Cannabis debate is all about freedom

I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on the cannabis debate. Step back 100 years ago when our country had a thriving cannabis hemp industry. As a medicine cannabis was one of the most frequently prescribed therapies for a wide range of ailments, including pain, bronchial difficulties, stomach issues, anxiety, and opiate addiction. As a textile, cannabis hemp was the staple for both military and civilian needs. Canvas, hemp rope, and hemp-seed oil lubricants, are a few examples.

Cannabis hemp was such an important part of our healthy economy, as many farms grew it and many factories produced it. Prohibition shut down this important sector of our economy, and is said to have contributed to the Dust Bowl, as hemp farmers could no longer grow their crop, and lost their farms. At the advent of World War II, our government put out a video called “Hemp for Victory” and provided seeds to grow this necessary crop for the war effort.

Prohibition which began roughly back in 1937 was accomplished through the efforts of a consortium of interests, including Tobacco, Alcohol, Timber, Pharmaceutical, as well as companies trying to introduce new synthetic fibers. Fibers from the hemp stalk had once been quite more difficult to extract, but after an improved method of decorticating the fibers out of the hemp stalk was developed, hemp was truly the most efficient, durable, waterproof fiber available.

In 1937, Congressional hearings heard testimony from physicians who insisted that cannabis was a safe and benign therapeutic. Cannabis, as a recreational substance, was not a problem among our youth and only enjoyed marginal popularity at that time. The campaign to shut down the hemp industry found an easy pathway through yellow journalism to imply that this plant was dangerous to the health and the social order of society. The true intent of prohibition was to suppress an industry that new synthetic fibers and medicines couldn’t compete with and to ensure that paper production didn’t switch from timber to hemp, as proposed by the USDA in a 1914 bulletin.

How can we criminalize use of a safe plant? Never mind that alcohol and tobacco each kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. Moreover, alcohol is responsible for half of all highway deaths and half of all violent murders, yet Americans didn’t tolerate prohibition for long. Should people lose their freedom, their jobs, their homes, and the right to parent their children if they are found in possession of a small quantity of a substance clearly less harmful than legal tobacco or alcohol? Does this punishment not obviously outweigh the victimless crime of personal usage? Additionally, the hemp industry could restore jobs and stability to our economy.

Those of you who value freedom, regardless of your opinions of cannabis, should see that decriminalization is ethical and consistent with the freedoms we insist on having in these United States of America.

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Carmella Cooper is a Republic, Wash., resident.