America VS Mary Jane

This is a documentary about the history of marijuana. In the documentary multiple PSA’s and other scare tactics from the government are shown. The film shows both sides of the history, the whole story with facts and historical references. It talks about how the Mexicans from across the border brought the weed into the states. They say that a Mexican who was high went crazy and killed a bunch of people so the El Paso Ordinance 1914. Harry J. Anslinger is introduced as taking down drugs. The whole movie is filled with primary sources mostly videos and pictures from different times. The anti drugs campaign seems to be the one with the most PSA’s.

This source also talks about how the drug was originally grown in one certain location because of the environment it needed, thinking maybe around Central Asia and around Afghanistan area. It isn’t certain because of how widely it has spread and how fast it happened too. This site is also very useful because it talks about the plant and what type it is, for example it is a dioecious plant meaning it can have either the male or the female reproduction system. For cannabis the female systems produce the best. Cannabis was also present during the time of the Silk Road and was commonly traded. Many smoked it because it was believed that it helped release one from their anxiety, which is still a common belief.

This newspaper article is from 1914 and talks about the crazy outbreaks smoking marijuana causes a person to have. It highlights one story about one guy that smoked marijuana and then killed a cop and badly injured three other men. He stated that he was crazy and he was put in a strait jacket. They also talk about how smoking marijuana causes a person to lose their mind and they will never became to recover it again after that. The article raised the issue of soldiers in camps smoking marijuana and how it had to be smuggled and was illegal, smoking it caused a headache at first and then caused hallucinations involving seeing things that weren’t there. This newspaper article is helpful because it shows the thought people believed about weed and shows the causes that later down the road helped make marijuana illegal in the United States and Mexico.

This source talks about why exactly marijuana is illegal today and what caused it to get that way. For example it has a lot to do with racism, greed and companies profits, which isn’t what most people think. Most people get the idea that just because its illegal it means it’s bad, which the site also talks about, the level of ignorance. The site also talks about the basic history of marijuana and how it has been legal for most of its usage time, it has only been illegal for 1% of the time the plant has been in use. The site also has a section on the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 which is important because it is obviously not enforced today and there is also a section about the relations that involved the Mexicans and also a section that talks about the prohibition laws in place. This helps learn the facts and how they have changed with the fact that make up the background to give us a good base of understanding.

This source is very important because it helps give a good idea of how things involving marijuana started to become more popular and how things exactly started to spread. This mainly outlines the use of hemp and when people started to learn new ways to use it. This site is a timeline that dates as far back as 8000 BC and goes all the way up unto 1998. This gives a basic idea and helps us be able to map things and understand the large issue and concept of this ongoing problem. The timeline includes facts and events from anything like someone eating a seed to help them stay alive to the word hempe being listed in the dictionary to when it became legal to have hemp farms and to mass grow.

The time line starts in the 1600’s talking about the growing of marijuana for hemp up to the 1890s. The 1920’s are when things become interesting as Mexicans who have crossed the border bring over Marijuana as a recreational drug. In the 1930’s drugs are making a rise in America and the fear is rising so in an effort to fight the new drugs the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is created.  The timeline talks about different PSA’s. There is an interesting tidbit from World War two where a program “Hemp For Hope” is program where people will grow hemp so that there is more rope and cloth for the war.

This source shows pictures with captions and little explanations of the Yanghai Tombs from over 2,700 years ago that contained marijuana in them. The tombs also contained other produces made from hemp. The site also has pictures of seeds and leafs of this 2,700 year old marijuana. This site helps show how far back marijuana could possibly go. The Yanghai people could have been the first people to have marijuana and use it in its many ways or maybe they weren’t. Its not certain if they smoked it or where it was grown or if they even were the ones that put it in the tombs, but it does answer some questions while it raised many more unanswerable questions.

This source continues to talk about the Yanghai Tombs in much more detail. They used the hemp to make clothes and ropes. The site proves that the Yanghai people did indeed smoke the marijuana, but in the tomb and from what we know about the civilization it is unknown how exactly they smoked it. From inspecting it is known that marijuana is a complicated plant and took brains to create. The stuff they smoked was very similar to what we have today but if the stuff that was found was smoked there would be no effect because of the decomposition of the main chemicals including THC. This cite helps me to further understand the oldest dated back marijuana in detail.

This source is useful to my project because it talks about how early traditions started, like people sitting around in a circle smoking and meeting in groups of people. Also as far back as 2737 BC marijuana has been used as a medicine, maybe even farther back.  Also the drug was referenced in Homer which helps date it back even more. The site also talked about how it was used as a punishment in an early form, people were made to smoke it until they passed out if they committed a misdeed, but on the flip side it was also encouraged to smoke because it gave lots of energy and made people work better. This site also proves as early as 1378 there were people that wanted cannabis destroyed, it worked but then eventually came back, which happens many more times in history and even to the present day.

This source is useful because it talks about where the natural habit of marijuana and where it originated from. Cannabis homeland is just north of India and many of the early civilizations had to travel through that area on their way to settling and traveling to find and conquer new land. At this time is when most people found and picked on cannabis. This is most likely the reason that the plant spread so much and is now present and easily found everywhere. Early on the plant was referred to as the Mother of Agricultural Civilization because it had many helpful uses such as making ropes and fabric, medical uses and it contains vitamin B and protein. The writer of this cite is both a former user and a researcher who strongly feels that marijuana should be legal and talks about the many positive things that the plant and drug can be used and was used for. It is also mentioned that the use of the drug causes hallucinations and at a certain balance it can be good and that is what is believed to have started the ideas of many world religions today.