, and sat back to watch. For over an hour, the rats went through what looked like a classic kick (face scratching, pawing at ground). At the same time, researchers found traces of corticotropin in the rats' brains -- which, they admit, could have been caused by the stress of immobilization.

OK, so the corticotropin study engineered a situation in which THC withdrawal mirrored the effects of heroin withdrawal. But so what? Why didn't the reporters quote the fine print in the report, where the scientists admit they had no "direct evidence" to call marijuana a hard drug? Why didn't they point out the long leap from lab rats going through forced pharmaceutical withdrawal to people who smoke when they feel like it? We've long known that everyone reacts to drugs differently and that the risk of addiction is predicted by many factors, such as genetic hard-wiring and social status.

The more we learn about human brains, the more it seems we are all extraordinarily receptive to psychoactive substances. Given the rampant availability of drugs in America, there is no question that kids today run a high risk of becoming addicts. What to do? Given the laziness of the mainstream press, the best solution may be that offered by William Burroughs: Americans must volunteer to have the drug receptors in their brains removed, or else sacrifice all their civil liberties.
Aug. 18, 1997

Cynthia Cotts, a New York writer

 

[roots69]

The Feds Are Addicted to Pot - Even If You Aren't



The government keeps pushing the BS that pot is addictive and has serious health consequences. And no wonder -- lying about pot is a lucrative business.

Marijuana's addiction potential may be no big deal, but it's certainly big business.

According to a widely publicized 1999 Institute of Medicine report, fewer than 10 percent of those who try cannabis ever meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of "drug dependence" (based on DSM-III-R criteria). By contrast, 32 percent of tobacco users and 15 percent of alcohol users meet the criteria for "drug dependence."

Nevertheless, it is pot -- not booze or cigarettes -- that has the federal government seeing red and clinical investigators seeing green. As I reported for AlterNet last year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which overseas more than 85 percent of the world's research on controlled substances, recently appropriated some $4 million in taxpayers' dollars to establish the nation's first-ever Center for Cannabis Addiction. Its mission: to "develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction."

Of course, what good is a research center if it isn't conducting clinical research? To this end, the U.S. National Institutes of Health recently made millions of dollars in grant funding available "to support research studies that focus on the identification, and preclinical and clinical evaluation, of medications that can be safe and effective for the treatment of cannabis-use and -induced disorders."

According to NIH's request for applications,

"Cannabis-related disorders (CRDs), including cannabis abuse or dependence and cannabis induced disorders (e.g., intoxication, delirium, psychotic disorder, and anxiety disorder), are a major public health issue. ... Nearly one million people are seeking treatment for marijuana dependence every year and sufficient research has been carried out to confirm that the use of cannabis can produce serious physical and psychological consequences.

"Currently, there are no medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of CRDs. Given the extent of the use of cannabis in the general population, and the medical and psychological consequences of its use … there is a great public health need to develop safe and effective therapeutic interventions. The need to develop treatments targeting adolescents and young adults is particularly relevant in view of their disproportionate use patterns."

Sounds dire, huh? It's meant to. But as usual, the devil is in the details.

First, there's the issue of the so-called "one million people seeking treatment for marijuana dependence." Or not. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the actual number of persons seeking drug treatment for marijuana "as a primary substance at admission" in 2007 (the most recent year for which data is available) was 287,933. Still a large total to be sure, but even this tally is highly misleading. Think these folks are seeking treatment for pot "dependence?" Think again.

According to SAMHSA, over 37 percent of the estimated 288,000 thousand people who entered drug treatment for marijuana in 2007 hadn't used weed in the 30 days prior to their admission. Another 16 percent of those admitted said they'd only used cannabis three times or less in the month prior to their admission. Do these individuals sound like they meet the clinical standard of dependence (defined as "the state of being psychologically and physiologically dependent on a drug")? Hardly. In truth, the only reason these people are in "treatment" at all is because they were arrested with a small quantity of pot and were ordered to treatment in lieu of jail.

According to the Aug. 13, 2009 issue of The TEDS Report, published by SAMHSA, nearly six out of 10 individuals enrolled in drug treatment for marijuana are referred there by the criminal justice system. Stated the report, "In 2007, the criminal justice system was the largest single source of referrals to the substance abuse treatment system. [T]he majority of these referrals were from parole and probation offices."

