Kansas state Republican lawmaker resurrected a Jim Crow myth that African Americans are genetically predisposed to handle marijuana more poorly than other races during a speech over the weekend.
As the Garden City Telegram reported, State Rep. Steve Alford (R) told an all-white crowd that marijuana was criminalized during the prohibition era in the 1930’s primarily because of black marijuana use when asked a question by a member of the local Democratic party about potential economic boons from cannabis legalization.
“What you really need to do is go back in the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas (and) across the United States,” Alford said. “What was the reason why they did that? One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst off to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that.”
“Under Anslinger’s leadership, the FBN came to be considered responsible for the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937,” the report noted, “regulating cannabis and further taxing it to the ultimate detriment of the hemp industry that was booming at the time.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” Anslinger said once when explaining why marijuana supposedly caused crime and violence. The commissioner also fought for the prohibition of cannabis due to “its effect on the degenerate races,” the Telegram noted.
If you have never seen the film – here is a colorized version of the 1936 propaganda film “Reefer Madness”. BYO Popcorn!
“We are all ‘high’ priests,” said a member of the International Church of Cannabis.
The International Church of Cannabis will open its doors in Denver on April 20, a day marijuana enthusiasts everywhere have memorialized as a sort of “high” holy day.
The church is not your average house of worship, for obvious reasons. But the religion it preaches, members say, is no joke.
Members of the church are known as Elevationists. Their faith holds that “an individual’s spiritual journey, and search for meaning, is one of self-discovery that can be accelerated and deepened with ritual cannabis use,” according to the church’s website.
“We do not believe in authoritarian structures, nor do we profess the arrogance of knowing God’s mind,” Elevationist Lee Molloy told The Huffington Post. “There are no Grand Poobah’s or High Priests ― well, we are all ‘high’ priests ― rather, we are all on our own quest to be the best self we can be, and to give back to the community with our talents and labor.”
Church members refer to cannabis as “the sacred flower,” which Molloy described as “a gift from the Universal Creative Force.”
Ritual use of cannabis has a long, well-documented history dating back over 3,000 years, according to Mark S. Ferrara, an associate professor of English at the State University of New York and author of Sacred Bliss: A Spiritual History of Cannabis.
“In low dosages, such as those achieved by inhalation and through tinctures, cannabis produces a mild euphoric effect employed by shamans and herbal healers across time and culture,” Ferrara writes.
One of the earliest recorded mentions of cannabis comes from The Vedas, a set of ancient Hindu texts. To this day, many people in India enjoy a drink called bhang, made from the leaves of the female cannabis plant. Adherents of Rastafari, an Africa-centred religion that formed in Jamaica in the 1930s, also use marijuana to aid in meditation and community bonding.
As Molloy puts it: “When we ritually take cannabis our mind is elevated and we become a better version of self.”
Marijuana is legal in Colorado, with some caveats. Residents cannot smoke or consume the plant in public ― including at “social clubs” ― which has posed some challenges for the church’s organizers.
“We are being forced to jump hoops by the City,” said Molloy in an email to HuffPost. For now, all programming and ritual cannabis use will be by invitation only. Programming will include guest speakers, comedians, artists, musicians and film screenings. Visitors can come to the church between 12:00 p.m. to 2 p.m. daily to see the space, but no burning will be allowed in the building during those hours, Molloy said….Read the rest Here…
The treaties signed with many Native American Tribes placed the Reservations in a separate legal status. Some of the Tribal lands are “Sovereign Nations” which means State Laws do not apply. Which is the big reason some Native American Tribes have been able to build, and profit from Gambling Casinos.
States which have legalized Marijuana, which have Tribal Lands cannot stop the Native Americans on those lands from producing Marijuana, which is legal to sell in the State. Interstate transport of the product to other states where it is legal is another issue, as that is regulated by the Federal Government. However, if the experience in legalizing Marijuana in Colorado is any evidence, this could turn into a business which could bring hundreds of millions of dollars into the Reservations.
Marijuana actually grow wild in many parts of the southwestern United States. It is quite happy in the mountains and high desert.
