CANNAINVESTOR Magazine October / November 2016 | Page 112

The Civil War Unseen; Clouded in smoke.. And Mirrors

“The War on Drugs” defined as an “American Term” applied to the campaign of prohibition of drugs, military aid and intervention, with the aim being to reduce the ILLEGAL DRUG TRADE.

Glamorized following President Nixon’s June 18th Press conference in 1971 deeming Drugs “Public enemy number one”, this coming from the only president to resign from office; just to shine some light on his character. Now don’t get me wrong; regulation and laws are necessary for certain substances, especially during certain times. As an open minded individual I must empathize with both sides. The parents believing the propaganda, America’s largest export, trying to protect their children from the unknown and the practitioners of cannabis since the days of Harry Anslinger’s Reefer Madness spectacle; combating it with the true effects of marijuana; it is simply not the outlandish narcotic it was advertised as. Through personal experience of those daring in the times we now know it was mere propaganda. Let’s take another sip of American history we can equate directly to today’s cannabis battle. “The prohibition era lasted from 1920 through 1933, and was an attempt to legislate morality. It took a Constitutional enact it, and another one to repeal It.” – Historic Patterson, New York. Speakeasies were dispensaries of alcohol such as today’s dispensaries of Marijuana products. The only difference is the marijuana industry requires licensing and fees to go with it. All in an effort to “legislate morality”; now about 26 years later since California’s 1990 medical marijuana proposition and vastly greater investment in the “War on Drugs” it seems to have come full circle and is knocking at our doors here in America. The “battle” against cannabis has become a household American issue comparable to that of a Civil War.

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