Babylon and the Ganjah Controversy

Blessed love


This post is an essay I wrote a few years ago when I was reading the book The Emperor Wears no Clothes. It is definitely the best text to read on the history of marijuana and hemp in the world, and how it came to be victimized by capitalism. Every Rastafari should overstand the politics behind herb prohibition, and realize that such is a weapon used against I and I for the white world to stay in control of us.

 Babylon’s Ganjah Controversy 

The Economic Uses of the Hemp Plant

For Meat

            The hemp plant falls under those plants which were created and sanctified by JAH on the third creation day according to Moses. JAH saw that all His creation was good and made it known that He provided Creation with ample plants to be used by us for sustenance in Genesis 1:29-31. And so, one of the most important uses of the hemp plant is as a food source namely in the form of food oils and protein. In ancient times hempseed was used in porridges and soups. Monks ate such dishes several times a day and also used hemp for cloth and paper. Hempseed can be pressed into a “vegetable oil which contains the highest amount of essential fatty acids in the plant kingdom… [It] is the most complete single food source for human nutrition” (Herer, 2000, p. 10). Hempseed is very similar to flaxseed and can also be made into a tofu-like food, milk, flour and grain. Its fresh leaves can even be eaten like lettuce in salad!

For Textiles and Fabrics

            “Cannabis is one of mankind’s oldest cultivated crops. The wearing of hemp fiber as an industry began 10,000 years ago at approximately the same time as pottery-making and prior to metal working” (Herer, 2000, p. 69). Until the early 1800s in America, 80% of all textiles and fabric used for clothing, tents, bed sheets, rugs, drapes, towels, the national flag, cordage, canvas, nets, army and sailor uniforms and all sailing equipment; were made from the hemp plant. Italy and Ireland were top exporters of pure hemp cloth and linen respectively. The introduction of European looms and cotton gins to the American market widely displaced the use of hemp for cloth and textiles. This is so because it became cheaper, easier and faster to harvest and spin cotton cloth than to hand-ret and hand-separate the hemp fibres. Hemp however, continued to be the second most popular natural fibre until the 1930s because as compared to cotton, it is softer, warmer, more durable and water absorbent. It also has three times the tensile strength of cotton. Because of its superior quality above all other cloths, American families continued to make their own hemp cloth and clothes for summer and winter until it was outlawed.

            “Finally it must be noted that approximately 50% of all chemicals used in American agriculture today are used in cotton growing. Hemp needs no chemicals and has few weed or insect enemies” (Herer, 2000, p. 7).

Fibre and Paper Pulp 

            Up until 1883, between 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with hemp fibre for ensample books, money, maps, Bibles. Discarded sails, ropes, curtains and old cloth were sold and recycled to make this hempen paper. Not only was there less garbage and land pollution, but the recycled paper was extremely durable and longer lasting than any other pulp paper. It is believed that Chinese or Oriental knowledge was more advanced than that of the West because they had practised the art of paper making since the “1^st century A.D. – 800 years before Islam discovered how, and 1,200 to 1,400 years before Europe” (Herer, 2000, p. 7). In other words, they had a documented culture for centuries before and while the West was still in the Dark Ages, that is, the time when the Roman Catholic Church forbade 95% of Europe’s population to read and write.

Paints, Varnishes and Art Canvas

            The best archival material is hemp, as it withstands light, insects, heat and mildew. Van Gogh and Rembrandt were some of the artists who accomplished their work using hempen canvas. Hempseed oil also made the best paints and varnishes in the world which were much less toxic than the current brands, and thus promoted environmental safety. However, it was replaced by synthetic petrochemical oils made especially by the DuPont manufacturing group, who also out-marketed hemp with synthetic fibres like nylon; as well as pushed the cotton industry.

Building Materials

Because one acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees, hemp is the perfect material to replace tress for pressed board, particle board and for concrete construction molds…Practical, inexpensive fire-resistant construction material, with excellent thermal and sound-insulating qualities, is made by heating and compressing plant fibers to create strong construction paneling, replacing dry wall and plywood (Herer, 2000, p. 10).

Housing Materials

           

            Hemp is the perfect liner for carpet and also makes it rot-resistant. It provides less poisonous synthetic fumes in the event of fires, and is more hypo-allergenic than synthetic carpeting. Plastic (PVC) pipes could also be made with hemp cellulose.

Lighting Oil

            Hempseed oil lit lamps the brightest especially before the 1800s. It was then substituted by petroleum, kerosene oil and so on, after the 1859 discovery of oil in Pennsylvania.

