What's the Real Story Behind Marijuana Being Illegal? The Historic Background of Marijuana

Part 2 of an ongoing series: Click here for PART 1

Why Is Marijuana Not Legal? Historic Background of Marijuana

For the majority of human history, cannabis was entirely lawful. It is not a recently identified plant, or has it been a long standing law. Cannabis has become against the law for under 1% of the entire time length it’s been in use. It's identified uses have been recorded further back than 7,000 B.C. plus it was lawful as not too long ago as when former U.S. President Ronald Reagan was a young buck.

The hemp plant, obviously, has countless uses. The first recognized woven cloth was evidently of hemp, and over the generations the plant was developed for food items, incense, textile, rope, and many more. This contributes to a number of the misunderstandings over its arrival in the United States of America, because the plant was popular through the early 1600's, but failed to attain public recognition as being a leisure drug up until the early 1900's.

The country's very first pot laws were put into law at Jamestown Colony, Va in 1619. It had been a legislation “ordering” all farm owners to grow Native Indian hemp seed. There have been many “must grow” laws and regulations over the following 2 centuries (you might have been jailed due to not growing hemp in periods of general shortage in the State of Virginia in between 1763 and 1767), and throughout the majority of that period, hemp was legal tender (you could pay your income taxes with hemp — attempt that nowadays!) Hemp was a really crucial plant for assorted reasons (such as important warfare needs – rope, etc.) and the federal government promoted this approach to stimulate growth.

America Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp farms (bare minimum 2,000-acre of farming land) developing marijuana hemp for textile, canvas and also the cordage utilized for bailing natural cotton.

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