The law says we can not grow and use a certain kind of plant, HEMP, because, so the government tells us, it is not good for us.
Yet the same government says its ok to grow and use another kind of plant, tobacco, not because it is good for us( indeed, the government itself says it is bad!!), but, presumably, because we have always done so..
The real reason that the first plant is outlawed and the second is not has nothing to do with health. It has to do with economics. And that is to say, power.
Our laws, don't reflect what our society thinks of its self. and wishes to be--our laws reflect where the power is.The reason the first weed is outlawed is only ostensibly about health. The truth is, the first weed is no more addictive and no more a health risk than cigarettes or alcohol, both of which are protected by the law.
Why is it( Hemp) then not allowed? Because if it where grown, half the cotton growers, nylon and rayon manufacturers, and timber products people in the world would go out of business.
Hemp happens to be one of the most useful, strongest, toughest, longest-lasting materiels on the planet. You cannot produce a better fiber for clothes, a stronger substance for ropes, an easier-to-grow and harvest source of pulp. We cut down hundreds of thousands of trees per year to give ourself Sunday papers, so that we can read about the discrimination of the worlds forests. Hemp could provide us with millions of Sunday papers without cutting down one tree. Hemp would substitute for so many resource materials, at one tenth the cost... and that is the catch. somebody loses money if this plant--which has extraordinary medicinal properties, incidentally-- is allowed to be grown. That is why marijuana is illegal in this country.
It is the same reason we have taken so long to mass produce electric cars, provide affordable, sensible health care, or use solar heat and solar power in every home.
We have had the wherewithal and technology to produce all these things for years. Why, then, do we not have them? Look to see who would lose money if we did. There you will find your answer.
Our "Great Society" has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to consider the common good for its people.
Where ever the common good or collective good is mentioned, everyone yells "Communism"!! In our society ,if providing for the good of the many does not produce a huge profit for someone, the good of the many is more often than not ignored. America is the richest an most powerful on earth, yet one of the highest infant mortality rates. Why? Because the poor cannot afford quality pre-natal and post natal care. 85% of retired Americans live in poverty. Many of these older Americans and most people on low income, use the local emergency room as their family doctor, seeking medical treatment under only dire of circumstances. and receiving virtually no preventive health maintenance care at all..... There is no profit, you see, in people who have little to spend, they've worn out their usefulness.
And so this is our "Great Society" Yet this is not an indictment, merely an observation. No one seems to have the power to alter these conditions, yet the truth is power is not the problem. No one seems to have the will ...