10,000 B.C. – 0 A.D.
Early Sumeria K(a)N(a)B(a), the early Sumerian/Babylonian word for cannabis hemp, enters the Indo-Semitic-European language family base, making it one of humankind's longest surviving root words.
8000 - 7000 BC The earliest known fabric is woven from hemp.
6000 BC Cannabis (hemp) seeds used for food in China.
4000 BC Textiles made of hemp are used in China.
c. 3000 BC ? Ayurvedic medicine uses bhang to treat many problems including; diarrhea, epilepsy, nausea, fever, diabetes, asthma, and menstrual disorders.
2700 BC The first written record of cannabis use is made in the pharmacopoeia of Shen Nung, one of the fathers of Chinese medicine.
2300 BC Documented use of cannabis/hemp as medicine by Emperor Shen Nung, for; constipation, gout, malaria and fevers, menstrual problems, and rheumatism.
1573-1620 BC Ming Dynasty Chinese Medicine text by the physician Li Shi-Chen, still the most extensive Materia Medica of Chinese medicine today.
1500 BC Scythians cultivate cannabis and use it to weave fine hemp cloth. (Sumach 1975)
1200-800 BC Cannabis is mentioned in the Hindu sacred text Atharvaveda (Science of Charms) as "Sacred Grass", one of the five sacred plants of India. It is used medicinally and ritually as an offering to Shiva.
700-600 BC The Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta, an ancient Persian religious text of several hundred volumes, and said to have been written by Zarathustra (Zoroaster), refers to bhang as Zoroaster's "good narcotic" (Vendidad or The Law Against Demons).
700-300 BC Scythian tribes leave cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs.
550 BC The Persian prophet Zoroaster writes the Zend-Avesta, a sacred text which lists more than 10,000 medicinal plants. Hemp is at the top of the list.
500 BC Scythian couple die and are buried with two small tents covering censers. Attached to one tent stick was a decorated leather pouch containing wild cannabis seeds. This closely matches the stories told by Herodotus.
Hemp is introduced into Northern Europe by the Scythians.
Gautama Buddah survives by eating hempseed.
500 -100 BC Hemp spreads throughout northern Europe.
450BC Herodotus records Scythians and Thracians as consuming cannabis and making fine linens of hemp.
The Greek historian Herodotus describes the Scythians of central Asia throwing hemp onto heated stones under canvas: 'as it burns, it smokes like incense and the smell of it makes them drunk'.
300 BC Carthage and Rome struggle for political and commercial power over hemp and spice trade routes in Mediterranean.
100 BC Paper made from hemp and mulberry is invented in China.
100 BC – 0 The psychotropic properties of cannabis are mentioned in the newly compiled herbal Pen Ts'ao Ching which is attributed to an emperor.
28 BC Chinese cultivate many varieties of hemp and cannabis.
The word "hemp" is English for a number of varieties of the cannabis plant, particularly the varieties like "industrial (true) hemp" (cannabis sativa L.) that were bred over time for industrial uses such as fuel, fiber, paper, seed, food, oil, etc.
The term "marijuana" [marihuana] (cannabis indica L.) is of Spanish derivation, and was primarily used to describe varieties of cannabis that were more commonly bred over time for medicinal and recreational purposes, like cannabis indica, and certain strains of cannabis sativa."
0 A.D. - Present
0 – 100 AD Construction of Samaritan gold and glass paste stash box for storing hashish, coriander, or salt, buried in Siberian tomb.
First Century Greek Physician Pedacius Discorides describes medical cannabis uses, and uses seeds and juice for a wide variety of conditions.
The Chinese begin making paper from hemp and mulberry, giving scholars an inexpensive means of preserving information. Chinese science and knowledge remain vastly superior to that of the West for 1,400 years (in part because the Roman Catholic Church forbid reading and writing for 1,200 years).
14 Properties attributed to hemp seed in Traditional Chinese Medicine, (TCM) are, "sweet" and "neutral", and the organs affected are the stomach, spleen, and large intestine; the action being lubricating to the intestine and normalizing the blood.
Chinese Medicine text Ri Yong Ben Cao, the household Materia Medica, by Wu Rui.
40 The Islamic Arabic/Egyptian/Greek/Indian Unani Tibbi system of medicine also makes great use of cannabis. Unani is based on the teachings of Hippocrates (460 - 377 BC).
45 St Mark establishes the Ethiopian Coptic Church. The Copts claim that marijuana as a sacrament has a lineage descending from the Jewish sect, the Essenes, who are considered to be responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls.
70 Dioscorides mentions the use of cannabis as a Roman medicament.
Roman Emperor Nero's surgeon, Dioscorides praises Cannabis for making "the stoutest cords" and for its medical properties.
100 Roman surgeon Dioscorides names the plant cannabis sativa and describes various medicinal uses. Pliny tells of industrial uses and writes a manual on farming hemp.
170 Galen (Roman) alludes to the psychoactivity of cannabis seed confections.
400 Cannabis cultivated for the first time in England at Old Buckeham Mare.
500 First botanical drawing of Cannabis appears in 'Constantinopolitanus'.
500-600 The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of cannabis. (Abel 1980)
600 Germans, Franks, Vikings, etc. make paper from Cannabis.
Germans, Franks, Vikings, etc. all use hemp fibre.
800 Mohammed allows Cannabis, but forbids alcohol use.
900-1000 Scholars debate the pros and cons of eating hashish. Use spreads throughout Arabia.
The Tenth Century Anandakanda details many uses of cannabis in Hindu yogic medicine
1000 The English word 'Hempe' first listed in a dictionary. Moslems produce hashish for medical and social use.
Chinese renamed the hemp plant (originally just called Ma) Ta Ma, which means “great hemp.”
1090-1256 In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, recruits followers to commit assassinations...legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of cannabis and the supposed use of hashish. 1256 Alamut falls.
1150 Moslems use cannabis to start Europe's first paper mill.
Moslems use Cannabis to start Europe's first paper mill. Most paper is made from Cannabis for next 850 years.
Moslems use hemp to start Europe's first paper mill. Most paper is made from hemp for the next 700 years.
1155-1221 Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haidar's of Khorasan's personal discovery of cannabis and its subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the earliest written narratives of the use of cannabis as an inebriant.
Early 1200s Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.
1200s Cannabis is introduced in Egypt during the reign of the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic devotees coming from Syria. (M.K. Hussein 1957 - Soueif 1972)
1231 Hashish introduced to Iraq in the reign of Caliph Mustansir. (Rosenthal 1971)
1271-1295 Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his "assassins" using hashish. First time reports of cannabis have been brought to the attention of Europe.
