Wednesday, 14 December 2011


Ancient Egyptian goddess Seshat from a wall mural at Luxor circa 2000 BC. She was also named Sefkhet-Abwy (She of the seven points). Seshat was the goddess of libraries, knowledge, and geomancy, among other things.



Contrary to popular perception,” marijuana” is not a phenomenon rooted in the 1960s.


Recent psycho-pharmacological studies have discovered that THC has its own unique receptor sites in the brain, indicating man and marijuana have a pre-cultural relationship—indeed, human culture could very well prove to be the blossom of our symbiosis with cannabis. (See Appendix)


The following is derived from the 1913 USDA Agriculture Yearbook section on hemp by Lyster Dewey, p. 283-293:

The name “hemp,” from the Old English “hanf,” came into use in Middle English by 1000 A.D. and still belongs primarily to cannabis sativa. It is also used to designate the long fiber obtained from that plant: the earliest, best-known and, until recently, the most widely used textile fiber on Earth.

It has long been regarded as the standard among long fibers. As such, its name has come to be used as a generic term for all long fibers, whereas Indian hemp or true hemp denotes cannabis hemp. Now, commodity markets list names like “Manila hemp,” abacá; “sisal hemp,” sisal and henequen; “Mauritius hemp,” for Furcraea fiber; “New Zealand hemp,” phormium; “Sunn hemp,” Crotalaria; and “India hemp,” for jute. All these plants are unlike true hemp in appearance and in economic properties.

Curiously, the name hemp is never applied to flax, which is more nearly like hemp than any other commercial fiber. True hemp is known in different languages by the following names: cannabis, Latin; chanvre, French; cañamo, Spanish; canhamo, Portuguese; canapa, Italian; canep, Albanian; konopli, Russian; konopi and penek, Polish; kemp, Belgian; hanf, German; hennup, Dutch; hamp, Swedish; hampa, Danish; tai-ma, dai-ma and tse-ma, Chinese; asa and taima, Japanese; nasha, Turkish; kanabira, Syrian; kannab, Arabic.


*Columbia History of the World, Harper & Row, New York, 1981.
By the 27th century B.C., the Chinese cultivated “Ma” (cannabis hemp) for fiber, medicine and herbal use. Approximately 3,700 years later (circa 1000 A.D.), China called cannabis “Tai-Ma,” or “great hemp,” to differentiate it from the minor fiber plants, which were now grouped under the generic fiber term “Ma.” Their pictogram for true or great hemp is a large “man,” indicating the strong relationship between man and hemp.

From at least the 27th century B.C. until this century, cannabis was incorporated into virtually all cultures of the Middle East, Asia Minor, India, China, Japan, Europe and Africa.

BETWEEN 2300 B.C. & 1000 B.C.:

Nomadic tribes, probably from central Asia and Persia (Iran and Iraq), referred to in legend as “Aryans,” invaded and overran virtually the entire Mediterranean and Middle East and spread out over the Caucasus and west into Europe.

In the course of these movements and invasions, the nomads introduced cannabis and its various uses north and west through Greece, Europe, the Middle East, to Egypt and Africa, as well as south and east over the Himalayas to India.

Hemp was incorporated into the cultures of the Middle East and India for its vast food, oil, fiber, medicinal and drug uses. Not only was hemp a staple of everyday life; hemp medicines and drugs were a ritual link to the gods.*

*Generally, those who grew and/or used hemp for everyday industrial uses did not know and were not taught (by religious law/threat/taboo) that their priest/shaman/witch doctor/etc. used different extractions from different parts of the exact same plant for sacrament, medicine, unguent, and as a commune with the gods.


Cannabis was undoubtedly used by the Scythians for many reasons. For example, the ancient Scythians grew hemp and harvested it with a hand reaper that we still call a scythe. Cannabis inhalation by the Scythians in funeral rituals was recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus in the early 5th century B.C. The nomadic Scythians introduced the custom to other races such as the Thracians.

(Emboden, W.A., Jr., Flesh of the Gods, Praeger Press, NY, 1974.)

From at least the 27th century B.C. up until this century, cannabis was incorporated into virtually all the cultures of the Middle East, Asia Minor, India, China, Japan, Europe, and Africa for its superior fiber, medicines, oils, food and for its meditative, euphoric, and relaxational uses.