In other words, it is not marijuana use per se that is driving treatment admission rates; it is cannabis prohibition and the increased emphasis on pot arrests that are primarily responsible. Yet you'd never know this by listening to NIDA. And that's just the way the agency wants it.

As for the feds' claim that today's pot "can produce serious physical and psychological consequences," it's apparent that the potential adverse effects of cannabis use are relatively minor when compared to those of legal drugs such as opiates (which are both physically habit-forming and capable of lethal overdose), alcohol (ditto) and tobacco. As for the potential physical and psychological consequences of kicking the pot habit, a newly published clinical trial in the scientific journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence raises some serious doubts about this fear as well.

Investigators at four separate German universities assessed the self-reported withdrawal symptoms of 73 subjects diagnosed with "cannabis dependence" who resided in an inpatient facility. Overall, investigators determined that fewer than 50 percent of the trial subjects reported experiencing physical or psychological withdrawal symptoms of any clinical significance, even though all of the patients had a diagnosis of cannabis dependence according to DSM-IV criteria. Further, among the minority who did report such symptoms, "The intensity of most self-reported symptoms peaked on day one and decreased subsequently."

And just what were the most commonly reported symptoms? The authors concluded: "The most frequently mentioned physical symptoms of strong or very strong intensity on the first day were sleeping problems (21 percent), sweating (28 percent), hot flashes (21 percent), and decreased appetite (15 percent). ... Other often highly rated psychological symptoms included restlessness (20 percent), nervousness (20 percent), and sadness (19 percent)."

In short, marijuana's withdrawal symptoms, when documented at all, are mild and subtle compared to the profound physical syndromes associated with ceasing chronic alcohol or heroin use, which can be fatal, or those abstinence symptoms associated with daily tobacco use, which are typically severe enough to persuade individuals to reinitiate their drug-taking behavior. This explains why most pot smokers voluntarily cease their cannabis use by age 30 with little physical or psychological difficulty.

Finally, what about NIDA's claim that "therapeutic interventions" for marijuana dependence are necessary for adolescents and young adults "given the extent of the use of cannabis in the general population." Ironically, NIDA's warnings come at a time when marijuana use rates among young people are falling -- and have been for some time. According to the feds' annual "Monitoring the Future" study on adolescent drug use, roughly 42 percent of 12th graders admitted having tried pot in 2008, down from 50 percent in 1999, and a whopping 60 percent in 1979. Yet back then the federal government was mum regarding the need for medications to treat so-called cannabis dependence.

Not anymore. On November 3, the Kentucky-based pharmaceutical company All Tranz Inc. announced it had been awarded a $4 million NIDA research grant to promote a "transdermal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) patch" for the treatment of marijuana dependence and withdrawal. (THC is the primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis.) "NIDA is interested in exploring the role of transdermal THC delivery as an innovative way to treat marijuana withdrawal symptoms and dependence," explained the agency's director, Nora Volkow. "This is especially relevant to our efforts to fill a critical gap in available treatments for the many Americans struggling with marijuana-related disorders and their detrimental medical and social consequences."

Never mind that THC permeates the skin, at best, slowly and inefficiently (because of the compounds’ fat solubility) or that the symptoms of marijuana dependence and withdrawal are infrequent, short-lived and relatively insignificant. After all, NIDA has a research center to staff, tax dollars to spend and a myth to perpetuate. And the feds aren’t about to let the facts get in the way.

 

[roots69]

What are Trichomes? Trichome 101



Harvesting is, without a doubt, the most exciting part of the wonderful journey that is cannabis cultivation. After months of watching, waiting and tending to your plants’ every need, the time is approaching when you must cut them down to harvest their resin-coated buds and all of the leftover trim that can be used to make fresh potent hash.

You know that you need to harvest your plants in the coming weeks, but when exactly is the best time to do it? Every strain of marijuana has its own life cycle, so it’s not as simple as a specific number of weeks after flowering has begun. It’s even more complicated since you can choose when to harvest your crop for bud that provides either a head high or a body stone. Luckily, most if not all strains of commercially grown cannabis provide visual clues on when to harvest, and what type of high you are likely to achieve.

