Thailand’s progressive attitude is a wake-up call to the world
Today, Thailand is the first Asian country to decriminalise cannabis and, by extension, all hemp varieties. On day one, over 100,000 Thais have applied for permits to be able to grow the plant at home, for medicinal purposes, and the government aims to distribute a million cannabis seedlings for free. The Thai Government is clear that it is not legalising the plant for recreational use, but for medicinal use. Imagine. The audacity of allowing people to grow their own medicine, instead of paying Big Pharma. This is a brave, sensible and progressive step, and we applaud Thailand.
Archaic, senseless laws limit the potential of industrial hemp to save the world
In 1937, the US banned hemp and cannabis. This was ostensibly done for racist purposes, so that Black and Hispanic Americans could be harassed and imprisoned, following the insane film, Reefer Madness. But the real reason was so that industrial hemp could be removed from the market, and its place filled with oil and oil-derived plastics. There was a brief reprieve during World War 2, when the US military needed hemp. They even produced a newsreel, Hemp for Victory, which extolled the importance of hemp for the US war machine, encouraging American farmers to grow industrial hemp once more. Then came Nixon, who wanted to disrupt anti-Vietnam War protests, and also to keep America’s Black population subjugated.
Nixon, the crook who poisoned the world to this day
As reported on CNN, one of Richard Nixon’s top advisers and a key figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created as a political tool to fight Blacks and hippies. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman said. “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Under the Nixon administration’s Controlled Substances Act, cannabis was listed as a ‘Schedule 1’ drug with no medical value and the potential for maximum abuse.
Hemp and cannabis, why they are connected, why the UN needs to act now
The Cannabis sativa plant encompasses the full range of breeds, from the industrial hemp that we’re promoting as the solution to climate change, to medical and recreational cannabis. These are all different strains/breeds of the same plant type. This is how industrial hemp was criminalised by bad people, and why we’re working hard to educate and inform people about the differences between hemp and cannabis. Ireland, for example, classifies industrial hemp as a controlled drug. We’re now calling on the UN to explicitly exempt industrial hemp from all their politically-motivated ‘conventions’ and to reclassify cannabis out of Schedule 1 in the Single Convention Treaty. The current situation is madness.
Learn more
CNN on Thailand’s decriminalisation of hemp and cannabis
Bangkok Post on the strong demand for cannabis cultivation licenses in Thailand
CNN report: Aide says Nixon’s war on drugs targeted Blacks, hippies
Wikipedia on the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971
Wikipedia on the legality of cannabis
You can watch Reefer Madness on YouTube. Be warned, it’s so crazy you’ll probably need a strong joint to help you get through it
US Department of Agriculture’s Hemp for Victory newsreel on YouTube
Good to know:
One of the reasons Asian countries have a hardline attitude towards drugs is the 19th Century Opium Wars, when Britan and France forced opium into the Chinese market.
You won’t believe how horrible the ‘Western powers’ were.
Image credits
Reefer Madness poster used under Creative Commons.
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Founder and CEO at Hempoffset.com and TaoClimate.com.
Hempoffset works with hemp growers and makers worldwide, to capture and sequester CO2 at scale, while building a sustainable world.
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