Biomass Energy

           

            There is no doubt that the world cannot function without the use of fuel/oil. However, using such large amounts of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas have had devastating effects on our health, environment, atmosphere and climate. Even though the leading brands behave as though there is no up-to-standard alternative to fossil fuels, there are many, namely cornstalks, cane stalks, waste paper and hemp. They are referred to as biomass energy sources. Biomass can easily alleviate many of the problems being faced today under Global Warming. It can be converted to gasoline and methane at a significantly cheaper cost than oil or nuclear energy.

Government and oil and coal companies, etc., will insist that burning biomass fuel is no better than using up our fossil fuel reserves, as far as pollution goes; but this is patently untrue. Why? Because unlike fossil fuels, biomass comes from living (not extinct) plants that continue to remove carbon dioxide pollution from our atmosphere as they grow, through photosynthesis. [Hence they are beneficial to the atmosphere while growing and as fuel.] Furthermore, biomass fuels do not contain sulphur [a major contributor to environmental degradation and acid rain] (Herer, 2000, p. 9).

On a global scale, the plant that produces the most net biomass is hemp. It’s the only annually renewable plant on earth able to replace all fossil fuels (Herer, 2000, p. 55).

Weed Control

            Organic farming is at its best when the hemp plant is grown densely amongst the crop.  Its vast foliage network and height are just some of the natural characteristics of the healing hemp that fight against weeds and insects. Its roots also encourage fertile soils that are more resistant to erosion. In other words, hemp can be used to renew the soil!

Medicine

            Throughout history marijuana has been used to cure a very wide variety of diseases, pains and topical infections by inhaling its smoke, drinking it and applying it as an oil or poultice. For centuries it has been used to treat nausea, anorexia, tumours, epilepsy, arthritis, glaucoma, chronic pains, headaches, stress, insomnia and also to remove mucus from the body. Even “Queen Victoria used cannabis resins for her menstrual cramps and PMS…[H]er reign (1837-1901) paralleled the enormous growth of the use of Indian cannabis medicine in the English-speaking world” (Herer, 2000, p. 9). Various writers, actors and musicians like the Beetles have used it to inspire creativity. This is certainly true for the reggae music and poetic art-forms of Rastafari.

            Indeed it was the U.S.A.’s leading painkiller for 60 years before 1900 when aspirin was discovered. Because of its great powers the highs associated with marijuana usage were never a major concern, until propaganda began in the 1930s to outlaw its usage. In fact, marijuana could replace 10-20% of prescription pharmaceuticals, which are made up of THC anyhow! 

Anslinger's Racist Attack on Cannabis

            If so many wonderful uplifting things are true about the kanehbosm hemp plant, the true healer of the nations, then why is it oppressed by so much controversy? Why is medical research into its healing properties contested? Why is it banned from worldwide public use? Why are Blacks being terrorized for using marijuana? These questions that make up The Ganjah Controversy will be answered with the following very brief outline of the American role in the prohibition of cannabis and its fabricated stigma, to date.

            First of all, the United States of America plays a pivotal role in explaining the hemp controversy being at the heart of most business, political, technological and trade negotiations and policy-making. The lack (or was it suppression?) of hemp manufacturing from the turn of the 19^th century is supposed to have been due to a worldwide processing machinery deficit necessary in order to mass-produce hempen fibres.

            Even though hemp was being left behind on the world commerce scene during this age’s industrial revolution, it wasn’t because the machines were not invented. In 1917 G.W. Schlichten, a German immigrant, patented a decorticating (to separate fibre from cellulose stalk) machine that would cut the man hours of hemp processing down by a few hundred hours. His invention came just in time to meet the demands of what was expected to be the greatest agricultural expedition of the forming world economy, but never took hold on the market until the 1930s when it was redeveloped and publicized by corporations.

            As soon as the Supreme Court made the decision to prohibit machine gun use through taxation in 1937, Mr. Herman Oliphant introduced his cannabis tax bill directly to the House Ways and Means Committee instead of the suitable food and drug, textile etc. committees. The Chairman of this committee Robert Doughton was an important DuPont ally who made haste and approved the bill to be sent to the President.

            This time period brought great excitement over the potential and fool-proof billion dollar hemp pulp paper industry which was based upon a 1916 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) hemp pulp paper-making technological breakthrough. “The new paper process used hemp “hurds” – 77% of the hemp stalk’s weight – which was then a wasted by-product of the fiber stripping process” (Herer, 2000, p. 25). Moreover, the USDA’s Bulletin stated that “one acre of cannabis hemp, in annual rotation over a 20- year period, would produce as much pulp for paper as 4.1 acres of trees being cut down over the same 20-year period” (Herer, 2000, p. 25).