In this article, we’re going to explore the final phase of your plants’ growth cycle: the flowering or budding phase. Specifically, we want to look at the last two weeks of the flowering phase in what is known as the “window of peak maturity”. The window of peak maturity is when trichome development and the level of THC production in your plants have reached their maximum point, which is when you would harvest your plants. By being patient and paying close attention to certain indicators, you can reap fantastic buds that provide you with precisely the type of high that suits you best.

THC and Trichomes
Almost everyone who enjoys marijuana knows that, for whatever reason, THC is the psychoactive component in the bud they ingest.

As a cannabis cultivator, it helps to know just a little bit more than what THC is—such as how it develops over time and how chemical changes in trichomes contribute to different psychoactive effects.

The primary goal of any plant is to create and nurture seeds to be viable for future growth. Trichomes help prevent seed damage from insects, animals, light degradation and fungal disease. In the case of cannabis, trichomes also contain THC, the chemical compound that provides a psychedelic high to humans. THC stands for Tetrahydrocannabinol (C21H30O2). Near the end of the flowering cycle, THC begins to break down and turns into another chemical compound called Cannabinol, or CBN (C21H26O2), in a process known as oxidization. Higher levels of CBN tend to provide a more narcotic or “stoned” feeling, while THC delivers a more euphoric, upbeat “high”. Knowing this, you can examine the trichomes and the pistils of the plant, then choose when you harvest to get the psychoactive effects you desire.

Cannabis plants produce THC and CBN on their stems, leaves, and vegetation surrounding the buds and are developed in trichomes, which emerge on the surface of most of the plant’s parts. On the stems and the early fan leaves, the trichomes are small and hug the surface. As the flowering phase continues, the glands develop on the more mature parts of the plant, including the smaller leaves and the first calyxes (which exist to develop and nurture seeds if male pollen fertilizes the female plant). The trichomes that develop on calyxes no longer hug the plant’s surface, but are on stalks like mushrooms with bulbous caps. During this time, more and more trichome-covered calyxes develop and create densely packed clusters, called ‘bud’. As your plants enter the final stages of their life cycle, the calyxes begin to swell and ripen, while more and more resin glands develop on the surface.

Another indication of plant maturity is the color of the pistils, the little hairs that grow from inside the calyxes. Their purpose is to collect male pollen to fertilize the ovum inside the calyx, creating a seed. When no male pollen exists calyxes grow dense without any seeds, resulting in sinsemilla cannabis. Near the end of the flowering phase, pistils change color, entering the window of peak maturity. The ratio of white pistils to red pistils determines the type of effects your plants are likely to produce: a high or stone. In the final few weeks of the flowering phase, the pistils change from bright white to a rusty orange or brown, signifying the end of the plant’s life cycle.

Examining Trichomes

As the amount of trichomes covering your plant increases, you should take a closer look at them, maintaining a light touch to avoid crushing the resin glands. Your best bet is to purchase an inexpensive 25x microscope (available at most electronics stores), and most pocket microscopes have a small light to help you get an illuminated peek at your trichome development.

When you cut small buds from your plant to test them, you want to concentrate on the stalked glandular trichomes. The coloration of the gland heads can vary with different strains and maturity, but most start with clear or slightly amber heads that gradually become cloudy or opaque when THC levels have peaked and are beginning to degrade. Regardless of the initial color of the trichomes, with careful observation you should be able to see a change in coloration as maturity levels off. Some cultivators wait for about half of the trichomes to go opaque before harvesting to ensure maximum THC levels in the finished product. However, you will also want to try samples at various stages to see what is best for you. While you may be increasing the total THC level in the cannabis by allowing half of the glands to go opaque, there will also be a larger percentage of CBN, which is why some people choose to harvest earlier while most of the trichomes are still clear.

Now you understand how trichomes develop on your plants and how to examine them as they turn from clear to opaque, indicating THC breakdown.

Early and Late Harvesting

Every strain has its own unique window of peak maturity, typically one to two weeks long. However, there is a difference between har vesting early or late within that window, depending on whether you want a head high or a body high.

As cannabis matures the chemistry of the plant changes, as does the type of effects. While these differences in chemical nature still require a lot of research to fully understand, you can utilize them to produce different types of highs for different needs.

