the union isn't really as good as Marijuana Inc, on MSNBC in my opinion.
anyways,
weed is illegal because a bunch of circumstances made it possible.
1) communications and flows of information in the 1920s-30s (first incarnations of marijuana prohibition)was primarily pushed through the radio and visual technology was still in its infancy.
2) those years were marked by extensive and devastating wars, which created a sense of 'elevated nerves' for everybody, and threats and events were blown out of proportion constantly.
3) a few americans became very very wealthy in industries like oil and lumber.
4) racial tensions and racism were still pretty much regular themes of daily life, the 'racism' we see today isn't shit compared to what happened back then.
here's how it came together:
the americans that had a lot of money in lumber started generating a LOT of money selling lumber to make paper. they were facing a threat from the hemp plant, which can also be used to make cheaper paper, and is completely renewable, with a new crop every year, unlike cutting down trees, which take generations to grow.
americans who had a lot of money in oil, which was starting to be used for vehicles, felt a threat from an inventor known as Tesla, who was experimenting with methods of power generation and transfer. it was rumored that tesla was able to transport electricity across the air without wires, make people invisible, and that he found a way to generate enough energy to power a car from hemp-seed oil and electricity. it was later proven that tesla never managed to 'teleport' electricity (even though that scene in the Prestige is badass), but the Tesla coil came from this work. as for the accounts of invisibility and hemp-seed oil, those stayed as rumors, but that's beside the point.
with these two industry giants facing threats they took action and bankrolled "reefer madness". this movie, widely considered one of the most influential audio-visual presentations in history, set off the anti-marijuana boom. the movie, which is unapologetically racist, depicts white women being attacked by mexicans, driven to madness by the 'reefer'.
after that, religious and social groups began organizing against weed, with the pro-weed movement was relegated to the 'misfits'. the hippie movement didn't help.
before we knew it, the US government found itself spending billions of dollars to illegalize marijuana, to portray it as a bad drug, to eradicate it from nature.
yet weed is still being smoked, more than ever, the US is among the most 'drug-addicted' nations in the world, and marijuana smokers are considered criminals....