            Not only would this new industry conserve thousands of trees, but there was still plenty American soil available for hemp cultivation. The USDA also found that hemp contains 14-20% less lignin than trees and would therefore need much less harmful sulphuric treatments to break fibre-pulp down, and could utilize safer bleaching agents. As a result hemp could produce more and pollute much less functioning as the number one natural resource of the world and thus allow environmental recuperations. (It is painful to think of the number of environmental catastrophes that occurred due to America’s agenda to use wood pulp in spite of all its own hemp innovations.)

            If all of this is amazingly so then why didn’t this decorticating machine flourish on the global market? Why, instead, was cotton instituted as the global industrial fibre despite its inferiority to hemp textiles and its great need for toxic insecticides? Again, why ban the growth and use of cannabis?

            Simple answer: race, money and power.

            What turned out to be a very small network of rich white men with great entrepreneurial, civil and political sway, has for decades been successful at keeping the hemp and marijuana plant taboo to the world; so as to fund their own enterprises and keep their destructive technologies prospering on the market. The connections of what started out to be a few choice leaders and organizations, led to this worldwide catastrophe of imprisonment, poverty, environmental destruction and high mortality rates:

            A Conspiracy to Wipe Out the Natural Competition

In the mid-1930s, when the new mechanical hemp fiber stripping machines and machines to conserve hemp’s high-cellulose pulp finally became state-of-the art, available and affordable, the enormous timber acreage and businesses of the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division…- and virtually all other timber, paper and large newspaper holding companies - stood to lose billions of dollars and perhaps go bankrupt.

Coincidentally, in 1937, DuPont had just patented processes for making plastics from oil and coal, as well as a new sulfate/sulfite process for making paper from wood pulp…If hemp had not been made illegal, 80% of DuPont’s business would never have materialized...[and neither would have] the lucrative financial schemes of Hearst, [Lammot] DuPont and DuPont’s chief financial backer, Andrew Mellon of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh (Herer, 2000, p. 26).

            Because of the war(s) and need for explosives and the like, America’s federal government gave its top munitions manufacturer, DuPont, the go-ahead to produce most of the textiles for the domestic economy. Their nitrating activities allowed DuPont to develop and become the leading maker of synthetic fibres and plastic. The then president Lammot DuPont claimed that synthetics conserved natural resources whether in part or wholly (of course we all know this to be a very poor reason and a lie!).

            Under the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act that was filed in the US Congress by Herman Oliphant, the federal government authorized DuPont’s monopoly over all synthetic fibres supplied to the domestic economy without competition. Actually, DuPont’s push for investment into the company’s synthetic products came at the time when this prohibitive tax was sneakily being developed by the US Congress, for marijuana. “The proof of a successful conspiracy among these corporate and governing interests is simply this: in 1997 DuPont was still the largest producer of man-made fibers, while no American citizen has legally harvested a single acre of textile grade hemp in over 60 years” (Herer, 2000, p. 27).

            Government did not wish to raise revenue for marijuana by means of medicinal users, but rather prevent conduct altogether, even though this bill would put the numerous small scale hemp producers out of business. Marijuana, as stipulated by this tax, was not completely forbidden, instead “the law called for an occupational excise tax upon dealers, and a transfer tax upon dealings in marijuana. Importers, manufacturers, sellers and distributors were required to register with the Secretary of the Treasury and pay the occupational tax” (Herer, 2000, p. 31).

            When the bill was being passed, the American Medical Association or AMA was represented by Dr. William Woodward who “said, in effect, [that] the entire fabric of federal testimony was tabloid sensationalism” (Herer, 2000, p. 32). He went on to further question why the Marijuana Tax Act was secretly prepared for two whole years before anything was said to the AMA. Unfortunately the AMA’s appeal to Congress was dismissed and their disagreement was ignored by Harry J. Anslinger, the chief of the reorganized Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, as well as representatives of the Ways and Means Committee.

            Despite the protest of the AMA and the blatant evidence of hemp’s great importance to man, the Tax Act was finally approved. “It’s interesting to note that on April 29, 1937, two weeks after the Marihuana Tax Act was introduced, DuPont’s foremost scientist, Wallace Hume Carothers, the inventor of NYLON for DuPont, the world’s number-one organic chemist, committed suicide by drinking cyanide. Carothers was dead at age 41” (Herer, 2000, p. 29).

