The Truth About Hemp - Part 6
On August 3rd, 1937, President Roosevelt signed into law the Marijuana Tax Act with the intention of curbing the traffic of marijuana by placing heavy taxes on transactions.
In 1942, five years after marijuana had been outlawed, the United States Department of Agriculture released the film 'Hemp for Victory', citing the many products that can be made from the plant and the proper way to produce a crop. The film’s narrative makes a plea to American farmers to sow as many acres of hemp as they can: hoping to plant more than 36,000 acres,
When President George H. Bush (Number 41) bailed out of his burning airplane after a battle over the Pacific during WWII, little did he realize that parts of his aircraft engine were lubricated with hempseed oil, all of his life-saving parachute webbing was made from hemp, nearly all the rigging and ropes of the ship that pulled him to safety were made of hemp, the fire hoses on the ship were woven from hemp, and the thread used in the durable stitching of his shoes was made from hemp.
Billions of dollars are made each year by foreign countries off the recreational uses of hemp enjoyed by the American consumer. That’s money being taken straight out of the pockets of American farmers.
Add this to the billions that could be earned by our farmers from growing this plant to produce the other 50,000 products it’s used for and it becomes easy to see the impact re-legalizing it would have on the economy in America.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter announced that he wanted to decriminalize marijuana, citing that enforcement of the prohibition was destructive to the legal system which had become backlogged with pending cases and over-crowded prisons, all of which has proven too costly to the taxpayer to maintain.
Yet the plant remains illegal today!
