If you’re American, the documented facts in Smoke Signals on the US history of
marijuana should outrage you. If you’re not American, you’ll understand the
ludicrous and draconian US policy against industrial hemp and marijuana
inflicted on its citizens for nearly a century. Author Martin A. Lee pulls no
punches demonstrating how the US government has repeatedly screwed over the
people in a misguided war that was doomed to fail from the start, a war with implications
that are impossible to quantify.
Ridiculous in concept, it’s a war against a
plant, hemp-marijuana-cannabis, that has been loved throughout human
civilization for noble reasons. A plant that was a required crop during
colonial times for its myriad of uses, and a plant that was recalled by the
government during the Hemp For Victory campaign of WWII.
Bravo to Lee for creating a treasure chest of marijuana history
from the introduction to US society to the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 and Reefer
Madness through enduring tyranny over the decades to the changes happening in
places like Colorado and recent medical breakthroughs with cannabinoids. America
has been crippled in countless ways by our “leaders” because of their steadfast demonization of this wondrous plant and its potentials, chronicled poetically
by the author.
How could our “leaders” brainwash US citizens saying it had
no medical value whatsoever? How could they poison our world with plastics,
petroleum and dangerous chemicals while imprisoning moms and pops and seizing
their properties?
Mr. Lee’s book should be read by the masses, especially at a
time when extensive marijuana reform is happening. You can’t keep a great truth
from rising. Marijuana is not only for people suffering from cancer and other
ailments but for everyone who wants it because it simply makes them FEEL GOOD.
Americans love to sing how we’re the land of the free and
the home of the brave, but in some ways Americans have been hoodwinked into
submission as the opposite of what our founder fathers envisioned. Washington,
Jefferson and Franklin would be speechless if they knew future generations
would make hemp a crime worse than murder in some cases.
Bravo to Kerouac, Ginsberg, Kesey, Dylan, The Dead, Brownie
Mary, Debby Goldsberry, Ed Rosanthal, Dennis Perron and a plethora of other
freedom fighters in the book who never gave in to an oppressive regime. As
Perron and others have rightfully pointed out, the American government should
be held accountable for reparations for the suffering it inflicted on
individuals and the country as a whole.
No wonder we can’t build prisons fast enough because they’re
overflowing with non-violent marijuana offenses. How many trillions of dollars
have been wasted funding this stupid war while extorting unreasonable finances
from people trying to afford a plant that for a time became more expensive per ounce than
gold? What else will we discover when doctors can finally research the plant
entirely? How much harm has been done with toxic and overpriced pharmaceuticals
and health care? The questions go on and on.
It's a great book. Check out Smoke Signals at Amazon.
What are your thoughts? Share a comment.
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