            William Hearst who owned a chain of newspapers and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division, alongside Anslinger also played a huge role in the prohibition of cannabis in America. These two protagonists were the masters of propaganda and certainly can be held accountable for the stigma attached to ganjah usage to date; as well as the negative correlation between Blacks, our music and ganjah.

In the 1920s and ‘30s, Hearst’s newspapers deliberately manufactured a new threat to America and a new yellow journalism [use of propaganda to influence readers] campaign to have hemp outlawed. For ensample, a story of a car accident in which a “marijuana cigarette” was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol-related accidents (which outnumbered marijuana-connected accidents by more than 10,000 to 1) made only back pages (Herer, 2000, p. 31).

            Hearst decided that it was no longer “cocaine-crazed negroes” raping American white women, but now “marijuana-crazed negroes.” He also linked herb usage to bi-racial sexual exploits and Black music, namely Jazz and the Blues. Because of their “doped-up-violences” Afro-Americans were certainly not considered to be worthy of white fraternization, and many laws ensued to keep them racially segregated due to ‘offenses’  such as “stepping on white men’s shadows, looking white people directly in the eye for three seconds or more, looking at a white woman twice, laughing at a white person etc.” (Herer, 2000, p. 31).

“If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright.” -Harry Anslinger

            Anslinger, the most outspoken and racial lobbyist against marijuana, kept a highly suspect Gore File which was made up of articles from William Hearst’s and others tabloids “proving” the negative effects of marijuana on Americans. In 1937 he swore before the Congress that “[M]arijuana is the most violent-causing drug in the history of mankind” (Herer, 2000, p. 33). Not only was he carelessly racist but he also convinced Congress that cannabis-smoking African Americans and other minority groups made up 50% of all violent crimes. “In fact, FBI Statistics, had Anslinger bothered to check, showed at least 65-75% of all murders in the US were then-and still are-alcohol related” (Herer, 2000, p. 33)

            To further inspire Anslinger’s campaign, Mayor LaGuardia through the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM), issued a report that denounced Anslinger’s lies about the effects of marijuana, between 1938-44. This only made things worse for the medical world because Anslinger then decided to abuse his position of power and subject all cannabis experiments and research to his approval first, or the doctors would be imprisoned. In fact, he prosecuted thousands of AMA doctors who he determined had prescribed drugs for illegal uses. In order to escape prison, the AMA was therefore forced to become an ally of Anslinger. He then blackmailed them into opposing the NYAM by conducting a 1944-45 study on 34 Negroes and 1 Caucasian as the control, which “proved” the violent side effects of herb.

            In 1976 American medical research into the uses of cannabis was banned. When this was consummated, American pharmaceutical companies were able to secure, finance and determine 100% of the studies done. The potential for the cannabis miracle drug was secretly placed into their hands so as to suppress the true medical information concerning marijuana. “This plan, the drug manufacturers petitioned, would allow our private drug companies time to come up with patentable synthetics of the cannabis molecules at no cost to the federal government, and a promise of “no highs”” (Herer, 2000, p. 41). In addition, ‘drug research’ was only allowed on THC, and not any of the other 400 isomers in hemp that could have other unknown therapeutic uses.  The Ford Administration agreed that no medical independents would be allowed to investigate the medical uses of cannabis, and left the pharmaceutical companies to regulate themselves. Why deny top quality health care to the masses? So that all stakeholders developing alternative ‘medicines’ (and of course synthetics) would not stand to lose billions of dollars to the miracle plant. Unfortunately for most, these alternatives did not bring in results proving science’s superiority to nature.

 The Real Drug War

             

          The history of the American hatred for cannabis and all cannabis users does not stop here, but will not be further explained because it is advised that the reader continue personal research, starting with The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer, also called the Hemp Bible. It can be concluded that the spiritual, healing and material uses of cannabis were never a secret until the rise of the American Empire upon its industrial and scientific booms. In order for America to be rich and a dominant world authority, the hemp plant had to become illegal. In order for them to subdue the stolen Blacks of Afrika, they had to make us the targets, or the ensamples of all things ignorant, violent and slack. They doped us up with their lab-prepared drugs and alcohol meanwhile turning us into self-destructive puppets.