1300s The oldest monograph on hashish, Zahr al-'arish fi tahrim al-hashish, was written. It has since been lost.
Ibn al-Baytar of Spain provides a description of psychoactive cannabis.
Arab traders bring cannabis to the Mozambique coast of Africa.
1378 Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues one of the first edicts against the eating of hashish.
1430 - 1431 Saint Joan D'Arc is accused of using herbal witch drugs such as cannabis to hear voices.
1484 Pope Innocent VIII singles out cannabis as an unholy sacrament of the Satanic mass.
Pope Innocent VIII labels cannabis as an unholy sacrament of the Satanic mass and issues a papal ban on cannabis medicines.
1492 Hempen sails, caulking and rigging ignite age of discovery and help Columbus and his ships reach America.
1494 Hemp paper making starts in England.
1526 Babur Nama, first emperor and founder of Mughal Empire learned of hashish in Afghanistan.
1545 Spanish bring Cannabis cultivation to Chile.
Hemp agriculture crosses the continent overland to Chile.
1554 Spanish bring Cannabis cultivation to Peru.
1563 Queen Elizabeth I decrees that land owners with 60 acres or more must grow Cannabis else face a £5 fine.
1564 King Philip of Spain follows lead of Queen Elizabeth and orders Cannabis to be grown throughout his Empire from modern-day Argentina to Oregon.
16th-17th Century Dutch achieve Golden Age through hemp commerce. Explorers find 'wilde hempe' in North America.
1606 British take Cannabis to Canada to be cultivated mainly for maritime uses.
1611 British start cultivating Cannabis in Virginia.
1619 Virginia colony makes Cannabis Cultivation Mandatory, followed by most other colonies. Europe pays Hemp bounties.
Virginia colony makes hemp cultivation mandatory, followed by most other colonies. Europe pays hemp bounties.
Jamestown Colony, Virginia, enacts the New World's first marijuana legislation, ordering all farmers to grow Indian hemp seed. Mandatory hemp cultivation laws were passed in Massachusetts in 1631 and in Connecticut in 1632.
Cannabis is frequently used for barter, and during times of shortage, farmers sometimes face jail terms for not growing hemp. Some colonies allow farmers to pay taxes with cannabis hemp.
1631 Cannabis used for bartering throughout American Colonies.
Hemp used as money throughout American colonies.
1632 Pilgrims bring Cannabis to New England.
mid 1600s The epic poem, Benk u Bode, by the poet Mohammed Ebn Soleiman Foruli of Baghdad, deals allegorically with a dialectical battle between wine and hashish.
1653 Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal. Culpeper says boiled in milk cannabis relieves a hot dry cough, and the Dutch use the seed for jaundice. Eating boiled leaves stops bleeding and the juice mixed with oil, or the seed oil will relieve burns. The roots decocted ease gout and pains in joints.
1700s Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople.
1776 Patriot wives and mothers organize spinning bees to clothe Washington's troops, spinning the thread from hemp fibers. Without hemp, the Continental Army would have frozen to death at Valley Forge.
In that same year, in Common Sense, Thomas Paine lists cordage, iron, timber and tar as America's four essential natural resources. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, we do not want for cordage, Paine writes.
June 28, 1776 The first draft of the Declaration of Independence is written on Dutch hemp paper. A second draft, the version released on July 4, is also written on hemp paper. The final draft, signed by the Founders, is copied from the second draft onto animal parchment.
Late 1700s Hashish becomes a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia.
1791 President Washington sets duties on hemp to encourage domestic industry; Jefferson calls hemp "a necessity", and urges farmers to grow hemp instead of tobacco.
March 16, 1791 Thomas Jefferson writes in his journal, The culture [of tobacco] is pernicious. This plant greatly exhausts the soil. Of course, it requires much manure, therefore other productions are deprived of manure, yielding no nourishment for cattle, and there is no return for the manure expended...
It is impolitic. The fact well established in the system of agriculture is that the best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine, in other words to the wealth and protection of the country.
The latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation from caprice, and its value from the taxes to which it was formerly exposed.
The preference to be given will result from a comparison of them: Hemp employs in its rudest state more labor than tobacco, but being a material for manufactures of various sorts becomes afterwards the means of support to numbers of people, hence it is to be preferred in a populous country.
1794 George Washington says, "make the most of the hempseed... sow it everywhere." Washington grew hemp at his Virginia home and encouraged its growing to bypass reliance of importing from other countries...especially England. For over ten thousand years...hemp was undeniably man's most useful plant. Our ancestors depended upon hemps exceptionally strong fiber, cellulose rich pulp, and highly nutritious seeds. The plant was cultivated and used throughout history for food, clothing, fuel and medicine, as well as ship sails, rope, shelter, and paper. In colonial America, hemp was not only legal but essential to survival.
1797 SECRETARY OF WAR: U.S.S. CONSTITUTION'S HEMP
1798 Napoleon discovers that much of the Egyptian lower class habitually uses hashish (Kimmens 1977). He declares a total prohibition. Soldiers returning to France bring the tradition with them.
1800's Australia survives two prolonged famines by eating virtually nothing but hemp seed for protein and hemp leaves for roughage.
1801 Certain premiums offered to encourage the cultivation of hemp in Upper and Lower Canada.
1807 Napoleon signs the Treaty of Tilset with Czar Alexander of Russia which cuts off all legal Russian trade with Britain. Britain blackmails and press gangs American sailors into illegally trading in Russian Hemp.
1808 Napoleon wants to place French Troops at Russian ports to ensure the Treaty of Tilset is complied with. The Czar refuses and turns a blind eye to Britain's illegal trade in Cannabis.
1809 Antoine Sylvestre de Sacy, a leading Arabist, reveals the etymology of the words "assassin" and "hashishin".
1810 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS - RUSSIAN HEMP CULTIVATION
1812 19th June America declares war on Britain. 24th June Napoleon invades Russia aiming to put an end to Britain's main supply of Cannabis. By the end of the year the Russian winter and army had destroyed most of Napolean's invading force.
June 19, 1812 The United States goes to war with Great Britain after being cut off from 80% of its Russian hemp supply. Napoleon invades Russia to sever Britain's illegal trade in Russian hemp.