Can cannabis revive Oregon’s long-struggling reservation economies?
WARM SPRINGS, Oregon—The tribes on this reservation, located in the high desert on the eastern side of Mt. Hood, are accustomed to bad deals. Until the 19th century, the Wasco, the Walla Walla, and the Pauite survived off of the Columbia River, catching salmon and, eventually, trading for it. Then in 1855 they were forced onto the Warm Springs Reservation. It was 80 miles from the river, but they could still go there to fish—that is, until the U.S. Government started to build the Bonneville dam on the river in the 1930s and flooded their fishing spots.
By the time the Dalles Dam was finished in the 1950s—ending all hopes of fishing the river and the economic independence it brought—the tribe had been decimated by other factors too, including the removal of children to boarding schools, and the drafting of men to the Army.
Now, the reservation, which spreads over 1,000 square miles in Oregon, is one of the most economically depressed places in the state. The unemployment rate is around 20 percent, and about one-third of its residents live below the poverty line. Sadly, the circumstances of Warm Springs are familiar for many Indian reservations. Nearly 30 percent of American Indians and Alaskan Natives lived in poverty in 2014, according to Census data, which is the highest rate of any race group.
Now, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs are trying to reverse that history by taking advantage of the intricacies of federal law that made them sovereign tribes with the ability to make their own rules. Between 1778 and 1871, American Indian tribes signed treaties with the federal government in which they gave up land and were granted sovereign nation status. Under the treaties, tribes have the ability to make and enforce civil and criminal laws, to zone land, and to license and regulate activities on their lands (with some exceptions in the court system).
The tribes in Warm Springs want to use that sovereign status to grow cannabis on their land and sell it off the reservation in Oregon, which in 2014 approved the use of recreational marijuana. Because the tribes are a sovereign nation, leaders say, they will be able to start an operation quickly, without having to deal with the headaches of city, county, and state government. Recently, the tribes broke ground on a 36,000- square-foot greenhouse, and hope to get product to market by next year. Finally, after centuries of being on the bad end of deals with the government, the tribes’ status could give them a key advantage.
The idea of growing cannabis on the reservation has residents’ full-fledged support. In a referendum on whether to grow cannabis this winter, 1,252 voted for the idea, and just 198 voted against it, and turnout was high despite a snowstorm that could have kept people home….Read the Rest Here…
Rabbits basically only do two things…munch on green leafy things close to the ground, and make more rabbits. Now, in portions of the western US, Marijuana grows wild. It is far from the engineered stuff that is sold as medical or recreational marijuana though … Hard to believe that the government has paid $18 million a year for DEA agents to wander the mountains and deserts of the western states to weed-whack native marijuana plants. Sad really, as the plant is part of the environment in that small segment of the world, and probably the over-hyped DEA agents are wrecking the local ecology. And there is scant evidence that anyone is wandering the hills to gather native plants for retail as the active ingredient is probably about 1/100th of commercially grown plants…
Meaning Bugs would have to smoke half the mountain…
This DEA agent’s surreal argument against medical marijuana may be the the strangest one yet.
“I come to represent the actual science”—it was a bold opener for testimony that was to include the clear and present danger of bunnies getting too high.
The man giving that testimony was Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Matt Fairbanks. He argued that legalizing medical pot in Utah could have a powerful effect on the state’s ecosystems. One of the threats: dazed and confused rabbits would abound.
“I deal in facts,” Fairbanks said during the surreal hearing last March. “I deal in science.” Suprised by his continued reference to “science,” FOIA expert MuckRock requested that the agency hand over any and all documents showing the effects of marijuana—and its legalization—on rabbits.
This week in a brief letter, the DEA’s answer arrived: There is none.
“After reviewing your request,” the FOIA letter reads, “no responsive records were located.” The absence of any documents doesn’t mean no studies on rabbits and weed exist (they do) just that none prove legalizing medical marijuana would cause bunnies to get high.
