

				Reefer Racism

			Cinco de Mayo and The War on Drugs

			  by Pastor Jaymes Douglass Fyr

	Happy birthday, Mexico.  Birthplace of many millions of Americans. 
Birthplace of ancient cultures.  Birthplace of great music and food. 
Birthplace of
			    MARIJUANA!!??

	The history books tell us that one reason for the prohibition of
marijuana was that "under its baseful influence reckless men become
bloodthirsty, terribly daring and dangerous to an uncontrollable degree."
We are told that in 1910 a public official wrote that "marijuana was the
most frightening and vicious drug ever to hit New Orleans."

	What was the real reason marijuana was prohibited?

			     RACISM!

	Good old red, white and blue American racism!

	The Mexican revolution broke out in 1910 and the unrest spread
over the U.S. border in 1916 when Pancho Villa and his pot smoking
followers (some of them) invaded Columbus, New Mexico.  Crowds of poverty
stricken, uneducated Mexican peasants were migrating northward.  Jim Crow
America sensed another "yellow peril."  Just as with the Chinese and opium,
American public opinion was manipulated to believe that Mexican immigrants
would bring in their devil drug, "marijuana," to seduce and corrupt the
divine American way. 

				  MARIJUANA?
				 WHAT'S THAT??

	In reality cannabis had already been in the country for centuries,
but it was known as "hemp."  "Marijuana" was its Mexican name.  Nobody knew
what it was, but everyone knew that Mexicans smoked it and it made them
grow crazy.  So the government began to ban it.  That was in the 1930's. 

				   THE REST
				   YOU KNOW.

	Today we are becoming aware that merely smoking "marijuana" does
not drive you crazy and that smoking its leaves and flowers is only one
use out of thousands for cannabis/hemp.  Let's put aside the semantics and
racial perjuratives.  Yeah, we all know the stereotypes:  shiftless
Mexicans smoking marijuana and ravishing American women; drunken Indians
on their impoverished reservations;  devious Chinese and Laotians,
scheming to hook American youth on opium and heroin. And lately homicidal
blacks pushing cocaine and crack.  Racial prejudice always can use some
kind of exotic chemical boogie man nobody ever heard of to fan its fires. 

				WHAT ABOUT
				 ALCOHOL?

	The average American parent will casually offer their adult child
a beer.  That's our cultural drug.  But 100 years ago Americans wore hemp
fiber clothing, read from hemp paper and used cannabis ingredients in
their patent medicines.  What's changed?  Something called "marijuana" -
pass a law against it and the problem - as well as its scruffy users -
will go away.  Will we ever learn? 

	On Cinco de Mayo we celebrate the birth of the United States of
Mexico and wish her a long life and good health.  The USA should keep its
imperialistic mitts to itself and if the people of Mexico wish to smoke
"marijuana" or anything else, that's their business.  The USA has no
right to interfere in Mexico's sovereignty!

	The USA is a democracy and we will eventually repeal the
prohibition of cannabis/hemp.  On Cinco de Mayo we just want to point out
how racism branded three species of plants - and a nation full of people -
to be evil. 

			Thank you Mexico - for giving us

			       "Marijuana!"


   Western Washington U, Viking Union, Box E-9, Bellingham, WA  98225
	      (206) 650-3460    norml@henson.cc.wwu.edu
    Kevin Keyes, Coordinator    Robert Halvorson, Co-Cooridinator

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Harry Anslinger was not behind the economic hemp end of marijuana prohibition,
beyond following the advice and requests of his uncle, Andrew Mellon,
who was the Secretary of State and also a well known banker who had a 
large sum of capital backing the Hearst/Kimberly Clark/Dupont paper 
consortium and associated railroads.

Anslinger, in fact, fought to exclude marijuana from the Uniform Narcotics
Act.  However, he was forced to put it in because the racism surrounding
the war with Mexico had been whipped into a popular movement against
the ``killer weed from Mexico, marijuana'' and the UNA needed popular
support to pass.  Without the UNA, Anslinger was out a job.  Once marijuana
was included in the UNA, it gained enough popular support. (folks, the Senators
*do* read your mail, here is an example)  *But* it just so happened that
during the hearings on the UNA, marijuana got cut from the text of the
bill and ended up *not* being included.

The popular momentum against marijuana now provided Hearst with another
set of scare stories for his newspaper chain, and bowing to popular
pressure -- in fact feeding off the public rage -- Anslinger supported
the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 for the purpose of prestige and job security.

On the economic end, the culprits were William Randolph Hearst and 
Anslinger's uncle Andrew Mellon, as well as other's associated with
Dupont chemicals, Kimberly Clark USA, St. Regis, and the railroad
conglomerates.




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