1827 U.S. NAVY COMMISSIONER - WATER-ROTTED HEMP
1835 The Club de Hashichines, whose bohemian membership included the poet Baudelaire, is founded.
1839 Homeopathy journal American Provers' Union publishes first of many reports on the effects of Cannabis.
1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a cannabis base are available. Hashish available in Persian pharmacies.
December 1840 Abraham Lincoln writes, Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.
1841 Dr. W.B. O'Shaunghnessy of Scotland works in India then introduces Cannabis to Western medicine. In the following 50 years hundreds of medical papers are written on the medical benefits of Cannabis.
1843 Le Club des Hachichins, or Hashish Eater's Club, established in Paris.
1845 Psychologist and 'inventor' of modern psychopharmacology and psychotimimetic drug treatment; Jacques-Joseph Moreau de Tours documents physical and mental benefits of Cannabis.
Dr. Jean-Jacques Moreau de Tours initiates the science of psycho-pharmacology in France, using cannabis to treat the insane and depressed.
1850 United States Census counts 8,327 hemp plantations (farms with a minimum size of 2,000 acres) growing cannabis hemp for industrial purposes.
1850's Petrochemical age begins. Toxic sulfite and chlorine processes make paper from trees, steamships replace sails, tropical fibres introduced.
after 1850 Hashish appears in Greece.
1856 British tax ganja and charas trade in India.
1857 'The Hasheesh Eater' by Fitz Hugh Ludlow is published. Smith Brothers of Edinburgh start to market a highly active extract of Cannabis Indica used as a basis for innumerable tinctures.
1860 First Governmental commission study of Cannabis and health conducted by Ohio State Medical society.
1868 Egypt outlaws cannabis ingestion. This nation will later lobby for marijuana criminalization in the League of Nations.
1870-1880 First reports of hashish smoking on Greek mainland.
1870 Cannabis is listed in the US Pharmacopoeia as a medicine for various ailments.
1873 HEMP CULTURE IN JAPAN
c. 1875 Cultivation for hashish introduced to Greece.
1876 Hashish served at American Centennial Exposition.
At the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, America's first 100-year birthday bash, fair goers visit the Turkish Hashish Exposition and toke up in order to enhance their fair experience.
1877 Kerr reports on Indian ganja and charas trade.
Late 1800’s Before the Civil war, hemp was the second cash crop next to cotton. But while cotton could be processed by machine, slaves were the only cost effective way to separate the hemp fiber from the pulpy core that was used to make paper. When slavery ended after the war, the hemp industry went into decline. In the late 1800's paper makers such as The Hearst Corporation converted to tree-based pulp. It was easier to chop down a forest than to pay for laborers to process the hemp, however, it takes four acres of trees to produce one acre worth of hemp to make the same amount of paper. And, it takes a generation to produce the trees whereas it only takes one half a year to produce the hemp.
1883 Hashish smoking parlors are open for business in every major American city. According to police estimates, in 1883 there are 500 such parlors in New York City alone.
1890 Queen Victoria's personal physician, Sir Russell Reynolds, prescribes Cannabis for menstrual cramps. He claims in the first issue of The Lancet, that Cannabis "When pure and administered carefully, is one of the of the most valuable medicines we possess"
Queen Victoria's personal physician, Sir Russell Reynolds, prescribes Cannabis for menstrual cramps. Sir Reynolds writes in the first issue of The Lancet, When pure and administered carefully, [cannabis] one of the most valuable medicines we possess.
Greek Department of Interior prohibits importance, cultivation and use of hashish.
Hashish made illegal in Turkey.
1893-1894 The India Hemp Drugs Commission Report is issued.
70,000 to 80,000 kg of hashish legally imported into India from Central Asia each year.
1895 The Indian Hemp Drug Commission concludes that cannabis has some medical uses, no addictive properties and a number of positive emotional and social benefits. First known use of the word 'marijuana' for smoking, by Pancho Villa's supporters in Sonora Mexico. The song "La Curaracha" tells the story of one of Villa's men looking for his stash of "marijuana por fumar."
The Indian Hemp Drug Commission concludes that cannabis has no addictive properties, some medical uses, and a number of positive emotional and social benefits.
USDA - HEMP SEED
1898 The Spanish American War erupts. During the war, the marijuana-smoking army of Pancho Villa seizes 800,000 acres of prime Mexican timberland belonging to newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
The timber from this land was used to manufacture newsprint for Hearst's publishing empire. Hearst begins a 30-year propaganda campaign denouncing Spaniards, Mexican-Americans and Latinos, portraying Mexicans as lazy pot-smoking layabouts.
1899 USDA SECRETARY - HEMP
1900 John Henry Clarke's A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica gives extensive listings of uses for both cannabis sativa and cannabis indica.
Main indications for use of tincture of Cannabis Indica are; DTs (Delerium tremens), delusions, epilepsy, headache, migraine, mania, painful menses, stammering, paralysis, back pain, exhaustion. For Cannabis Sativa, the indications were listed as; drawing pains in kidneys, stitches throughout the body, difficult breathing and moist asthma, fatigue on waking, vertigo and for sadness.
1901 USDA LYSTER DEWEY RE; HEMP & FLAX SEED
USDA LYSTER DEWEY 13 PAGE ARTICLE ON HEMP
1903 USDA LYSTER DEWEY RE; PRINCIPAL COMMERCIAL PLANT FIBERS
1909 USDA SECRETARY - FIBER INVESTIGATIONS: HEMP/FLAX
1910 African-American 'reefer' use reported in jazz clubs of New Orleans, said to be influencing white people. Mexican's reported to be smoking Cannabis in Texas. Newspaper tycoon Randolph Hearst has 800,000 acres of prime Mexican Timberland seized from him by Villa and his men.
The white minority in South Africa outlaws cannabis ingestion in an attempt to force blacks to stop practicing ancient Dagga religions.
1911 Hindus reported to be using 'Gunjah' in San Francisco. South Africa starts to outlaw Cannabis.
1912 The possibility of putting controls on the use of Cannabis is raised at the first International Opium Conference.
1913 USDA LYSTER DEWEY - TESTS FOR HEMP, LIST OF PRODUCTS
USDA LYSTER DEWEY - HEMP SOILS, YIELD, ECONOMICS
1914 Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, its first attempt to control recreational use of drugs.
Cannabis was dropped from the Harrison Narcotics Act because of testimonies by Charles A. West, who testified for the National Wholesale Druggist Association and others that it (cannabis) was not habit inducing like the derivatives of the opiates and coca products
1915-1927 Cannabis begins to be prohibited for nonmedical use in the U.S., especially in SW states...California(1915), Texas (1919), Louisiana (1924), and New York (1927).