Hemp was one of our ancestors’ most important overall industries, along with tool making, animal husbandry and farming.


The hemp plant has had a curious relationship with the world’s legal codes throughout the ages. As noted before, it has been illegal to grow hemp at different times. But hemp has also played a direct role in law enforcement.

For example: The most serious punishment/rehabilitation meted out in many African tribes for capital crimes was forcing the transgressor to smoke or consume massive amounts of dagga (cannabis) non-stop for hours on end in a small, enclosed hut until he passes out literally unconscious from inhaling the fumes. The equivalent of a year or two’s supply for a heavy American smoker is consumed in just an hour or so. Does it work? African users say the rate of repeat criminal offenses after dagga treatment is virtually non-existent.

European and American cultures used hemp to enforce their laws in a more terminal form of capital punishment: the hangman’s noose* of hempen rope.
*”Merry boys are we…As e’re did sing… In a hempen string… Under the gallows tree.” John Fletcher Rollo, Duke of Normandy; Act III, sc. 3; 1639. “We’re bound to stop this business, or hang you to a man… For we’ve hemp and hand enough in town to hang the whole damn clan.” From a horse thief‘s tombstone in Rapid City, SD, 1877: Shushan, E.R.; Grave Matters; Ballantine Books, NY, 1990. Also see Hemp for Victory, USDA film; 1942.


The secret art of hemp medicine was found effective as wound healer, muscle relaxant, pain reliever, fever reducer and unparalleled aid to childbirth, not to mention hundreds of other medicinal applications.

Two Egyptian Papyrus medical texts, circa 1600 BC, copies from 3100 BC scrolls. The above translates as: “Remedy for toe-nail (or fingernail). Ingredients honey, ochre cannabis, and [other ingredients which have not yet been translated]”

“Cannabis is pounded [ground] in honey and administered into her vagina. This is a contraction.” 

(Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839-1972, Medi-Comp Press, Oakland, CA, 1973; Shultes, R.E., Harvard Botanical; Ency. Brittanica; Abel, Ernest, Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years;. Plenum Press, 1980; Vera Rubin, Cannabis and Culture, Institute for the Study of Man, 1968-1974 and second studies 1974-1976; et. al.)

The division of information about this sacred herb and its industrial hemp uses were strictly maintained by the priests for thousands of years, up until the last few centuries. Those outside the priestly class who possessed drug knowledge were considered (by the priests, of course) to be witches/soothsayers/outlaws and the ilk, and were often condemned to death.

 Ancient hemp painting found in a cave in Kyushu, Japan.


Cannabis legend and consumption are fundamental aspects of many of the world’s great religions. For example:

SHINTOISM (Japan) ~ Cannabis was used for the binding together of married couples, to drive away evil spirits, and was thought to create laughter and happiness in marriage.

HINDUISM (India) ~ The God Shiva is said “to have brought cannabis from the Himalayas for human enjoyment and enlightenment.” The Sadhu Priests travel throughout India and the world sharing “chillum” pipes filled with cannabis, sometimes blended with other substances. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna states, “I am the healing herb” (Ch.9:16), while the Bhagarat-Purana Fifth Canto describes hashish in explicitly sexual terms.

BUDDHISM (Tibet, India and China) ~ from the 5th century B.C. on ritually used cannabis; initiation rites and mystical experiences were (are ) common in many Chinese Buddhist Sects. Some Tibetan Buddhists and lamas (priests) consider cannabis their most holy plant. Many Buddhist traditions, writings, and beliefs indicate that “Siddhartha” (the Buddha) himself, used and ate nothing but hemp and its seeds for six years prior to announcing (discovering) his truths and becoming the Buddha (Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path).

Regarding the ZOROASTRIANS or Magi (Persia, circa 8th to 7th Centuries B.C. to 3rd to 4th Centuries A.D.), it is widely believed by many Christian scholars, commentators, etc., that the three “Magi” or Wise Men who attended the birth of Christ were cult references to the Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrian religion was based (at least on the surface) on the entire cannabis plant, the chief religious sacrament of its priest class, and its most important medicine, (e.g., obstetrics, incense rites, anointing and christening oils), as well as lighting or fire oils in their secular world. The word “magic” is generally considered derived from the Zoroastrians “Magi.”

