Pubdate: Sun, 16 Dec 2012 Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) Copyright: 2012 The Arizona Republic Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24 Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press A HISTORY OF WEED AS MARIJUANA GOES PROPER SEATTLE - It's been a long, strange trip for marijuana. Last month, Washington state and Colorado voted to legalize and regulate the use of pot. But before that, the plant, renowned since ancient times for its strong fibers, medical use and mind-altering properties, was a staple crop of the colonies, an "assassin of youth," a counterculture emblem and a widely accepted - if often abused - medicine. On the occasion of Thursday's "Legalization Day," when Washington's new law takes effect, here's a look back at the cultural and legal status of the "evil weed" in American history. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp and puzzled over the best ways to process it for clothing and rope. Indeed, cannabis has been grown in America since soon after the British arrived. In 1619 the Crown ordered the colonists at Jamestown to grow hemp to satisfy England's incessant demand for maritime ropes, Wayne State University professor Ernest Abel wrote in "Marihuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years." Hemp became more important to the colonies as New England's own shipping industry developed, and homespun hemp helped clothe American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Some colonies offered farmers "bounties" for growing it. "We have manufactured within our families the most necessary articles of cloathing," Jefferson wrote in "Notes on the State of Virginia." "Those of wool, flax and hemp are very coarse, unsightly, and unpleasant." Books such as "The Arabian Nights" and Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo," with its voluptuous descriptions of hashish highs in the exotic Orient, helped spark a cannabis fad among intellectuals in the mid-19th century. After the Civil War, with hospitals often overprescribing opiates for pain, many soldiers returned home hooked on harder drugs. Those addictions eventually became a public health concern. In 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, requiring labeling of ingredients, and states began regulating opiates and other medicines - including cannabis. By the turn of the 20th century, cannabis smoking remained little known in the United States, but that was changing, thanks largely to The Associated Press, said Isaac Campos, a Latin American history professor at the University of Cincinnati. In the 1890s, the first English-language newspaper opened in Mexico and, through the wire service, tales of marijuana-induced violence that were common in Mexican papers began to appear north of the border. By 1910, when the Mexican Revolution pushed immigrants north, articles in the New York Sun, Boston Daily Globe and other papers decried the "evils of ganjah smoking" and suggested that some use it "to key themselves up to the point of killing." After the repeal of alcohol prohibition in 1933, Harry Anslinger, who headed the federal Bureau of Narcotics, turned his attention to pot. He told of sensational crimes reportedly committed by marijuana addicts. "No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer," he wrote in a 1937 magazine article called "Marijuana: Assassin of Youth." The hysteria was captured in the propaganda films of the time - most famously, "Reefer Madness," which depicted young adults descending into violence and insanity after smoking marijuana. The movie found little audience upon its release in 1936 but was rediscovered by pot fans in the 1970s. Congress banned marijuana with the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The Department of Agriculture promoted a different message. After Japanese troops cut off access to Asian fiber supplies during World War II, it released "Hemp for Victory," a propaganda film urging farmers to grow hemp and extolling its use in parachutes and rope for the war effort. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D