Weed for the Wise

I believe that a large portion that comes with marijuana reform is educating people about a lot of the layers that come with marijuana. Many people, especially younger users, who are growing up in a more cannabis accepting environment, are not aware of the original reasons behind making marijuana illegal. And, the damage that marijuana prohibition did to millions of people’s lives. Most would point to the ‘War on Drugs’ conned by Nixon, but, what started this war comes in the early nineteenth century. Before this, it was known just as cannabis, as the hemp plant. Hemp as a fiber is extremely useful, but cannabis was coming into its own as hemp's evil twin. Even as early as the 1860, people were fearful of potentially dangerous drugs like opium and arsenic. Marijuana was also grouped into these dangerous drugs due to its hallucinogenic effects. Reefer Madness was a campaign led by Harry Ainslinger of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and portrayed as a substance that would cause users to be extremely violent, leading them to jumping out windows and murder. Most of these ads were racially motivated, often showing people of color as the criminals, and further perpetuated people of color as the enemies of America. Such a negative portrayal resulted in the demonization and vilification of the hemp plant and it’s uses for decades. While it never disappeared, the use of marijuana has faced large support in favor of legalization, with 18 states now fully recreationally legal. However, there is still great work to be done. People of color have been disproportionately affected by marijuana criminalization, with black people 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for simple marijuana possession than a white person, despite both groups having similar usage. Each state does vary, like in Montana a black person is 9.6x more likely to be arrested than a white person. And today, while many people build masses of wealth off of the budding cannabis industry, there are others who are sitting in prisons for trying to do the same thing. Some for up to 60 years. This project’s goal is to educate marijuana smokers about how marijuana has been affected by institutional racism and what reparations need to be made to those affected in the wake of legalization. Mostly, these people will be those who are generation Z, or young millennials. They will just barely remember a time before marijuana was being legalized, especially if they have always lived in a legalized state, and smoke marijuana freely without realizing what doing the exact same thing has put so many people unfairly in prison.