Fairbanks, when reached by The Daily Beast for comment, was surprised to learn about the FOIA. “That was merely an observation,” he says. The larger goal was to show that the bill was lacking any type of enforcement in terms of cultivation. The bunnies, he said, were an aside.
“Everyone latched on to that one bit,” he says. “Maybe they should listen to the rest.”
The rest—being cannabis’ ability to wreak havoc on ecosystems—is something that he says “no one has looked at.” Asked why he kept saying his arguments were based in facts and science if no one had looked at it, he pointed me to the DEA website where he said it was listed.
Side note or not, Fairbanks’s bunny claims are worth revisiting, if for no other reason than a look inside a modern argument against legal medical weed. His theory stems from his time “up on [the] mountains” in Utah protecting the environment as a member of the DEA’s Cannabis Eradication Team.
This DEA agent’s surreal argument against medical marijuana may be the the strangest one yet.
“I come to represent the actual science”—it was a bold opener for testimony that was to include the clear and present danger of bunnies getting too high.
The man giving that testimony was Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Matt Fairbanks. He argued that legalizing medical pot in Utah could have a powerful effect on the state’s ecosystems. One of the threats: dazed and confused rabbits would abound.
“I deal in facts,” Fairbanks said during the surreal hearing last March. “I deal in science.” Suprised by his continued reference to “science,” FOIA expert MuckRock requested that the agency hand over any and all documents showing the effects of marijuana—and its legalization—on rabbits.
This week in a brief letter, the DEA’s answer arrived: There is none.
“After reviewing your request,” the FOIA letter reads, “no responsive records were located.” The absence of any documents doesn’t mean no studies on rabbits and weed exist (they do) just that none prove legalizing medical marijuana would cause bunnies to get high.
Fairbanks, when reached by The Daily Beast for comment, was surprised to learn about the FOIA. “That was merely an observation,” he says. The larger goal was to show that the bill was lacking any type of enforcement in terms of cultivation. The bunnies, he said, were an aside.
“Everyone latched on to that one bit,” he says. “Maybe they should listen to the rest.”
The rest—being cannabis’ ability to wreak havoc on ecosystems—is something that he says “no one has looked at.” Asked why he kept saying his arguments were based in facts and science if no one had looked at it, he pointed me to the DEA website where he said it was listed.
Side note or not, Fairbanks’s bunny claims are worth revisiting, if for no other reason than a look inside a modern argument against legal medical weed. His theory stems from his time “up on [the] mountains” in Utah protecting the environment as a member of the DEA’s Cannabis Eradication Team.
The $18-million program relies on 120 different agencies to demolish marijuana grow sites nationwide—a mission which is hugely successful. In 2014 alone, the program led to the eradication of 4.3 million marijuana plants, just shy of the 4.4 million that were eliminated the year before.
While digging up marijuana plants, Fairbanks apparently noticed that rabbits had “cultivated a taste for marijuana”—which he suggested was to the detriment of their brains. “One of them refused to leave us and we took all the marijuana around him,” Fairbanks said. “His natural instincts to run were somehow gone.”
It’s unclear whether Fairbanks actually witnessed the bunny eating marijuana or whether its failure to run means it was high. According to Indiana Public Media, wild bunnies sometimes freeze when scared and can stay motionless for minutes at a time. In her bookRabbits, Janice Biniok says a rabbit that is startled will either “freeze” or scurry to safety.
If Fairbanks was grasping for straws in the fight against marijuana legalization, the agency behind him is too…
An effort to legalize medical and recreational marijuana in Ohio is getting the backing of TV personality Montel Williams.
The celebrity who hosted “The Montel Williams Show” for a decade is scheduled to endorse Issue 3 during a Columbus appearance Wednesday. Williams also will announce opposition to Issue 2, a proposed ban on constitutional monopolies that’s designed to block the marijuana effort.
Wednesday’s event will include Ohio patients who could benefit from access to medical marijuana if the amendment passes Nov. 3.
A spokesman said Williams does not intend to be an investor in any of the 10 authorized growing sites created by the proposal and has no current plans to be involved in the Ohio cannabis business.