1916 Recognizing that timber supplies are finite, USDA Bulletin 404 calls for new program of expansion of Cannabis to replace uses of timber by industry.
A German immigrant invented a machine called a decorticator.
The United States Department of Agriculture issues Bulletin No. 404: Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material, printed on hemp paper, outlining a revolutionary new hemp pulp technology invented by USDA scientists Dewey Lyster and Jason Merrill.
The bulletin lists increased production capacity and superior quality among the advantages of using hemp hurds for pulp. Lyster writes in Bulletin No. 404, Every tract of 10,000 acres which is devoted to hemp raising year by year is equivalent to a sustained pulp producing capacity of 40,500 acres of average wood-pulp lands. Hence, an acre of hemp produces four times as much pulp as an acre of trees.
USDA BULLETIN 404 - HEMP HURDS AS A PAPER MAKING MATERIAL
1917 USDA - HEMP SEED SUPPLY OF THE NATION
USDA - CANNABIS
February 1917 Henry Timken, the wealthy industrialist who invented the roller bearing, meets with inventor George Schlichten to discuss his brilliant yet simple new machine, the decorticator. Motivated by his desire to halt the destruction of forests for wood pulp, Schlichten spent 18 years and $400,000 developing the decorticator.
The decorticator was capable of stripping the fiber from any plant, leaving behind pulp -- making it the perfect tool to revolutionize the hemp fiber/paper industry in much the same way that Eli Lilly's cotton gin revolutionized the cotton industry during the 1820's.
After meeting with Schlichten, Timken views the decorticator as a revolutionary discovery that would improve conditions for mankind (with healthy profits for investors), and he promptly offers Schlichten 100 acres of fertile farmland to grow hemp for the purposes of testing the new machine.
At anemic 1917 hemp production levels, Schlichten estimated that the decorticator could produce 50,000 tons of paper for $25 per ton -- 50% less than the cost of newsprint.
1920's In the, The DuPont Chemical company developed and patented petroleum fuel additives such as tetraethyl lead, as well as the sulfate and sulfite processes for manufacture of pulp from trees, and numerous new "synthetic" products such as nylon, cellophane, and other plastics. At this same time other companies were developing "synthetic" products from renewable biomass resources; namely hemp. The hemp decorticator promised to eliminate much of the need for wood-pulp paper thus threatening to drastically reduce the value of the vast timberlands still owned by Hearst.
1920 Metaxus dictators in Greece crack down on hashish smoking.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a pamphlet urging Americans to grow cannabis (marijuana) as a profitable undertaking. [David F. Musto, An Historical perspective on legal and medical responses to substance abuse. *Vilanova Law Review* 18-808-817 (May), 1973; pg 816]
1920 - 1940 Economic power in the United States begins to consolidate in the hands of a small number of steel, oil and munitions companies, laying the foundation of the national security state. DuPont becomes the U.S. government's primary manufacturer of munitions. DuPont later creates Rayon, the world's first synthetic fiber, from stabilized guncotton.
1922 The Narcotic Drugs Export and Import Act had been passed without considering marijuana.
1923 The South African delegate to the League of Nations claims mine workers are not as productive after using 'dagga' (Cannabis) and calls for international controls. Britain insists on further research before any controls are imposed.
1924 At the second International Opiates Conference the Egyptian delegate claims that serious problems are associated with Hashish use and calls for immediate international controls. A Sub-Committee is formed and listens to the Egyptian and Turkish delegations while Britain abstains. The conference declares Cannabis a Narcotic and recommends strict international control.
1925 The 'Panama Canal Zone Report' conducted due to the level of Cannabis use by soldiers in the area concludes that there is no evidence that Cannabis use is habit-forming or deleterious. The report recommends that no action be taken to prevent the use or sale of Cannabis.
Concerned by the high number of goof butts being smoked by off-duty servicemen in Panama, the U.S. government sponsors the Panama Canal Zone Report. The report concludes that marijuana does not pose a problem, and recommends that no criminal penalties be applied to its use or sale.
1926 Dr. Stockberger (Bureau of Plant Industry) stated, “The reported effects of the drug on Mexicans, making them want to ‘clean up the town,’ do not jibe very well with the effects of cannabis, which so far as we have reports, simply causes temporary elation, followed by depression and heavy sleep.”
1927 USDA LYSTER DEWEY RE; HEMP VARIETIES
1928 Recreational use of cannabis is banned in Britain.
September 28th. The Dangerous Drugs Act 1925 becomes law and Cannabis is made illegal in Britain.
1930 Louis Armstrong is arrested in Los Angeles for possession of cannabis.
Yarkand region of Chinese Turkestan exports 91,471 kg of hashish legally into the Northwest Frontier and Punjab regions of India.
1930s Legal taxed imports of hashish continue into India from Central Asia.
New machines invented to break hemp, process the fibre, and convert pulp or hurds into paper, plastics, etc. - Racist fears of Mexicans, Asians, and African Americans leads to outcry for cannabis to be outlawed.
1931 Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (head of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh, one of the two banks with which DuPont did business) appoints future nephew-in-law Harry J. Anslinger to head the newly-formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
Grieve's; A Modern Herbal, gives extensive notes on preparation of cannabis tinctures and extracts, and on dosages for treatment. It states the principal use of hemp in medicine is to ease pain and induce sleep and for its soothing influence. It was suggested for infantile convulsions. It was suggested for treatment of gonorrhea; bruise flower-tops in mortar, collect juice and add same amount of alcohol, and take 1-3 drops each 2-3 hours.
USDA LYSTER DEWEY RE; HEMP FIBER LOSING GROUND
1934 U.S. Senator Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania attacks Harry Anslinger for making references to ginger-colored niggers on Federal Bureau of Narcotics stationary in letters circulated to department heads.
June 1934 Congress passes the National Firearms Act, the first prohibitive tax in U.S. history. The National Firearms Act was a futile attempt to reduce machine gun-related violence by gangsters -- a direct result of the prohibition of alcohol, and an eerie echo of the current state of affairs in the United States.
Through the power of statute, Congress now permits anyone (even Branch Davidians) to own a machine gun, as long as the individual has paid a $200 transfer tax.
1934-1935 Chinese government moves to end all cannabis cultivation in Yarkand. Both licit and illicit hashish production become illegal in Chinese Turkestan.
