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Ace Backwords on Pot
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Emperor of Hemp (1999)This is a terrific documentary, packed with information, so we'll just hit a few high points here.
But first a few words from the esteemed philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Another thinker, Louis Agassiz, said a similar thing: "Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it had been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it."
I bring this up because I think the day will come when the world will realize all those things apply to what Jack Herer says: "Virtually everything now made from trees or petroleum could instead be made from hemp." Some day, the enlightened humans of the future will look back and shake their heads at the incredible stupidity of a world that accepted pollution, global warning, acid rain, deforestation, and a whole raft of other evils that could have been cured by the simple growing of hemp.
Jack Herer's book The Emperor Wears No Clothes was first published in 1985 and it rocked the foundations of the whole anti-drug establishment. By the time this movie was made in 1999, it had sold 600,000 copies and influenced many times that many minds.
I used to think the government didn't want to legalize hemp because it would lead to the legalization of recreational, smokeable pot. Herer's great contribution was to point out the even uglier truth. They don't want to legalize smokeable cannabis because then American farmers would be able to grow hemp, especially for fuel. That would be very, very bad, because all the Busheviks and the oil-rich foreigners who have made American politicians their butt-boys would lose their income from oil.
Back in '98 there was some kind of world anti-drug conference where Clinton made a speech - there's a clip of it in the movie - saying "This is ultimately a struggle for human freedom." He was talking about how humans need to be free from drugs. He didn't say a word about how the first frontier of human freedom is the ownership and control of a person's own body, including the freedom to ingest the recreational chemicals of a person's own choice.
He didn't even say a word about how allowing American farmers to grow and sell industrial hemp could free them from poverty, and free the rest of us from kissing Arab ass on account of oil. Not to mention free us from dying in some gritty desert to keep that oil money flowing into the greedy pockets of his Washington buddies.
There's lots of good stuff in this movie, like the story of how the book got written. Reagan was in Los Angeles once and his motorcade went by the federal building. He saw the cannabis leaves on the flags and banners, and asked his sycophants what the Canadians were demonstrating about. A bunch of people got arrested under some obscure law left over from WWII, and everybody got fined $5. Jack Herer wouldn't pay the fine, and he appealed it, but the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. So he was locked up in Terminal Island, where he enjoyed telling his fellow prisoners how he was arrested for registering voters on federal property. The best part was, the enforced "vacation" gave him time and opportunity to write The Emperor Wears No Clothes. A prime example of the cosmic rule, "Resistance Causes Persistence." A great example of turning lemons into lemonade.
For some stupid reason, NORML was against Herer for years, but they finally ended up giving him a Lifetime Achievement Award. I give him one, too.
Here's a statistic I bet you haven't heard anywhere else. Since the 1930s, here's the amount of time Americans charged with marijuana "offenses" have spent in prisons, jails, probation, or under the thumb of the legal system in one way or another. For using, possessing, or selling the blessed herb:
14 million person-years.
JJ the fanciful joint is copyrighted intellectual property of Medicine Bow Gallery © 2006
Lit & Lovin' it! is a trademark of Medicine Bow Gallery - All Rights Reserved
Munchie Mike drawing: Dr. Agon
The Venice Connection
The world's first hemp store was a stand on the Venice boardwalk started by Jack Herer and Captain Ed 1979. They were the Hemp Merchants of Venice, and partners in the struggle for many years until Ed Adair died of leukemia. Let's hope he had plenty of medical marijuana to help him through those last days.
The Emperor of Hemp comes from:
UFO Central Home Video
2321 Abbot Kinney Blvd. Suite 201
Venice CA 90291Executive Producer Anita Roddick
Written and Produced by Jeff Meyers
Directed by Jeff Jones
Nobody ever died from marijuana that wasn't shot by a cop.
......................................Jack Herer