by Brendan Hamilton

Created on: August 11, 2008

In the year 2000 alone, some 85,000 Americans died from the use of a popular, legal drug known as alcohol. Despite the fact that marijuana has not been linked to a single death, it is not only illegal, but is still the subject of a broad-based, expensive smear campaign, sponsored by the United States federal government. In television commercials throughout the nation, viewers are bombarded with frightening images such as that of a marijuana-influenced youth accidentally shooting another with a handgun. Why are these images so prevalent in the American mind? Where did they come from? When did Americans first become terrified of the cannabis plant? To answer those questions, one must look back to a time when most Americans had not even heard of the drug. In the 1920s and 1930s, sparked by cultural bias coupled with the manipulations of certain powerful individuals, the image of "the killer weed" first gained a foothold in the American consciousness. Medical opinion and empirical research took a backseat to media hysteria and set the wheels in motion for the beginnings of modern day marijuana criminalization.

Background Cannabis Use in the United States Before the Civil War

Hemp was a critical crop in Colonial America. It was a raw material England desperately needed for the production of a variety of goods such as rope, paper, and cloth for sails and flags. The British therefore encouraged the growth of hemp throughout its colonies worldwide. The first American crop of Indian hemp, was planted in 1611 near Jamestown, Virginia. Contrary to the mercantilist policies of the Crown, American colonists processed their own hemp into various goods, and exported very little of it to England. Hemp was important to a number of burgeoning local industries; it was used to make rope and sails for ships and paper for Bibles, books in general, and newspapers. Some of the original In fact, until 1883, some 75-90% of all the paper the world produced was made with hemp fiber. This is not to suggest that the American colonies were teeming with marijuanathe form of hemp popularly referred to as marijuana, used for medicinal and recreational purposes, contains a far higher content of the drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) than most of the hemp that was grown in America in colonial times.

There is, however, striking evidence to indicate that colonial Americans used cannabis medicinally, which would have required them to grow some plants with a high THC content. They either smoked it, brewed

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