Tag: Harry Anslinger
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In Cannabis Veritas
In vino veritas is how the original goes: in wine there is truth. Actually, the original original goes in libris veritas: in books there is truth. Books has it right. Wine… not so much. Oh, the occasional drunk may spew out how they really feel about you or the world in that instant, but the…
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Why Did We Ever Criminalize Drug Use To Begin With? Because Judging People Is Easier Than Helping Them…
The “war on drugs” was never a war on “drugs”. Like the drug laws it was meant to epitomize, the drug war was always entirely focused on drug users. And not just the users because they were using, but on their race. The first drug law in America was written in 1875 in San Francisco…
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Blunt Truth — Marijuana Prohibition Was ALWAYS About RACISM And Nothing But
From the get-go, every impulse to regulate cannabis has been based on racism. When the California Pharmacy Board amended the state’s Poison Act in 1913 to include marijuana in the “poisons” under its control, they were simply piling onto the racist legislation that began in 1875 when California passed America’s first anti-narcotics laws to “combat”…
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Musings On Marijuana
I didn’t start out a pot guy. When I was in high school back in the 70’s, marijuana was around. A guy I was friendly with was a hard core stoner; he stank of weed in class and watched us all with a strange, pleased detachment I now recognize as euphoria. On the occasions when…
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Sports & Cannabis — It’s Not A Good Thing, It’s A GREAT Thing
America’s sports leagues are walking point on some very important realizations we’re all having about cannabis. The NFL, MLB, the NBA and the NHL no longer punish athletes for using cannabis. As ESPN put it, league attitudes — at the rules & regs level — is now officially “whatever”. The leagues — all still holding…
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Dear Legal Cannabis Business: Here’s What I’d Like You To Be When You Grow Up
Legal Cannabis is here and it is not going away. All those dire predictions of society’s collapse? Ummmm, not quite. Just the opposite actually. As the coronavirus pandemic proves to us every day, some people can’t be dragged kicking & screaming to a good idea even if that good idea could save their life. Full…
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Cannabis & Productivity Go Together Like Cannabis & Feeling Good
I’ve written here before about my cannabis story. I wasn’t a fan in high school. Cannabis (if that’s what I was really smoking) put me to sleep. That didn’t appeal to me as a kid. So, I avoided cannabis in favor of alcohol, cocaine and, occasionally ecstasy. Depression made sleep hard to come by as…
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Bullshit In History — It’s Only “A War On Drugs” If You’re Not White
There never ever was a “war on drugs” in America. There was however a war on drug USERS. Still is. But let’s be clear — no one ever waged that war because they worried about anyone’s health or any impact drugs might be having on it. The “War On Drugs” launched by Richard Nixon in…
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The Hardest Part Of Cannabis Legalization Is Overcoming The Mountain Of Bullshit & Lies
Poor cannabis. There’s bad press and then there’s the hatchet job that America’s first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, did to it. When Anslinger first got hired in 1930, marijuana was hardly on his radar. Few Americans knew what it was. Fewer still smoked it (though many Americans benefited from its presence in various medicines). The…
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America’s RW Is Treating Guns The Exact Same Way They Once Treated Cannabis — As The Basis For Their RACISM
I sure hope this isn’t up for debate: America’s war on drugs, especially its war on cannabis, was always about RACISM and nothing but. I refer you to an excellent series (okay — I wrote it — I’m biased) called Blunt Truths over at Weedmaps News. Blunt Truths points out (with receipts) how at no…