1935 Compressed agricultural fibreboard invented in Sweden.
1936 DuPont obtains a patent license to manufacture synthetic plastic fibers from German industrial giant I.G. Farben Corporation. The patent license is obtained as part Germany's reparation payments to the United States after World War I.
A few years later, I.G. Farben manufactures deadly Zyklon-B gas, used in Nazi death camps to murder millions of Jews (along with many homosexuals and drug users). DuPont owned and financed approximately 30% of Hitler's I.G. Corps, the military-industrial backbone of the fascist Third Reich.
Reefer Madness, the movie, promulgated placing users in an institution
for the criminally insane for the remainder of their natural lives.
1936 - 1938 William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire fuels a tabloid journalism propaganda campaign against marijuana. Articles with headlines such as Marihuana Makes Fiends of Boys in 30 Days; Hasheesh Goads Users to Blood-Lust create terror of the killer weed from Mexico.
Through his relentless misinformation campaign, Hearst is credited with bringing the word marijuana into the English language. In addition to fueling racist attitudes toward Hispanics, Hearst papers run articles about marijuana-crazed negroes raping white women and playing voodoo-satanic jazz music.
Driven insane by marijuana, these blacks -- according to accounts in Hearst-owned newspapers -- dared to step on white men's shadows, look white people directly in the eye for more than three seconds, and even laugh out loud at white people. For shame!
This guy hated minorities, and used his newspaper empire to aggravate racial tensions at every possible opportunity. He especially hated Mexicans and portrayed them as lazy, degenerate and violent. He also depicted them as "Marihuana smokers" and job stealers. The real fire under his buzongo was that he had lost 800,000 acres of prime timberland to Pancho Villa.
1937 Cannabis made federally illegal in the U.S. with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act.
Marijuana Tax Act forbids hemp farming in the US. -Dupont files patent for nylon.
Following action by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and a campaign by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, a prohibitive tax is put on hemp in the USA, effectively destroying the industry. Anslinger testifies to congress that 'Marijuana' is the most violence causing drug known to Man. The objections by the American Medical Association (The AMA only realized that 'Marijuana' was in fact Cannabis 2 days before the start of hearing) and the National Oil Seed Institute are rejected.
DuPont patents petrochemical manufacturing processes for making plastics, as well as pollution-heavy sulfate/sulfite processes for producing wood pulp. For the next 50 years, these processes are responsible for 80% of DuPont's industrial output.
In its 1937 Annual Report, DuPont informs stockholders that the company anticipates radical changes from the revenue raising power of government... converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganization.
Wallace H. Carothers patents nylon (for the DuPont company) When asked what to call their new fiber, they decide on a combination of "Ny" (short for New York) and "Lon" (short for London) where their headquarters were located. This new fiber made from petroleum was to be jealously protected from the all-natural hemp fibers.
Spring 1937 Congress holds hearings on the Marijuana Tax Act. Dr. James Woodward, representing the American Medical Association, testifies that the law could deny the world a potential medicine.
Cannabis was already prescribed for dozens of common ailments, and medical researchers were just beginning to explore the therapeutic benefits of the numerous active ingredients in marijuana. Woodward said that AMA doctors were wholly unaware that the killer weed from Mexico was actually cannabis. We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession, that it was being prepared, Woodward testifies.
FBN commissioner Harry Anslinger and the Ways and Means Committee quickly denounce Woodward and the AMA, which already had an adversarial relationship with the Roosevelt administration.
March 29, 1937 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upholds the National Firearms Act.
April 14, 1937 The Treasury Department secretly introduces its marihuana tax bill through the House Ways and Means Committee, bypassing more appropriate venues. Committee chairman Robert L. Doughton, a key Congressional ally of DuPont, rubber-stamps the bill.
December 1937 The Marijuana Tax Act is signed into law, initiating 60 years of cannabis prohibition and annihilating a multi-billion dollar industry. DuPont and other synthetic materials manufacturers reap vast profits by filling the void conveniently left by the criminalization of industrial hemp.
The Marijuana Tax Act is enacted, by the unrelenting promotion of Harry J. Anslinger. He was the governments "expert witness" during the congressional hearings on the proposed Marijuana Tax Act. As proof of Marijuana's malevolence, he introduced into evidence the bogus Hearst newspaper headlines that trumpeted the "violence, insanity and death" caused by marijuana. Despite opposition by the American Medical Association, Congress passed the law unanimously after debating the law for a grand total of 90 seconds. In the Spring of 1937 Dr. James Woodward, representing the A.M.A. testifies that the law would be denying the world a potent medicine. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law on August 3rd, 1937. It did not prohibit marijuana and hemp, only a constitutional amendment can do that. By imposing "prohibitive taxes" and mountains of red tape, it made cultivation, processing, sales and any use of the hemp plant virtually impossible. This law is still in effect today.
1937 - 1939 Under Harry Anslinger, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics prosecutes 3,000 doctors for illegally prescribing cannabis-derived medications. In 1939, the American Medical Association reached an agreement with Anslinger, and over the following decade, only three doctors are prosecuted.
1938 Popular Mechanics describes hemp as the new billion dollar crop. The article was actually written in the spring of 1937, before cannabis was criminalized. Also in February 1938, Mechanical Engineering calls hemp the most profitable and desirable crop that can be grown.
Popular Mechanics magazine recognized the potential bonanza for American farmers and entrepreneurs. The article went on to declare that hemp could be processed quickly and cheaply for the first time in its history, much like the Cotton Gin created by Eli Whitney in 1793, which helped the south get back on it's feet. The magazine Mechanical Engineering called hemp "the most profitable and desirable crop that can be grown."
Canada prohibits production of hemp under Opium And Narcotics Control Act.
1941 Cannabis dropped from the American Pharmacopoeia. Popular Mechanics Magazine reveal details of Henry Ford's plastic car made using Cannabis and fuelled from Cannabis. Henry Ford continued to illegally grow Cannabis for some years after the Federal ban, hoping to become independent of the petroleum industry.
Popular Mechanics introduces Henry Ford's plastic car, manufactured from and fueled by cannabis. Hoping to free his company from the grasp of the petroleum industry, Ford illegally grew cannabis for years after the federal ban. His composite car body was stronger than steel which would have made "planned obsolesence " obsolete. In other words, because parts on the automobile were going to be so strong there wouldn't be as much of a need for car repair shops to make fortunes from selling new fenders and bumpers at outrageous prices.
1942 The Japanese invasion of the Philippines cuts off the U.S. supply of Manila hemp. The U.S. government immediately distributes 400,000 pounds of cannabis seeds to farmers from Wisconsin to Kentucky.
