The LEAF March/April 2016 | Page 13

Hemp or Marijuana or Cannabis? 7KDWLVWKHTXHVWLRQ« ³7KURXJKRXW KLVWRU\ FDQQDELV KDV DOZD\V been known as hemp by those who for thousands of years grew it as a crop. With manipulation on the part of big-money concerns and governments they control, strains of hemp with high resin content were renamed marijuana and villianised to the public at large. Back in the era when this occurred, the general public for the most part had no idea what marijuana even was. All they were told was that marijuana is a dangerous addictive and deadly drug. We were all led to believe that smoking a joint was just about the most self-destructive and harmful thing we could do to ourselves. Of course, all of this was simply just a pack of lies, but at the time, the public did not have the means to find out otherwise. Had the public known when their governments were trying to have this plant outlawed that many of the Founding Fathers and past Presidents of the US smoked hemp quite extensively during their careers, they might not have swallowed these new restrictions that were being forced upon them so easily. There are a great number of documented accounts that describe quite vividly the smoking practices of many wellknown statesmen and even how presidents like Abraham Lincoln used to enjoy the time he spent smoking hemp in his pipe sitting on his veranda. Judging by some of the documents, political leaders of that era brought into being, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, I think it is safe to say that in fact, they were very clear thinkers. It seems that the dreaded effects of the marijuana they were smoking which the public were now being told is so detrimental, had no impact at all on such individuals or their ability to think rationally. Still, decades later ZKHQ WKH ODZV UHVWULFWLQJ KHPS¶V XVH ZHUH put in place in the early 1900s, very few people had knowledge of such things. +HPS¶VPHGLFLQDOXVHWKURXJKRXWKLVWRU\LV legendary. It was used to treat practically all types of disease and injury. Only for the last IHZGHFDGHVKDVKHPS¶VPHGLFLQDOXVHEHHQ denied to the public. To recognize the hemp plant for what it really is, all we have to do is separate fact from fiction. The system villai