The Word 'Marijuana' Is Racist.

[ZenG]

Watching this doc on the origins of Marijuana in North America.

Sometimes spelled "Marihuana".

Turns out back in the day it was just referred to as Cannabis originally.

But they wanted to make it look like it was associated badly with migrant Mexican workers...
so they gave it the Spanish name....because people were now smoking the stuff and they didn't like the direction it was going.

Thomas Jefferson and other important figures grew Hemp right in their backyard.

But not for getting high. It had practical applications for things like rope etc.

It had almost no THC content and wouldn't have gotten anybody high.

Apparently the only reason you don't see big companies involved in the sale of weed in "legal" states is because they are still afraid of the Feds and what could happen in court...plus it is illegal still to ship weed product across state lines.

 

[David Jayne]

You didn't know that? It was given a racist stigma early on by industry who was rightfully afraid it would hurt their business. Not well known but not hard to learn about.

 

[ZenG]

No...I did not know that...

 

[mbelue]

As an alternative to tobacco?

You didn't know that? It was given a racist stigma early on by industry who was rightfully afraid it would hurt their business. Not well known but not hard to learn about.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

With Cheech Marin backing it, I see no problem:

 

[chungweishan]

As an alternative to tobacco?

Alternative to non-hemp rope made by racist rope companies.

 

[One Drop]

The whole history of the repression of drugs and the reasons for it is a sordid one, and it has come to seem so normal that we almost didn't question it for decades.

The harm created by these policies to individuals and societies far outweighs any good.

 

[catcauphonic]

With Cheech Marin backing it, I see no problem:

Not so lucky, his poor movie cohort Tommy Chong had to serve some time for online selling & shipping of unused water pipes across the country nearly a decade ago, if memory serves me correct (which it might not since I've been pretty regularly stoned before and since .)

Anyway, it's been a slow go, but I'm glad to see one by one the states are rapidly coming to their senses. We'll see a federal legalisation in our lifetime, methinks!

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Tommy writes about his nine months in prison, in his book "The I Chong".
He is a guitarist, and did the solo on "Up In Smoke".

 

[PWRL]

"Weed" is easier to say with a dumb grin.

 

[El Güero]

There was a show called Nash Bridges in the '90s, and Cheech was a co-star. Tommy Chong was a guest star one night and at one point one asked the other something like, "So, what's your drug of choice nowadays?" The answer was, "Rogaine."

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Tommy was in the cast of That 70's Show.

 

[TOOL460002]

Tommy was in the cast of That 70's Show.

If memory serves his character pretty much took over for Mitch Hedberg, who the network should've known wasn't an actor.

 

[hrodbert696]

WAS racist. That's not an inherent constant. I don't think most people saying the word today automatically think of Mexico.

 

[ONYX]

WAS racist. That's not an inherent constant. I don't think most people saying the word today automatically think of Mexico.

Exactly--in the same sense that I don't think of Mexico (or Spain for that matter) when I hear the word "alligator", which is derived from el lagarto, "the lizard".

 

[nutdog]

Is there a source for this assertion?

 

[knumbskull]

I vaguely remember something about the criminalization of marijuana following on from prohibition, with a large police force needing something to do. And the perceived use of dope by non-white people being a logical scapegoat at the time.

... this is all a bit half-remembered though

 

[samson3382]

Check out "the Emporer Wears no Clothes" by Jack Herer.

 

[wraub]

Before 1937, cannabis was legal for all uses, as was hemp. Thousands of free market products contained cannabis or hemp.

The precursor to the DEA, and it's head Harry J. Anslinger, in cahoots with big industry interests (namely pharmaceutical companies, DuPont, Hearst newspapers, assorted paint and oil companies) worked to demonize cannabis in the media, spreading "news" stories talking "The Demon Marahuana" as a drug of laborers (read Mexicans) and Jazz musicians (read Blacks) who would soon influence America's Children into becoming salivating drug fiends.

Public demand created largely bogus hearings which further demonized cannabis, leading to its prohibition, along with hemp.
This lead to DuPont using its new product Nylon to fill all the market holes left by hemp being off the market, big pharma selling many products to fill market holes left by cannabis' removal, etc., the Hearsts using thier paper interests to replace hemp paper, etc.

Harry J. Anslinger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drug WarRant

The Emperor Wears No Clothes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (this is the "bible" of the legalization movement, lots of legal documentation here.
The book, backed by H.E.M.P. (America), Hanf Haus (Germany), Sensi Seeds/Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum, Amsterdam, (Netherlands), and T.H.C., the Texas Hemp Campaign (America), offers $100,000 to anyone who can disprove the claims made within. Quoting from the book's back cover:

" If all fossil fuels and their derivatives, as well as trees for paper and construction were banned in order to save the planet, reverse the Greenhouse Effect and stop deforestation; then there is only one known annually renewable natural resource that is capable of providing the overall majority of the world's paper and textiles; meet all of the world's transportation, industrial and home energy needs, while simultaneously reducing pollution, rebuilding the soil, and cleaning the atmosphereall at the same time... and that substance is -- the same one that did it all before -- Cannabis Hemp... Marijuana!"

 

[samson3382]

Reefer madness.