By harvesting earlier in the window your buds tend to produce more of a cerebral head high, an effect much more pronounced in Sativas than Indicas. A head high is more psychedelic in nature, providing you with a pleasant mental “up” state, often ideally suited for social situations when you still need to have your wits and plenty of energy.

If you choose to harvest later in the window, your buds produce more of a body high, which is conversely more pronounced in Indicas than in Sativas. A body high is similar to a narcotic “down” effect, usually associated with being “stoned”. A down type of high is often desired in the late evening to calm nerves and drift into sleep. A late-harvest yield is often sought by medicinal cannabis users to ease pain and increase appetite. If you choose to harvest somewhere in the middle of the peak window of maturity, you don’t necessarily get the best of both worlds, but more of a happy medium. If you aren’t sure what type of high you like or want, aim for the middle and you likely won’t be disappointed.

As you continue to examine your plants, you will be tempted, even compelled, to start pulling buds off of your plants to test them out. There is a right way and a wrong way to try out your buds before they are ready, so let’s take a look at your options.

Testing Your Buds

Most new growers start picking at their crop only a few weeks after budding starts. Usually this is because inexperienced growers get too excited and they don’t know that these small, immature buds still have a way to go before they hit peak maturity and reach the highest trichome development. But there is definitely nothing wrong with being excited about your ladies! Even veteran growers still get giddy seeing their plants start to sag under the weight of so much resin.

I don’t recommend taking any buds from your plants until they are approaching their window of harvest, and you should only take a small bud every day or two. You can test your first bud when approximately 10% of the pistils have turned reddishbrown; take it from the middle area of the plant. Once you’ve cut your self a small bud to try out, you need to dry it, but drying and curing traditionally takes longer than the entire window of peak maturity, so you have to quick dry it. Quick drying is a sub-optimal way to turn a lush, wet bud into something you can smoke, but it’s the best way to quickly test your bud every other day as it matures.

There are lots of different ways to quick dry your bud, but one of the best ways is to use your lighting ballasts in the grow room. First, cut up your fresh bud and spread it out evenly in an envelope. Close the envelope and place it on top of your ballast, then leave it there for two to three hours while the light is on. After the buds are dried out, put them in an airtight container and allow the last of the moisture to move from the stem into the bud. Considering this is a quick dry method, the taste is usually good and the potency is acceptable. Also, the use of a vaporizer will allow you to concentrate on your high rather than being distracted by the odd taste of quick-dried weed smoke.

By now you know what trichomes are and how the chemicals in them evolve from producing a head high to a body high over a couple of weeks. You also know that the pistils on your buds change color from white to reddish-brown as the window of harvest opens and closes, as well as what type of high to expect depending on the percentage of new and mature pistils. Throughout the window of harvest, you took small buds from the middle of the plant, quick dried them, then tested them out to determine the type of high you want your crop to give you. Now, you can harvest your plants with confidence in knowing that they will be loaded with resin that produces just the right kind of high you were looking for. Enjoy your harvest!

 

[roots69]

Harris Poll: Majority Of Americans Want Marijuana Legalized
Thursday, 02 August 2018


Rochester NY: Eighty-five percent of Americans believe that marijuana "should be legalized for medical use," and 57 percent of respondents endorse regulating it for anyone over the age of 21, according to national survey data compiled by Harris Insight & Analytics.

Among younger respondents (those ages 18 to 44), 68 percent agree that cannabis should be legal. Most respondents (57 percent) say that legalizing the plant would "help alleviate the opioid crisis."

Data evaluating prescription drug use trends among individual patients enrolled in state-licensed medical marijuana programs reports that chronic pain subjects frequently reduce or eliminate their use of opioids following enrollment.

Reasons provided by those who opposed legalization included fear of diversion and concerns that legalization could negatively impact traffic safety.

The Harris polling data is largely consistent with those of prior surveys finding that a majority of Americans back adult use legalization and that a super-majority of voters support medicinal cannabis access.

"Voters believe that ending America's failed marijuana prohibition laws is a common-sense issue, not a partisan one," NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano told HealthDay, which commissioned the poll. "It's time for their elected officials to take a similar posture, and to move expeditiously to amend federal law in a manner that comports with public and scientific consensus, as well as with marijuana's rapidly changing cultural and legal status."

For more information, contact Justin Strekal, NORML Political Director, at (202) 483-5500.