The hemp issue is consistently topical
Baum, who was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition at the time of the 1994 interview, quoted Ehrlichman as saying: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
The quote above has now spread widely thanks to the intrnet. CNN characterized it as “the first time the war on drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House.” Family members of Ehrlichman, who died in 1999, are contesting the story. "We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color," the children, Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda told CNN. "The 1994 alleged 'quote' we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him. We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father's death, when dad can no longer respond. None of us have raised our kids that way, and that's because we were not raised that way."
Baum said he left the quote out of his book "Smoke and Mirrors" because it didn’t fit with the narrative style, according to CNN. The Huffington Post called the comment eye opening, saying “Ehrlichman provided some shockingly honest insight into the motives behind the drug war.” The quote first appeared in the 2012 book “The Moment,” a collection of stories about moments that changed writers’ lives, The Huffington Post noted. Baum said the comment changed the way he reported. The Rev. Al Sharpton weighed in on the discussion. “This is a frightening confirmation of what many of us have been saying for years. That this was a real attempt by government to demonize and criminalize a race of people,” Sharpton told the New York Daily News. “And when we would raise the questions over that targeting, we were accused of all kind of things, from harboring criminality to being un-American and trying to politicize a legitimate concern.”
The hemp issue is consistently topical as Dr Sanjay Gupta recently declared ‘This is hypocrisy’ on CNN: Sanjay Gupta tells Anderson Cooper about the peculiar Federal medical marijuana patents even while the Federal Government asserts, without evidence, that hemp is medically useless. The Significance of US Govt Cannabinoid Patent 6,630,507 - Medical Marijuana Washington, DC -- So, why is this important? Here is a legal document, in the public domain, which flies in the face of the US Government's stated position with regard to the classification of cannabis as a Schedule I substance having no "currently accepted medical use". Here are latest news reports on attempts to profit from patented, therefore legal “dope,” while the government ignores the public support for legalizing the possession and use of the natural, unpatented hemp plant, while continuing to support alcohol use despite its social cost.
The Michhttps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heraclitusigan Medical Marijuana Club (MMMC) is a non-profit that advocates for patient's rights, assists and educates our community about the medical use of cannabis in Lansing, Michigan. http://www.michiganmedicalmarijuanaclub.org/general-news-a-info/34-the-significance-of-us-govt-cannabinoid-patent-6630507-medical-marijuana. Only six percent of Americans think minor marijuana possession should be punishable by jail time, according to a new Reason-Rupe poll. The poll also found that a strong plurality of Americans think the use or possession of small amounts of marijuana should not be punishable at all.
Cui Bono? There is an old saying: if you want to get to the root of a problem, follow the money. This holds true for hemp. If cannabis became as free as clover, millions of farmers across America could plant a rare strain once known as Kentucky hemp (see documentary: Hemp For Victory (1942) [video here] ) which produces around 8,500 lbs of seed per acre. This would supply up to around 144 billion gallons of seed oil based bio-diesel by using currently unused and subsidized lands. This could COMPETE with fossil fuels, instead we reward a near monopoly controlled by the oil industry protected by a government supposedly committed to capitalist competition.
Can Hemp Save The Planet? In his classic work, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer asserts that hemp can save the planet. http://www.jackherer.com/ . Herer asserts that hemp grows easily anywhere, including marginal land, with little water and no fertilizers or insecticides. Hemp had to be criminalized as hemp processing became more efficient and threatened oil company profits.
Henry Ford also promoted the industrial use of hemp as a bio-fuel and alternative to steel (hemp fiber asserted to be 10X stronger) in his automobiles. [Note comments at end of article showing trolls in action discrediting sources thereby discouraging hemp use.]
Build
Goodwill II : The Medical Marijuana Controversy
“Millions
of people have died horrible deaths and in many cases, families
exhausted their savings on dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Now
we are just beginning to realize that while marijuana has never
killed anyone, marijuana prohibition has killed millions.” ( Source
)
Factions Against Hemp Legalization
Who benefits from hemp prohibition ?
Big Oil Can Not Compete w/o government “welfare” aid
Why
Cotton is Still King BUT How long would you spend
picking cotton
using this downloadable app that allows you
to experience – somewhat —
the exploitation
of child labor in Uzbekistan? This game comes originally from
a
news article on the UK Guardian website that reported on the scandal
of cotton picking by children in Uzbekistan that are used to make
clothes, supplied to you. This is about forced labor – children are
taken out of school and forced to work while adults are condemned as
lazy as no work for adults is available.
Profits Found in Treatments, Not Cures: Do the Feds Know Hemp Kills Tumors Cancer Cells ? It would seem YES.
Reefer Madness (1936): The Classic for hysteria: “Classic Propaganda film that relates the story, as told by the pontifical high school principal Dr. Carroll to parents at a PTA meeting, about the scourge of agricultural hemp, renamed “marijuana,” in order to make hemp, a plant cultivated by humans for millennia, sound seductive, exotic and dangerous.
Uses for Industrial Hemp? (petition to regulate and allow industrial hemp to be grown for ethanol fuel).
Does Punishing Pot Smokers Save Children?
Prison Blues: How America's Foolish Drug Sentencing Policies Endanger Public Safety
Are
We Winning Yet ? Who is really winning in the Drug War
?
Self-harming
Behaviors By Teenagers
Hemp: The Perfect Brain Food: Few natural food sources have withered as much confusion, controversy and misinformation (and lack of information) as hemp – which is unfortunate, and even ironic, given that it is one of the world’s most perfect foods. Actually, it goes far beyond food, as this super-plant has also been used for centuries as a wonderful source of fibers for clothing and accessories, soaps and oils, and much more. It's even rumored to be the world's "oldest food" consumed by humans.
Drugs and Rights (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy) by Douglas N. Husak This timely and important book is the first serious work of philosophy to address the question: Do adults have a moral right to use drugs for recreational purposes?