Evening folks,

Alright, so here's the story of the legendary Reefer Madness, and ofcourse Mehicanos and The Black Devil... Yes, indeed... this is the story of Marihuana and Jazz.

For them's that did not do their research, hemp (effectively cannabis sans the psycho-active component) was (and is) a fibre of extreme utility. Seriously, you can do almost anything with this plant. From cloth, to medicine, to combustion, to radiant-material extraction, this plant can pretty much do it all. Honest truth, this shit could be used for terraforming Mars at some point in the future, if folks can get over their shit.

The real issue with Cannabis began with William Randolph Hearst, in the 1930's... The height of the Great Depression, a planetary emergency of the sort that fellow Helpie @zyx066 referred to in the post Eternal Shock except this time, it was FOR REAL...

I've posted resources concerning the Great Depression before, as I consider it a paean to our future... Luckily for me, there is a strong community among Steem, @naturalmedicine who is already preparing for this eventuality.

Anyways...

In the early days of the 20th century, before the Great Depression, all was going well.. William Randolph Hearst was a newspaper magnate, and had invested heavily in timberland, so that he could effectively farm his own forests for paper, which went to his own paper-mills, which supplied his own newspaper holdings, and therefore control (and profit) from law of Supply-and-Demand all within his own property... He was able to launder money, move assets around, evade taxes, and basically Write His Own Ticket.

This has not changed...

All of this was utterly reliant on Trees.. you know 'em, you love 'em.. Big fucking TREES.. Advanced being of the plant sphere, they take a long time to grow.. But are Endlessly Resilient... The Grand Beasts were felled again and again, and so robust their reproduction strategy, that there were always more... And more.. And more..

Then came the Decorticator...

A man, George Schlichten, developed a machine capable of removing the extraneous fibres from a variety of plants, including hemp. Given the low-reproduction time of Hemp, and it's extreme hardiness, this threatened the status-quou of the paper industry... If this shit went mainstream, then timber-holdings would be borderline worthless...

And that wasn't going to happen...

Shortly thereafter, Hearst's newspaper began churning out reams upon reams of Yellow Journalism identical to the Outrage-Industry seen upon Wastebook and Shitter today. Made up stories, designed entirely to inflame passions and be shared...

And it worked...

By conflating all hemp production with Marijuana (a mexican euphemism adopted entirely to stoke racist anxiety) Randolph Hearst was able to have the entire species criminalized, in an act of blasphemy against Mama Evie...

Tied into this was a demonization of Black-Culture, particularly the rising Jazz Music.. Jazz was conflated with Cannabis, and given that it was Black, demonized to the hilt. One wonders.. Was Black conflated with cannabis, or the other way around.. Who Knows?

A solid article involving the demonization of Jazz Music can be found Here...

Regardless.. Hearst's aims were achieved.. He controlled a vast media-empire, in the Dawn of Radio.. He weaponized media...

And so it has been eversince...

Love to the Loving,

Silas Danois