Just four short years after cannabis was outlawed as the assassin of youth, the government requires farmers to attend showings of the USDA pro-cannabis classic, Hemp for Victory.
Harry Anslinger is appointed to a top-secret committee charged with finding a truth serum for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (which, in later years, investigated the applications of psychedelic drugs for mind control purposes).
The group picks a cannabis-derived form of hashish oil as their truth serum of choice. In 1943, the committee abandoned the idea because test subjects tended to laugh hysterically and get the munchies rather than spill the beans
1943 Both the US and German governments urge their patriotic farmers to grow hemp for the war effort. The US shows farmers a short film - 'Hemp for Victory' which the government later pretends never existed. The editor of 'Military Journal' states that although some military personnel smoke Cannabis he does not view this as a problem.
The government requires farmers to attend showings of the USDA pro-cannabis classic, Hemp for Victory.
Hemp For Victory program urges farmers to grow hemp.
USDA - HEMP FOR VICTORY - DOCUMENTARY FILM
1943 - 1948 Harry Anslinger orders all Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents to conduct surveillance and keep files on marijuana crimes by jazz and swing musicians.
However, Anslinger orders his agents not to bust them immediately -- he instead envisions a gigantic nationwide bust of all pot-smoking jazz and swing musicians, simultaneously.
FBN agents keep constant surveillance on various low life such as Thelonius Monk, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and many more.
Luckily, the bust never goes down: Anslinger's slightly more sane superior at the Treasury Department, Assistant Secretary Foley, hears of the plan and writes to Anslinger, Mr. Foley disapproves!
1944 New York Mayor LaGuardia's Marijuana commission reports that Cannabis causes no violence at all and cites other positive results. Anslinger responds by denouncing LaGuardia and threatens doctors with prison sentences if they dare carry out independent research on Cannabis.
1945 Legal hashish consumption continues in India.
Newsweek reports that over 100,000 Americans use Cannabis.
1945-1955 Hashish use in Greece flourishes again.
1947 USDA - HEMP DAY LENGTH & FLOWERING
1948 Anslinger now declares that using Cannabis causes the user to become peaceful and pacifistic. He also claims that the Communists would use Cannabis to weaken the American's will to fight.
This was a complete reversal of earlier testimony; in 1937, Anslinger had testified to Congress that Marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind. Ironically, Anslinger later writes in his autobiography, The Murderers, that for years, he illegally supplied Senator Joseph McCarthy with morphine.
It was necessary, you understand, so that the Communists would not be able to blackmail McCarthy in a moment of drug-dependent weakness.
1951 UN bulletin of Narcotic Drugs estimates 200 million Cannabis users worldwide.
1952 First UK Cannabis bust at the Number 11 Club, Soho.
1955 Hemp farming again banned.
1956 USDA - MONOECIOUS HEMP BREEDING IN THE U.S.
1961 Anslinger heads US delegation at UN Drugs Convention. New international restrictions are placed on Cannabis aiming to eliminate its use within 25 years.
Harry Anslinger heads the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Drugs Convention, which issues the United Nations Single Convention Treaty on Narcotics.
Intended to eradicate marijuana use within 25 years, the Single Convention Treaty removes the issue of legal classification of cannabis from citizens of the United States.
Reversal of marijuana's criminalization on a global level now requires agreement among all 108 signatory nations. According to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1920 ruling in Missouri vs. Holland, treaties with foreign nations take precedence over domestic legislation.
The Canadian Narcotics Control Act (CNCA) allowed Cannabis to be grown, at the discretion of the Health Minister, for research purposes only.
Anslinger heads the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Drugs Convention, which issued the United Nations Single Convention Treaty on Narcotics. Intended to eradicate marijuana use within 25 years, the Single Convention Treaty removes the issue of legal classification of cannabis from citizens of the United States. Reversal of marijuana's criminalization on a global level now requires agreement among all 108 signatory nations. According to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1920 ruling in Missouri vs. Holland, treaties with foreign nations take precedence over domestic legislation, never-mind that throughout history, treaties with the Native Americans were constantly made null and void to satisfy the whims of a growing nation of European Immigrants. 1962 - President John F. Kennedy forces Federal Bureau narcotics czar Harry Anslinger into retirement after Anslinger attempts to censor the work of Professor Alfred Lindsmith, author of The Addict and the Law. Some time after his assassination in 1963, associates of Kennedy claimed that the president used cannabis for back pain and planned to legalize marijuana during his second term.
1962 President John F. Kennedy forces Federal Bureau of Narcotics czar Harry Anslinger into retirement after Anslinger attempts to censor the work of Professor Alfred Lindsmith, author of The Addict and the Law.
Some time after his assassination in 1963, associates of Kennedy claimed that the president used cannabis for back pain and planned to legalize marijuana during his second term.
1964 The first head shop is opened by the Thelin brothers in the United States.
Dr. Raphael Mechoulam of the University of Tel Aviv isolates THC Delta-9, the primary active ingredient in cannabis -- and one of at least 60 compounds found in cannabis that have therapeutic value.
1967 In July over 3,000 people hold a mass 'smoke-in' in Hyde Park in London. The same month, The Times carries a pro-legalisation advertisement which declares that "the laws against Marijuana are immoral in principle and unworkable in Practice.” The signatories include David Dimbleby, Bernard Levin, and the Beatles.
The most famous bust of all, on the home of Rolling Stone, Keith Richards, uncovered marijuana. Richards and Mick Jagger were sentenced to prison for respectively three months and one year. The sentences prompted an outcry that culminated in Lord Rees Mogg's famous Times editorial 'Who brakes a butterfly on a wheel?' The convictions were quashed on appeal.
In New York, on Valentines Day, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies mail out 3000 joints to addresses chosen at random from the phonebook. They offer these people the chance to discover what all the fuss is about, but remind them that they are now criminals for possessing cannabis. The mail out was secretly funded by Jimi Hendrix, and attracts huge publicity.
1968 A Home Office select committee, chaired by Baroness Wootton, looks at the 'cannabis question'. Its report concluded that cannabis was no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and recommended that the penalties for all marijuana offences be reduced. Campaign against Cannabis use by US Troops in Vietnam - Soldiers switch to heroin.
1969 Incoming Labour minister Jim Callaghan rejects the Wootton recommendations and introduces a new Misuse of Drugs Act, which prescribes a maximum five years' imprisonment for possession. The Act remains in force to this day.