The ESSENES (ancient Israeli sect of extreme Hebrewites, approx. 200 B.C. to 73 A.D.) used hemp medicinally, as did the:

THERAPUTEA (Egypt), from whom we get the term “therapeutic.” Both are believed by some scholars to be disciples of, or in a brotherhood with, the priests/magicians of the Zoroastrians.

EARLY JEWS As part of their holy Friday night services in the Temple of Solomon, 60-80,000men ritually passed around and inhaled 20,000 incense burners filled with kanabosom (cannabis), before returning home for the largest meal of the week (munchies?).

SUFIS OF ISLAM (Middle East) ~ Moslem “mystical” priests who have taught, used and extolled cannabis for divine revelation, insight and oneness with Allah, for at least the last 1,000 years. Many Moslem and world scholars believe the mysticism of the Sufi Priests was actually that of the Zoroastrians who survived Moslem conquests of the 7th and 8th Centuries A.D. and subsequent conversion (change your religion and give up liquor or be beheaded).

COPTIC CHRISTIAN (Egypt/Ethiopia) ~ Some sects believe the sacred ”green herb of the field” in the Bible (“I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more” Ezekiel 34:29) and the Biblical secret incenses, sweet incenses and anointing oils to be cannabis.


*These “Dagga” cults believed Holy Cannabis was brought to Earth by the Gods, in particular from the “Two Dog Star” system that we call Sirius A and B. “Dagga” literally means “cannabis.” Interestingly, the surviving Indo-European word for the plant can also be read as “canna,” “reed” and “bi,” “two,” as well as “canna,” as in canine; and “bis,” meaning two (bi) “Two Dogs.”

The RASTAFARIANS (Jamaica and elsewhere) are a contemporary religious sect that uses “ganja” as its sacred sacrament to communicate with God (Jah).


United States government-funded studies at St. Louis Medical University in 1989 and the U.S. government’s National Institute of Mental Health in 1990 moved cannabis research into a new realm by confirming that the human brain has receptor sites for THC and its natural cannabis cousins to which no other compounds known thus far will bind.

In order for a chemical to affect the brain it must bind to a receptor site capable of receiving it.

(Omni, August 1989; Washington Post, Aug 9, 1990)

Although morphine fits the receptor sites of beta-endorphin roughly, and amphetamines correspond loosely to dopamine, these drugs as well as tricyclics and other mood altering drugs present grave danger to the subtle balance of the nerves’ vital fluids. Omni and the Washington Post cited no physical dangers in natural cannabis.

One reason cannabis is so safe to use is that it does not affect any of the involuntary muscles of breathing and life support. Rather, it affects its own specific receptor cites for motion (movement strategy) and memory (mental strategies).

On the molecular level, THC fits into receptor sites in the upper brain that seem to be uniquely designed to accommodate THC. This points to an ancient symbiosis between the plant and people.

Perhaps these neuronal pathways are the product of a pre-cultural relationship between humans and cannabis. Carl Sagan proposes evidence using the Bushmen of Africa to show hemp to have been the first plant cultivated by humanity dating to when he was a hunter-gatherer. Some scientist assume that these receptor sites did not evolve for the purpose of getting high: 

“There must be some kind of neuronal pathway in the brain that developed, whether there were cannabis plants or not,” speculated mystified St. Louis University pharmacology professor Allyn Howlett in 1989.

But, maybe not. In his book Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradise, Dr. Ronald K. Siegel, psycho-pharmacologist at UCLA indicates the motivation to achieve altered states of consciousness or moods is a fourth drive akin to hunger, thirst, and sex. And humans aren’t the only ones to get high. Siegel recorded numerous observations of animal intentionally getting intoxicated during his experiments.

Cannabis hemp is part of our cultural, spiritual, and physiological heritage, and was the backbone of our most stable and long surviving cultures. So, if you want to know the long term effects of marijuana use look in the mirror!


The dawn or basis of religious beliefs in all races and peoples ~ Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian, Greek, Doric, Germanic and other European tribes, as well as African and North, South and Central American tribes arose as a result of accidental discoveries.

There were near-death experiences, deprivations ~ starvation, fasting, breath control, thirst, fever and uncontrolled revelry due to accidental fermentation or extraction of wine, beer, psilocybe and Amanita mushrooms, cannabis wine (bhang) and other psychoactives ~ which, when consumed, induced inexplicable, elevated experiences (compared to normal brutish experience). Chemicals in these sacred plants and herbs gave our ancestors unexpected, unprepared-for, unbelievable visions and journeys into the far corners of incredible consciousness and, sometimes, into feelings of universal brotherhood.