            The media has from the start been the enemy of truth and the Black nation because it is the white man’s tool of negative Anti-Christ reinforcement. The media controls our thoughts and actions as it constantly bombards our Consciousness with whatever information the controlling powers wish for us to manifest. Not only has media been manipulated to tell lies about the effects of marijuana smoke on the youth, it is used to push the sale of the real killers of I and I: synthetic fibres, petrochemicals, tobacco, alcohol and pills/syrups.

            Dagga or Kanehbosm is not a drug. A drug is a chemically altered natural substance that is highly addictive with negative/violent side effects - just read the fine print or listen to the fast-paced warning at the end of a commercial! Furthermore, drugs encourage people to seek out other harmful substances whether consciously or in an insane state. A drug is a cigarette, a cocktail or shot, a vaccine, a snort of cocaine, a needle of heroin, a sleeping pill, a diet pill, an energy drink, a sugar, a food dye, a brand name.

            A DRUG IS LEGAL. And the one thing that could save this entire world from complete destruction isn’t.

            Pills are ingested everyday in hopes of making patients sleep, stay awake, be energetic, be quiet, be numb, eat, lose weight, miss periods, stop ovulating, boost hormones, abort, become erect, increase penis length, grow penises, breasts, hair and so on. But what does the fine print say? It warns about the harmful causes of these medications that will often-times be the only result one achieves. Furthermore, why condemn a decision to ingest a natural, ‘miracle’ substance given to man for his own use, when parents everyday force their children to take substances that only mask the issues which cause them to be ‘sick;’ and make them sicker. It has been seriously considered that the same vaccinations given to babies are the reason why Autism and infant death has boomed over the last few decades in America especially.

            Alcohol is the ‘everybody everyday’ drug of choice used which has zero positive side effects. Instead, it induces blackouts, hangovers, amnesia, random sexual stimulation (fornication!), and verbal/physical outbursts. It even leads to further drug exploration, being a companion of pills and the white dust. Alcohol is used to deaden the user’s thought-process in times of great anguish, but this also occurs for any other reason it is imbibed. Really and truly, no study needs to be done to know that most cases of abuse in households are due to substance abuse in the form of alcoholism. It is quite ironic that they would call alcohol ‘spirits!’

            Tobacco in cigarettes has been poisoned with carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemicals such as benzene (petrol additive), formaldehyde (embalming fluid), acetone (nail polish remover), arsenic (poison), ammonia, yeast and tar which is a deposit that coats the lungs. These chemicals cause tumours as well as lung, airway, membrane degradation. Smokers have a permanent odour and skin discolouration; have difficulty breathing and tasting, as well as terrible coughs. In other words, they are smoking their way to disease and death, whereas a marijuana smoker who does not use any other psychoactive substance, doesn’t harm themselves in any of these ways listed. In fact, cigarette smoke can expel and deform foetuses whereas marijuana will only affect birth weight in some cases. The Rastafari Wombman has for decades been burning marijuana and procreating eight pound babies at birth! Not to mention that these children are more mentally advanced and have better attitudes.

            To take advantage of man’s natural affinity to inhale a euphoric smoke amid a hemp prohibition, companies turned to cigarettes to fill the void. However, it has only extended the depths of the abyss, causing great heartache for people everywhere who lose their loved ones to illnesses caused by cigarettes. (Consider the irony that one important medicine taken for cancers is ganjah!) The question still remains, why are cigarettes and alcohol legal when they kill thousands of people every day?  

            We also cannot forget to add other drugs such as flesh, chlorinated water, fast foods, sweets, dairy products, hormone-filled foods, bleached foods and genetically modified organisms (GMO). These substances contribute to the list of dietary, hormonal and emotional dysfunctions that specifically plague not only Black Americans, but whites as well.     Along with cannabis culture comes a love for the interconnectedness of the earth, and respect for its natural resources. It is the source of the food we feed our Bodies and Minds. Without hemp the majority population of humanity is unable to tap into itself, nature and its affect on the world, simultaneously. Without herbal spectacles societies are unable to pull away from the “drugs masquerading as foods” as the author Suzar proclaims, that feed us with the same negative vibes that alcohol, pills and cigarettes provide. Like other drugs we use food to avoid going within our thoughts. They are used to numb and temporarily fill the voids in the lives of many – the end result of which is disease and death.

           What America has truly done for Her people is elevate the country’s status to ‘world leader,’ while destroying their complete and total fitness all in the name of money. All without providing good health care to the masses. Indeed the war against the Natural Right it is a vicious cycle. Indeed it is the spirit of the Anti-Christ at its best!

Herer, J. (2000). The Emperor Wears No Clothes (Eleventh Edition ed.). USA: AH HA Publishing.