1970 Canadian Le Dain report claims that the debate on the non-medical use of Cannabis "has all too often been based on hearsay, myth and ill-informed opinion about the effects of the drug." Marijuana Transfer Tax' declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.
Oct 27, 1970 The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act is passed. Part II of this is the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) which defines a scheduling system for drugs and places most of the known hallucinogens (LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, mescaline, peyote, cannabis) in Schedule I.
1971 Misuse of Drugs Act lists Cannabis as a Class B drug and bans its medical use despite the recommendation of the Wootton Report that "Preparations of Cannabis and its derivatives should continue to be available on prescription for purposes of medical treatment and research". President Nixon declares drugs "America's public enemy No. 1".
Medical World News reports that "Marijuana... is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine today."
1972 The White House passes a $1 billion anti-drug bill and Nixon again declares drugs America's public enemy No. 1". The US Government Shafer report voices concern at the level of spending used to stop illicit drug use. From 1969-73 the level of spending rose over 1000 percent.
The Nixon-appointed Shafer Commission urged use of cannabis be re-legalized, but their recommendation was ignored. Medical research continues.
1973 President Nixon declares "We have turned the corner on drug addiction in America'.
Oregon takes the first steps towards decriminalization of cannabis. For the next 25 years, possession of up to one ounce of marijuana is considered the equivalent of a misdemeanor, with no criminal record for those caught in possession.
1974 Dr. Heath conducts his infamous government-funded Rhesus monkey study at Tulane University, touted for years as evidence that marijuana causes brain damage.
Dr. Heath would put an airtight gas mask on the monkey, strap it into a chair and force-toke the equivalent of 63 Columbian-strength joints over the course of five minutes. The monkeys suffered brain damage, all right -- from suffocation and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Jack Herer, author of the infamous book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes", realizes a new paradigm. Hemp could save the world. Virtually everything now being made from trees and petroleum could instead be made from hemp. That not another single oxygen producing tree would ever have to be cut down, that "clean-burning" fuel could be made from the bio-mass of the hemp plant. This new fuel would run cars, power plants and even provide heat for our homes. Hemp could be grown and processed into cloth and paper with only a fraction of the TOXIC chemicals used in processing cotton and trees. Jack pictured a world saved from pollution, acid rain, global warming, and deforestation.
1975 FDA establishes Compassionate Use program for medical marijuana.
Hundreds of Doctors call on US Government to instigate further research on Cannabis. Supreme Court of Alaska declares that 'right of privacy' protects Cannabis possession in the home. Limit for public possession is set at one ounce.
1976 Ford Administration bans government funding of medical research on Cannabis. Pharmaceutical companies allowed to carry out research on synthetic, manmade Cannabis analogues. Holland adopts policy of tolerance to Cannabis users. Robert Randal becomes first American to receive Cannabis from Federal supplies under an Investigational New Drug (IND) program. Ford's chief advisor on drugs, Robert Dupont declares that Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and urges for its decriminalization. Disturbances erupt at the end of the Notting Hill carnival. BBC News reports: 'Scores of young black men roamed the streets late into the night, openly smoking marijuana joints and listening to the non-stop pounding of reggae music'.
The Ford Administration bans independent research and research by federal health programs on the use of natural cannabis derivatives for medicine.
Private pharmaceutical corporations are allowed to do limited no high research using only THC Delta-9, ignoring other potentially beneficial active natural ingredients.
1978 New Mexico becomes first US state to make Cannabis available for medical use.
1981 Congress amends the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act which specifically forbids the armed forces to enforce civil law, so that the U.S. Military could provide surveillance planes and ships for interdiction purposes inside and outside the borders of the United States.
Jack Herer is arrested for registering voters for California Hemp and Marijuana Initiatives. President Reagan causes his arrest under the guise of violating an arcane wartime sabotage act and Jack goes to federal prison in 1983 after being refused for his appeal to be heard by the U. S. Supreme Court.
1983 US government instructs American Universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 Cannabis research work.
1984 President Bush Declares War on "Drugs" and enlists the National Guard to make surveillance runs over American soil from the air. Sophisticated instruments are created able to detect the Hemp plants heat signature from the air even from space.
1985 Pentagon spends $40 million in interdiction.
May 13, 1986 Dronabinol is placed into Schedule II by the DEA.
1988 DEA administrative law Judge Francis Young finds after thorough hearings that marijuana has clearly established medical use and should be reclassified as a prescriptive drug.
In Washington, DEA Judge Francis Young concludes at the end of a lengthy legal process that "Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man". He recommends that medical use of marijuana should be allowed, for certain life- or sense-threatening illnesses. The DEA administrator rejects the ruling. US Senate adds $2.6 Billion to federal anti-drug efforts.
1989 Outgoing president Reagan declares victory in War on Drugs as being a major achievement of his administration. Secretary of State James Baker reports that the global war on narcotics production "is clearly not being won."
A government-funded study at the St. Louis Medical University determines that the human brain has receptor sites for THC to which no other known compounds will bind.
December 30, 1989 Ignoring evidence to the contrary, Drug Enforcement Agency Director John Lawn orders that cannabis remain on the Schedule One narcotics list, reserved for drugs which have no known medical use.
Much to the delight of most major pharmaceutical companies and ignoring evidence to the contrary, Drug Enforcement Agency Director John (Jack) Lawn orders that cannabis remain on the Schedule One narcotics list, reserved for drugs which have no known medical use, and, until they can somehow put a patent on this most natural plant, they will lobby to keep it illegal.
1990 The discovery of THC receptors in the human brain is reported in Nature.
1992 Australia licenses hemp farming.
1993 England eases restriction on hemp farming. News media declare hemp clothes and cannabis leaf logo hottest new fashion.
1993 Hempcore become the first British company to obtain a license to grow Cannabis as the Home Office lift restrictions on industrial hemp cultivation.
1994 Home Secretary Michael Howard increases maximum fines for possession from £500 to £2,500. Germany becomes the first European country apart from Holland to decriminalize possession of 'small quantities of cannabis for occasional use'. The Liberal-Democrat conference votes for a Royal Commission, yet the tabloid press report that they support legalisation! Key rings with leaves taken from Hempcore's first Harvest are illegally sold in such publications as 'Viz'. The Home Office is aware of the situation but do not prosecute Hempcore who could have been facing 15 years and an unlimited fine. Association of Cannabis Therapeutics talks to Department Of Health about possibility of Legalizing Cannabis for Medical use.
Under the CNCA, one license was granted to a Canadian company, Hempline Inc., to grow hemp experimentally in Canada under the strict supervision of the authorities.