Understanding these drug-induced experiences and medications eventually became the most wondrous, desirable and necessary spiritual knowledge for each tribe. Healing! From which extraction? At what dose?

Holding this mystical tribal knowledge for future generations was a priceless task. To know which plants induced which experiences, at what levels and mixtures meant power for the bearer of such wisdom!

Thus, this “sacred store” of knowledge was jealously guarded by the herbal doctor/priest, and cryptically encoded in oral and written traditions and myths. Plants with psychoactive powers were imbued with human or animal attributes, for example, the Amanita Muscaria mushroom ring was represented by faeries.

To keep their political power, the priests, witch doctors and medicine men deliberately withheld these traditions from the “common” tribal members (and all other tribes). This also prevented the dangerous “sin” of accidental ingestion, concoction, or experimentation by the children of the tribe; nor could captured tribal members give up this sacred knowledge to their enemies.

These “old-time” drug and out-of-body religions and rituals, dating back to pre-history, were called “Oriental Mystery Religions” by the Romans from the Caesars’ time on.


Hemp was a major industry in biblical times. As in other cultures throughout the Middle East, the Hebrew tradition of mysticism (e.g., Cabala) was aware of, and entwined with, regional sects using natural intoxicants in their rituals. 

As usual, they hid this knowledge behind rituals, symbols and secret codes to protect natural sacraments like “sacred mushrooms” and mind-elevating herbs, including cannabis.

Allegro, J.M.; Sacred Mushroom & the Cross, Doubleday Co., 1970.


Finding the encoded references to cannabis and other drugs is made more difficult by the lack of botanical names, discrepancy in translations, use of different “books” by different denominations, commentaries added to original texts, and periodic priestly purges of material considered inappropriate.

However, we find that the use of cannabis is never forbidden or even discouraged in the Bible. Some passages directly refer to the goodness of using herbs like cannabis and even go on to predict prohibition.
“And the Earth brought forth grass and herb-yielding seed after its kind and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after its kind: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis: Chapt. 1: Verse 12 (King James Version of the Bible, unless noted).

“God makes the Earth yield healing herbs, which the prudent man should not neglect.” Sirach: 38:4 (Catholic Bible.)

“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; That which cometh out of the mouth defileth a man.” Jesus, quoted: Matt. 15:11.

“In later times, some shall…speak lies in hypocrisy…commanding to abstain from that which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” Paul: 1 Tim. 4:1


Historians, early artworks, Bibles, manuscripts, Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnostic Gospels, letters from early church fathers, etc., indicate that for the first 300-400 years A.D., many early Christian sects were gentle and loving. They were usually open, tolerant and unstructured: a poor man’s or slave’s religion.

Rome considered Christianity to be simply another bothersome Oriental Mystery cult, like those of Mithra or Isis, then the most popular in the Empire.


Faced with a crumbling empire, political corruption and a series of ruinous wars with barbarians, the old Roman Empire hovered on the brink of disaster. The religious contortions undertaken by the ruling body in Rome to maintain its earthly power led the political leaders to crack down on healthy diversity in the field of individual cults and religions.

To save itself politically, the formerly pantheistic (meaning tolerant of different worships) government of the empire changed its policy.

Starting in 249 A.D., various emperors launched a string of bloody persecutions, which included the troublesome Christians. By 306 A.D., it was clear that this was not working. 

Emperor Constantine called off the executions and began to patronize the Christian clergy, which promptly adopted a dogma lifted from “Mithraism,” among other religions: “Royal Blood by Birth,” or the “Divine Right to Rule Other Humans.”

The ambitious Constantine saw that while underground, the church had developed into an intolerant, tightly-knit hierarchy; a well organized network second in influence only to his own. By combining church and state, each was able to double its power and seek out the crimes/sins of all its political rivals and enemies with the full support/blessing of the other.

Columbia History of the World, Harper & Row, NY, 1981.

Constantine soon converted to Christianity and declared one mandatory, monistic, state-empowered religion: the Roman Catholic Church (R.C.Ch.); literally, the Roman Universal Church (“catholic” is Latin for “universal”). This was now the absolute and official religion of the empire. In one sweep, all secret societies were outlawed which might have threatened his (and Rome’s) mandate to rule the known world, as they had for the previous 400 consecutive years.


