I’ll be trustworthy: historical past lessons had been by no means actually my jam. I used to be extra drawn to English, journalism and social sciences in faculty — and but I at all times knew by some means I’d finally develop a deep ardour for historical past.
And positive sufficient, it occurred — beginning with sprawling Ken Burns documentaries, transferring ahead with sensible historical past podcasts and hitting me over the pinnacle extra not too long ago by way of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical theater masterpiece “Hamilton.”
Whereas I spent my 20s in rock golf equipment and my 30s learning drug coverage, I discover myself in my 40s going again to discover the historic roots of those topics and others. And like numerous others earlier than me, I’m studying how thrilling it may be to grasp historical past and the way not possible it’s to totally comprehend the current or forecast the long run with out figuring out what got here earlier than.
Hashish historical past is an interesting one, from historic Chinese language relics to the Anslingers and DeAngelos of the world. However many trendy hashish customers are hardly conscious of this wealthy historical past, and so right here’s a full of life lesson on three figures in hashish historical past you might not know.
Raymond P. Shafer
Raymond P. Shafer was the thirty ninth Governor of Pennsylvania, from 1967 to 1971. Earlier than this son of a reverend turned a nationwide GOP chief, he was an Eagle Scout, highschool valedictorian, Yale Regulation grad, naval intelligence officer, World Conflict II veteran and Purple Coronary heart recipient.
After Shafer’s gubernatorial time period, President Richard Nixon appointed Shafer as chairman of the Nationwide Fee on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (later dubbed the Shafer Fee). And simply consider the timing: Nixon was approaching peak anti-marijuana hysteria, having simply signed the Managed Substances Act, which “quickly” categorized hashish as Schedule I in anticipation of the Shafer Fee’s report.
However when Shafer offered the report — Marihuana, a Sign of Misunderstanding — to Congress in March 1972, the thoughtfully researched report written by politicos, physicians, psychiatrists, pharmacologists, educators and researchers truly beneficial descheduling and decriminalizing hashish.
This was monumental, and champions of drug coverage reform cheered the report’s reasoned, commonsense suggestions. Nixon and vital congressional subcommittees, nonetheless, ignored the report and moved ahead with a Conflict on Medicine that focused individuals of coloration and ruined untold lives.
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an writer and cultural anthropologist identified for her groundbreaking analysis (and ensuing papers and books) on the position of intercourse in primitive cultures, in addition to the controversy surrounding race and intelligence.
Earlier than changing into an internationally famend tutorial, Mead was the daughter of a sociologist and a College of Pennsylvania professor, recipient of a masters and doctorate from Columbia College, assistant curator on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York Metropolis and president of the American Affiliation for the Development of Science.
In 1969, Mead testified to Congress that marijuana must be legalized, saying: “Marihuana is just not dangerous except it’s taken in monumental and extreme quantities. I imagine that we’re damaging this nation, damaging our regulation, our entire regulation enforcement state of affairs, damaging the belief between the older individuals and youthful individuals by its prohibition, and that is much more severe than any harm that may be finished to some over-users, as a result of you may get harm from any sort of overuse.”
Talking reality to energy, in 1969 no much less. Spectacular.
Dennis Peron
Dennis Peron was an entrepreneur and activist greatest identified for radically altering medical marijuana legal guidelines in California and past.
Earlier than Peron made drug coverage historical past, he was raised in Lengthy Island, New York, served within the Air Drive in Vietnam and supported homosexual activist Harvey Milk in Peron’s newly adopted dwelling of San Francisco.
Peron’s hashish historical past is lengthy, from his San Francisco Hashish Consumers Membership — the primary dispensary within the U.S. — days to unsuccessful, legalization-centric bids for California Governor and U.S. President. However Peron, often called “the daddy of medical hashish,” is best-known for organizing 1991’s Proposition P in San Francisco and serving to to jot down 1996’s Proposition 215 statewide in California, the latter of which allowed the cultivation, possession and use of medical marijuana within the state — the primary time such legal guidelines had been efficiently handed within the trendy world.
TELL US, who’re your hashish heroes?
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The publish Faces of Hashish Historical past: 3 Legendary Voices of Motive appeared first on Hashish Now.
