Sex, Pot and Politics

“How many people die because of cannabis?” “Zero! Niet ! Zilch! Nada!” And he repeats, “Zero! It never happened in the history of humanity.” He asks me if I’ve read about this subject, if I’ve done research or simply absorbed the propaganda. “You judge pot like a blind man judges colors.” And with excessively slow gestures and one of his fuming gazes, he takes out a joint from his pocket, lights it up, and offers me a drag. “You must be out of your mind to think I’m going to take that drug! You’ve got some cheek! I finally understand your father!” He asks me to define the word drug, which is what I do, “It’s a substance that acts on the nervous system, sometimes leading to a dependency. Pot is a drug!” He asks me how often I take my medication. “Every day?” “Yes! But my doctor prescribed it to me. And why hasn’t he prescribed cannabis? Because it’s illegal!” “Exactly!” he says. “But there is a reason, Freddy!” “The reason is neither biological nor physiological or medicinal. It is political,” he states without beating around the bush. The big fat bastards are filling their pockets for many reasons, but today, it’s especially because of the pharmaceutical mafia. “It’s a plant that’s been used for thousands of years,” explains Freddy. In the region where it comes from, in Central Asia, he says they even discovered a rope that’s more than twenty-six thousand years old and made from hemp. Archaeological findings show that we used the plant to make clothes, rope, pottery, and medication. “Wait. Hemp?” “Yes, it’s a variety of cannabis that contains barely any THC, which is the psychoactive compound that brings a certain euphoria.” Freddy recounts that the cannabis culture dates back to twelve thousand years ago, which places it among the first plants ever cultivated by humanity. The Chinese used every part of the plant: the roots, the leaves, and the flowers for their medicinal properties; the stem for textiles, ropes, and papers; and the seeds for food and oil. Its utilization spread across the world until the beginning of the twentieth century. “And what happened in the twentieth century?” “A witch hunt,” he says. Freddy explains that it was first based on race. Among the pioneers of those who criminalized it, there was South Africa in 1911, then Jamaica in 1913—two places where the white minority controlled the black majority. The wildfire then spread to the United States where, during the Mexican revolution, a number of Mexicans fled to the States and brought the plant with them, which they used for all kinds of reasons, including relaxing after a long day of work. They started speaking of the “marijuana threat” or of the “Mexican threat.” Texas was the first state to criminalize pot in 1914, and a legislator even said, “All Mexicans are crazy, and one of the reasons is because of this plant.” Freddy laughs. He exhales and continues his story. “In 1930, they created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and its director, Harry Anslinger, was the father of the war on pot. I remember reading about him saying that most marijuana smokers were Africans, Hispanics, and artists. And that the satanic jazz music resulted from the consumption of marijuana and that its consumption makes the ‘colored’ think they are as good as white people. And to diabolize the plants,” recounts Freddy, “Anslinger was helped by the giant press tycoon William Randolph Hearst, who practiced yellow journalism with pot.” “Yellow journalism?” “It’s a kind of journalism that reports exaggeratedly on stories that are themselves often false or fabricated, like in the case of pot,” says Freddy. “To pass the famous law against marijuana in 1937, Anslinger and Hearst opened a case saying that pot was more dangerous than heroin and cocaine and that it could lead to pacifism and communist brainwashing. Others testified against this law. And you’ll never guess who.” “The doctors?” “Distributors of birdseeds! They said that canaries don’t sing as well or completely stop singing if the seeds of the plant are taken out of their diet.” Freddy bursts out laughing and me too. He adds that the arguments of Anslinger and company were even rejected by The Journal of the American Medical Association. He says that Hearst, who hated Mexicans with passion, contributed to creating the fear of cannabis, linking it to black people, to communists, to laziness, and to violence, among others. The plant’s demonization was an extension of the Mexican immigrants’ demonization. “They needed an excuse to search, detain, and deport Mexicans. Pot became their excuse.” I examine my son. He looks so serious, so educated, as he explains all this to me. But I wonder if it’s not an excuse to smoke an illegal drug. I don’t have time to ask him the question as he continues with his story. “Actually, the plant has been illegal for less than 1 percent of the time it’s been used. The other reason for cannabis and hemp’s demonization,” he says, “is that the industry competed with the paper pulp that we used for the newspaper industry. It was also competing with those of nylon and lumber. Later, President Nixon passed a law in 1970 which classified drugs according to their danger. However, cannabis was classified in the first category, the one that has no medicinal properties and very high danger of abuse. The medical sector especially did not agree with this classification, so Nixon himself implemented a commission, which was called the Shafer Commission. It even acknowledged that marijuana should not be classified in the first category. The commission even doubted its designation as an illegal substance! But Nixon ignored the recommendations. Then it was Reagan who intensified the war on cannabis, a war that can be summarized in a few words, Mama—racism, fear, protection of corporate profits, yellow journalism, ignorance, legislator incompetence, and finally, corruption and greed.”