After running from the Roman Empire’s police for almost 300 years, Christian Orthodox priests had become their bosses. Starting in the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries A.D., pagan religions and all the different Christian sects, belief systems, knowledge, gospels, etc., such as the Essenes, Gnostics and Merovingians (Franks), were either incorporated into or edited out of official doctrine and hierarchy.

Finally, in a series of councils, all contrary dogmas (e.g., that the Earth was round, and the sun and stars were more than five to 17 miles away) were summarily outlawed and driven underground during the Dark Ages, 400 -1000+ A.D.

By the early Middle Ages, at the beginning of the 11th century A.D., virtually all powers were placed in the hands of the Church and Pope; first by Germanic conquerors, and later by Spanish and French kings and powerful Italian merchants and nobles (the Borgias, Medicis and other megalomaniacs), probably to protect their trade secrets, alliances and sources of wealth.

All European people were forced to adhere to the “Holy” Roman Empire policy: Zero tolerance by a fundamentalist church/police-state with blind faith in one, unquestioned version of how to worship God…and the Pope’s infallibility.

Political rulers aided and abetted the Church in this fraud, as their power now rested only on their new Christian dogma, the patriarchal “Divine right” to rule.

They enacted laws with fantastically vicious punishments for even the slightest infraction or heresy.* Heretics were mercilessly sought out by fanatical, sadistic inquisitors using perverted forms of torture to extract confessions and as punishment.

*Webster’s Dictionary defines “Her-e-sy (her´e se)” as 1: a religious belief that is opposed to church dogma. 2: any opinion (in philosophy, politics, etc.) opposed to official or established views or doctrines. 3: the holding of any such belief or opinion.

This system kept most of the Western world’s inhabitants in a state of constant terror, not only for their own physical safety and freedom, but also for their eternal spirit, with “Hell” lurking mere inches below the surface for those excommunicated by the church.



The commons (about 95% of the people) were forbidden to learn to read or write ~ not even an alphabet ~ and often were punished or put to death for doing so.

The people were also forbidden to learn Latin, the language of the Bible. This effectively enabled the few priests who could read to interpret the scriptures any way they pleased for about 1,200 years, until the Reformation in Europe, circa 1600.

To prohibit knowledge, people were literally kept in the dark, without a piece of paper to write on. The monasteries preserved and guarded hemp’s secrets. They saw that cannabis held two threats to this policy of absolute control: papermaking and lamp oil.

Something had to be done.


While embracing wine as a sacrament, and tolerating beer and hard liquor, the Inquisition outlawed cannabis ingestion in Spain in the 12th century, and France in the 13th. Many other natural remedies were simultaneously banned. Anyone using hemp to communicate, heal, etc. was labeled “witch.”

Saint Joan of Arc, for example, was accused in 1430-31 of using a variety of herbal “witch” drugs, including cannabis, to hear voices.


Virtually the only legal medical cures allowed the people of Western Europe by the Roman Catholic Church Fathers at this time were:
1.(a.) Wearing a bird mask for plague. 
(b.) Setting fractured bones or cleaning burns.
2. Bleeding pints and even quarts of blood from all flu, pneumonia or fever patients (victims) which was the most used treatment in Europe and America by doctors until the beginning of the 1900s. It does not work! And did not work no matter how much blood they took.

3. Praying to specific saints for a miraculous cure, e.g., St. Anthony for ergotism (poisoning), St. Odilla for blindness, St. Benedict for poison sufferers, and St. Vitus for comedians and epileptics.
4. Alcohol for a variety of problems.
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII singled out cannabis healers and other herbalists, proclaiming hemp an unholy sacrament of the second and third types of Satanic mass. This persecution lasted for more than 150 years. Satanic knowledge and masses, according to the Medieval Church, came in three types:
•To summon or worship Satan;

•To have Witch’s knowledge (e.g., herbalists or chemists) of making, using or giving others any unguent or preparation including cannabis as medicine or as a spiritual sacrament;

•The Mass of the Travesty, which can be likened to “The Simpsons,” “In Living Color,” rap music, Mel Brooks, “Second City-TV,” “Monty Python,” or “Saturday Night Live” (Father Guido Sarducci-type group) doing irreverent, farcical or satirical take-offs on the dogmas, doctrines, indulgences, and rituals of the R.C.Ch. mass and/or its absolute beliefs.
Because medieval priest bureaucrats thought they were sometimes laughed at, ridiculed and scorned by those under their influence ~ often by the most learned monks, clerics and leading citizens ~ ingesting cannabis was proclaimed heretical and Satanic.


