The historical significance of cannabis in American history, as reflected in the photo below, may surprise some of you.
Cannabis (aka hemp) was a staple used by our forefathers for its many medicinal, dietary, and industrial purposes. Our very first president was a hemp grower, and realizing hemp supply was vital to our country’s growth, he gave early USA settlers free land in exchange for them growing hemp.
The prolific historical use of hemp changed in 1937, against the wishes of the American Medical Association, who foresaw the health detriment of removing hemp from our food supply (animal feed), which provided CBD and other vital nutrients from the cannabis plant to consumers of meat, eggs, and dairy.
Unfortunately the 1937 marijuana tax act passed regardless of AMA’s objections, thanks to heavy lobbying by wood, paper, oil/gas, pharmaceutical, cotton and many other corporate interests, who saw hemp as their primary competition. This legislation made cannabis products too expensive for most, and spawned the onset of a chronic illness explosion in our population.
In addition, many harmful practices that aren’t nearly as sustainable as growing hemp became our norm, leading to our current reliance on deforestation, fracking, etc to provide our vital resources.
It is in our best interest as supporters of cannabis to be knowledgeable of the facts, laws and history of marijuana so that we can continue to evolve the narrative around this miracle plant in a more positive light.
Source: Dr Ethan Russo’s first paper on ECD (2004)
