by Dr. Peter Grinspoon
Cannabis was a legal medicine in the United States a century ago, then became illegal in 1937, and now is becoming widely legal again. Cannabis was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia (a book that lists currently recognized medicines) in the 1850’s and then stripped from it in the 1940’s.
This occurred as the U.S. government successfully fabricated a moral panic by associating marihuana with Blacks and Mexicans who would smoke it and then supposedly become psychotically violent. Cannabis doesn’t typically have this effect on people. This campaign exploited the same racial animus towards the Southern border as we have today.
To read the rest of Peter’s article on Substack click HERE.
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