Despite this centuries-long attack by the most powerful political and religious force in Western civilization, hemp cultivation continued in Northern Europe, Africa and Asia. While the church persecuted cannabis users in Europe, the Spanish Conquistadors were busy planting hemp everywhere around the world to provide sails, rope, oakum, clothes, etc.


The sadistic Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and, in the 16th century A.D., tried to outlaw cannabis ~ because Egyptian hemp growers along the Nile were leading tax revolts. 
The Turks complained that cannabis use caused Egyptians to laugh and be disrespectful to their Sultan and his representatives. 
 Arnaut Blowing Smoke at the Nose of His Dog by Gerome (Please enlarge thumb)

In 1868, Egypt became the first modern (?) country to outlaw cannabis ingestion, followed in 1910 by white South Africa to punish and stop the blacks practicing their ancient Dagga cults and religions.

In Europe, hemp was widely used both industrially and medicinally, from the Black Sea (Crimean) to the British Isles, especially in Eastern Europe. The papal ban on cannabis medicines in the Holy Roman Empire in 1484 was quite unenforceable north of the Alps, and to this day the Romanians, Czechs, Hungarians and Russians dominate world cannabis agronomy.

In Ireland, already world famous for its cannabis linen, the Irish woman who wanted to know whom she would eventually marry was advised to seek revelation through cannabis.

Eventually, the hemp trades once again became so important to the empire builders who followed (in the Age of Discovery/Reason, the 14th to 18th centuries) that they were central to the intrigues and maneuverings of all the world’s great powers.


The 18th century ushered in a new era of human thought and civilization. “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!” declared the colonists in America. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!” replied their French cousins. The concepts of modern constitutional government, which guaranteed human rights and separation of church and state, were unified into a policy designed to protect citizens from intolerant and arbitrary laws.

In his landmark essay, On Liberty, Ogden Livingston Mills, whose philosophy shaped our democracy, wrote that “Human liberty comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness in the most comprehensive sense: liberty of thought and feeling, scientific, moral or theological, …liberty of tastes and pursuits.”

Mills asserted that this freedom of thought or of “mind” is the basis for all freedoms. Gentleman farmer Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” are engraved into the marble of his Memorial in Washington D.C.

Abraham Lincoln was an avowed enemy of prohibition. His wife was prescribed cannabis for her nerves after his assassination. Virtually every president from the mid- 19th century up until prohibition routinely used cannabis medicines (See Chapter 12: 19th century use).

Close acquaintances of John F. Kennedy, such as entertainers Morey Amsterdam and Eddie Gordon* say the president used cannabis regularly to control his back pain (before and during his term) and actually planned on legalizing “marijuana” during his second term ~ a plan cut short by his assassination in 1963.

*As reported directly to this author by Eddie Gordon, renowned harmonica virtuoso, member of the Harmonicats, and the number-one harmonicist in the world, who smoked with Kennedy and performed numerous times for him.

More recently, former President Gerald Ford’s son, Jack, and Jimmy Carter’s son, Chip, admit to having smoked pot in the White House. George Bush’s Vice President Dan Quayle* had a reputation for smoking grass and using drugs in college. Ronald and even former First Lady Nancy “Just Say No” Reagan are reported to have smoked pot in the California Governor’s mansion.

*”Smoke Screen: Inmate Sues Justice Department Over Quayle-Pot Cover-up,” Dallas Observer, August 23, 1990. Kelley, Kitty, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography, Doubleday Co., NY, 1991.

