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UVSS HEMPOLOGY 101 CLUB LESSON #13 : HISTORY OF PROHIBITION - Part 1 |
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Many believe the literal and mythological history of cannabis prohibition is written about in the Bible. The first prohibition was god’s commandment not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil or the punishment will be death. When Eve accepts the serpent’s argument that eating from the tree will open your eyes and allow you to see good and evil like the gods, both Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. This banishment meant that humans no longer had access to the Tree of Life or the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This original prohibition and sin is a central theme in Christianity and Judaism. In an attempt to monopolize religious worship, a forged ‘BOOK OF LAW’ was written in 621 B.C. in Jerusalem by Jewish fanatics who believed all other gods and goddesses were false and impotent. The Jews had just escaped from Assyria, where the Tree of Life was worshipped. King Josiah destroyed the altars and temples of all deities but Yahweh, and forbid the burning of incense to any other god, as the ‘Book of Law’ claimed Moses had said. This is recorded in Kings II 22:3. Ancient oral stories and traditions were condensed into the Old Testament, after they were released from captivity from the Babylonians, to help unite the Jewish people against their enemies and behind the priesthood. It was forbidden in the Jewish community to burn incense in the name of other gods or goddesses, punishable by death, from 538 B.C. to late in the 4th century when burning incense was prohibited entirely. When the Roman Catholic Church first formed in 325 other religious practices were tolerated, but 50 years later Theodosius declared that anyone worshipping anything but Christianity would be killed. For over 1000 years in old Europe using plants to heal could be punished by the Church and/or state. Those who continued to practice herbal medicine
disguised their activities as a search for a means to turn lead into
gold. These alchemists tried turn the leaden mind of ordinary people
into the golden minds of enlightened beings using many
methods. |
By the 1800’s there were few enforced drug laws in the
world, but by the early 1900’s Christian morality and racism combined to
refuel prohibition. The first drug prohibitions in North America
were intended to control the exploding Chinese community and this policy
seemed easy to apply to other ethnic groups and their favourite
recreational substances. The prohibition of cannabis was put into
law in 1923 and in the US in 1937. The cannabis laws were primarily
meant to benefit cotton farmers and the pulp and paper industry, as hemp
threatened both economies, while it gave the authorities the power to
harass black and Hispanic minorities. By 1960, drug prohibition was
global. The ‘Reefer Madness’ campaign of the 1920’s and 30’s did not lead to many arrests, though it did lay the roots for the ‘War On Drugs’ announced by Richard Nixon in 1971 in which he characterized the abuse of illicit substances as "America's public enemy number one." While the medical use of cannabis has recently started to become accepted in North America, more people are arrested for possession with each passing year. RELEVANT WEB SITES http://www.answers.com/alchemy |
| International Hempology 101
Society www.hempology.ca |
Cannabis Buyers' Clubs of Canada www.cbc-canada.ca |