1995 Channel 4 dedicates 8 hours of programming to Cannabis on Pot Night. The BBC responds with blatant anti-cannabis propaganda on Panorama. 10 millionth cannabis arrest in the US in July. Labour shadow minister Clare Short says the subject of decriminalization should be discussed. She is immediately denounced by other leading Labour Politicians.
UK Cannabis Internet Activists are formed to take the campaign to reform the UK cannabis laws to the global community. Their www site is presently visited by over 2000 people from around the world each week, has been featured in the national newspaper the Mail on Sunday, listed in .Net magazine, and continues to help people take the anti-prohibition message to the press and Members of Parliament. We would like to thank everyone who's got involved in the UK campaign through this project for their efforts and everyone who has taken the time to send messages of support.
1996 The Canadian federal government passed Bill C8 stating that mature hemp stalks are exempt from the list of controlled substances.
California and Arizona voters passed state ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana for medical use and 30 other states including the District of Columbia are considering similar measures.
1997
The newspaper The Independent on Sunday launched a "Decriminalize cannabis" campaign. They, like us, believed that a change would come with the newly elected Labour government, they were wrong, but they did organize a big demonstration in London in March of 1998, before dropping the campaign. These large demonstrations became an annual event thereafter, although no longer organized by the newspaper.
1998 The Canadian government legalizes the commercial growth of industrial hemp.
Colorado voters were told that the votes for Amendment 19 the medical marijuana initiative that was included on voting ballots would not count due to a lack of signatures on the petition.
Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga), former federal prosecutor (veteran Drug Warrior), deftly slipped a "rider" provision into that November's federal budget bill for the DC City government, which Congress controls, stating, "None of the funds contained in this Act may be used to enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any Schedule I substance... or any tetrahydrocannabinois [sic] derivative, thereby effectively censoring the results of the I-59 medical marijuana initiative tally in advance, no matter how it might come out. Barr's rider to DC's Fiscal Year 1999 city budget went into effect exactly 13 days before the November 3rd, 1999 election, and gained only a couple of paragraphs in the Washington POST on Nov. 1.
So on November 4th it came as quite a surprise when the DC Board of Elections and Ethics announced that no one there had dared push the button to tally the I-59 vote, for fear of facing federal prosecution for spending the $1.50 it might cost. If the voters had turned I-59 down, of course, there would have been no problem. But since voters in five other states had, in that same election, resoundingly approved medical-marijuana referendum proposals, it would have been a risky venture to push that button in DC. When ACT-UP, supported by the MPP and NORML promptly moved to sue the federal government to release the I-59 tally, they were surprised to be joined immediately by not only the ACLU but the DC City Council, and eventually a whole roster of civil-liberties organizations. This made it necessary for the feds to try and defend Rep. Barr's extraordinary "rider" in DC federal court, dragging the case on for ten months, eating up hundreds of thousands of dollars and thereby "breaking the very law" that Rep. Barr imposed with his FY1999 "rider".
July 1999 Then, later in, the House of Representatives Appropriations committee were setting up the DC City budget for the Fiscal Year 2000, they tweaked Rep. Barr's now-notorious rider just enough to provide for the counting of the 1998 vote on I-59, but to specifically ban the city government from ever putting it into effect. This goes far beyond drug-policy issues, and has to do with infringements on the sovereignty of the American electorate in general -- since Congressional infringements of DC voters' rights can eventually be cited as precedence to stifle voters everywhere, and undoubtedly will be. Since six states have already passed identical medical-pot laws, the congress people from those states will be opposing their constituents' declared interests if they vote to ditch I-59. And, if Congress does vote to nullify I-59, it will be the first time in American history that the federal government has explicitly suppressed law that was passed by popular vote, anywhere in the country. Congress would effectively be committing treason against the People of the United States.
Finally a federal judge ordered the November 1998 D.C. votes counted in September 1999, almost one year later, and it officially passed by 69% of the vote. In October 1999, Rep. Barr asked Republican legislators to again vote to refuse to allow the law to be implemented.
October 1999 Colorado voters learn, after her untimely death, that Secretary of State Vicky Buckley had "made a mistake" by keeping the initiative from being counted. Donetta Davidson, who succeeded Buckley in July, found 66 petitions that hadn't been counted in Buckley's office. Her staff reviewed the signature count and found that more than 2,500 had been improperly disqualified by Buckley's staff. She said the initiative had 253 more signatures than the 54,242 needed to make the November 1998 election ballot.
November 2, 1999 On, the voters of Maine approved a state-wide initiative by an overwhelming 61% to make medical marijuana legal by Doctor's recommendation. Medical Marijuana is now legal on the entire West Coast, and the East Coast is beginning to follow suit.
2000
After four long years of attempted repression of cannabis under the first Labour Administration of Tony Blair, the climate of opinion began to change. In September of 2000, at the Tory party conference, the then shadow Home Secretary, Anne Widdecombe to make her keynote speech which was to be in the tradition of firm support for the issue of law and order. She announced that the next Conservative government would have a "crack down" on cannabis and she even proposed on the spot fines for simple small scale possession. The media and the police tore the speech apart as unworkable and even undesirable. Several Tory MP's admitted past use, the crack down on cannabis was over.
Colorado and Nevada now have joined the previous states in granting physicians the ability to prescribe "Medicinal Marijuana" to those whose suffering of pain can only be alleviated through this marvelous drug. Although there is no legal way to get them the drug, they have this voter approved initiative of the People backing them up.
2001 At the start of the new administration in June 2001 the police in Lambeth, South London announced that they would no longer give anyone found in possession of cannabis a criminal record and the issue of legalisation became a major issue in the campaign for the leadership of the Conservative party. We began to hope change was close
October: The government sets up a Select Committee to look at drugs policy. When giving evidence the Home Secretary (David Blunkett) announces his intention to move cannabis from class B to class C, making possession a non-arrestable offence.
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:Ju3mGh9sVWkC:jackal.inta.net.au/research/Timeline.doc+hemp+timeline&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 “Timeline of Medical Cannabis Use before Prohibition”
http://www.ukcia.org/culture/history/chrono.html “UKCIA presents... A Cannabis Chronology”
http://www.marijuanaaddiction.com/marijuana_timeline.html “marijuana history timeline & marijuana addiction treatment by Narconon Arrowhead & marijuana addiction.com”
http://members.tripod.com/~xxtool_shedxx/cannabis/id4.html “H I S T O R Y”
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