JUST SAY KNOW

MORE IN COMMON THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

In contrast to their often adversarial relationship, both pot and propaganda share much in common. For starters, both natural cannabis and human-made propaganda have been utilized by people to serve a variety of interests since the dawn of recorded evidence.

Conversely, despite their benefits, the two are also controversial; cannabis remains scorned by many as a “dangerous drug,” while simply using the word “propaganda” to describe a form of communication suggests a manipulative, and perhaps even diabolical, motivation.

Another similarity the pair share is that prior to the 20th century, cannabis and propaganda were both viewed in a primarily neutral context. The etymology of the word “propaganda” reveals that it derives from the Italian word propagare, which means “to spread or to propagate”—which is also an apt description for what cannabis and its seeds do when they disperse across the land.

And of course, there has also been propaganda used by cannabis activists—and sometimes, even the government—in order to promote cannabis’ many resources, such as industrial hemp or medicinal marijuana.

However, we know full well that despite these vast similarities, in the 20th century and continuing today, propaganda and cannabis have been battle-weary opponents; propaganda has generally been used in the service of drug warriors who seek to demonize and criminalize cannabis, in order to suppress it as an economic threat to corporate interests, to maintain the profit-driven prohibition machine, as well as to create a criminal class out of the working poor and minorities, the two groups mostly likely to suffer prosecution for drug use and distribution.

As history tells us, cannabis and hemp became criminalized across America in 1937 when Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act–but even before that culture-altering legislation took effect, the bad seeds of an anti-cannabis conspiracy had already taken root in the various media messages and public imagery applied by the government, law enforcement and the bourgeois ruling class that successfully sought to make pot use a crime and to take it off the market as a legitimate resource.

The following is a history of the few highlights–and many, many low points–-of pot propaganda in the US, which will include the insights of three pro-cannabis legends; National Organization for Marijuana Reform (NORML) Founder Keith Stroup, California NORML Director Dale Gieringer, as well as Chris Conrad, editor and designer of the ground-breaking book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, written by ganja godfather Jack Herer.

PRE-CRIMINALIZATION PROPAGANDA

During the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the flood of immigrants seeking to escape the wartime violence in Mexico resulted in a tripling of immigrants entering the US. Inevitably, the Mexican people’s culture was introduced into America, including smoking of “marihuana” as it was known. This benign cultural indulgence was soon seized upon and twisted to serve the racist factions of social oppression.

For example, the September 25, 1915 edition of The Ogden Standard out of Utah actually ran a headline posing the racially-motivated rhetorical question: “Is The Mexican Nation ‘Loco’ed’ by a Peculiar Weed?” The subtitle makes mention of “deadly marihuana,” a complete distortion of cannabis’ medical efficacy, already well established by that time.

The use of ‘marihuana’—later anglicized to ‘marijuana’—was to emphasize the “Mexicanness” of weed culture. Despite the fact that “cannabis” had long been the accepted clinical word for the flowering tops, the new slang term became the dominant unit of language to characterize cannabis to 20th century Americans. Such spurious journalistic tactics lead to wild rumors, such as that of immigrants giving weed to white children, further propelling the plant to outlaw status.

Such racially-based campaigns had profound influence,