ED: Other infamous smokers of today: Robert Altman, Jennifer Aniston, Louis Armstrong, Jack Black, Michael Bloomberg (NY mayor), Sonny Bono, James Brown, George W. Bush, Johnny Cash, Tommy Chong, Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Denver, John Denver, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Dylan, Richard Feynman (scientist), Carrie Fisher, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Harrison Ford, Art Garfunkel, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, Larry Hagman, Woody Harrelson, Whitney Houston, Chrissie Hynd, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Sir Mick Jagger, Thomas Jefferson, John F Kennedy, Steven King, John Lennon, Bill Maher, Norman Mailer, Bob Marley, Linda McCartney, Sir Paul McCartney, Matthew McConaughey, George Michael, Robert Mitchum, Bill Murray, Friedrich Nietzsche, Willie Nelson, Jack Nicholson, Conan O'Brian, Sinead O'Connor, Sting, Luke Perry, Pablo Picasso, Brad Pitt, Ross Rebagliati, Keanu Reeves, Carl Sagan, William Shakespeare, Paul Simon, Wesley Snipes, Alan Sorkin, Oliver Stone, Margaret Trudeau, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Ted Turner, Dionne Warwick, George Washington, Neil Young, Montel Williams


Hindu Vedas; Shen Nung Pharmacopoeia Herodotus; Abel, Ernest, Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years; Plenum Press, 1980; Dead Sea Scrolls; High Times Encyclopedia; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Pharmacological Cults;” Roffman, Marijuana and Medicine, 1982; Ohio State Medical Society, 1860; British Indian Hemp Report, 1894; Ungerleider UCLA, 1982; U.S. Army, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland (Multiples); Shultes, Harvard Botanical; EmBowden, UC Northridge; Michael Aldrich, Ph.D.; Vera Rubin, Institute for the Study of Man; Wasson, R. Gordon, SOMA, Divine Mushroom of Immortality, Roffman, Marijuana and Medicine; etymologist Jay Lynn; Allegro, J.M., Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, Doubleday & Co., 1970, et al.; “How Heads of State Got High,” High Times, April, 1980 (see Appendix).


For cannabis-related knowledge, or hundreds of other “sins” ~ owning a devil’s tool (dinner fork), reading a sorcerer’s book or speaking in tongues (foreign language), having a different faith, having the witch’s habit (taking a bath or falling into a river), etc. ~ from 10% to as many as 50% of the people in Western Europe were tortured or put to death without trial during the medieval Roman Catholic Church’s 500-year Inquisition (12th to 17th centuries).

While most suffered, some profited handsomely. The Pope could declare anything “heresy,” and use it as an excuse to legally rob, torture and kill his enemies or anyone else accused. For over 300 years, inquisitors divided up the property forfeited to them by suspected witches and heretics. Whoever denounced you got 1/3 of your property, 1/3 went to the government and 1/3 went to the Papal hierarchy.

“Beware the scribes which…devour widows’ houses.” Jesus quoted: Luke 20:46

This perverted prosecution-for-profit model, used almost exactly in the same way today by state and federal drug Nazis ~ and just as self-righteously, was given to us at the insistence of President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and was written for Congress by then Congressman Dan Lungren, once California Attorney General. In actuality, once the government seizes a property, more than 90% are never returned by the courts. Everyone from informant, to the police and the prosecutor now share in the bounty of forfeited goods.

In fact, while British common law is the basis for our modern legal system, forfeiture law relies on the medieval concept of the cursed object “Deodand” (from the latin “deo” god, and “dand” give; meaning that any object causing human death was forfeited to the crown). This is the basis for American laws of seizure and confiscation of property, rather than penalties only against persons. Why? Simple. People have guaranteed legal rights; property does not!



Here we present the events that led up to the Battle of New Orleans, which, due to slow communications, was accidentally fought on January 8, 1815, two weeks after the War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814 by the signing of a peace treaty in Belgium.


1700S AND EARLY 1800S

Cannabis hemp is, as it has been for thousands of years, the biggest business and most important industry on the planet. Its fiber (see Chapter 2, “Uses”) moves virtually all the world’s shipping. The entire world’s economy uses and depends upon thousands of different products from the marijuana plant.

1740 ON…



1740 TO 1807


1793 TO 1799 ON…


1803 TO 1814


1798 TO 1812



This area is about one-third of what are now the 48 contiguous states.

1803 ON…

The Louisiana Purchase gives rise to some Americans’ ~ mostly Westerners’ ~ dreams of “Manifest Destiny.” That is, the United States should extend to the utmost borders of North America: From the top of Canada to the bottom of Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific (see map on page 81).

1803 TO 1807





Napoleon’s strategy ~ and his most important goal with the treaty ~ is to stop Russian hemp from reaching England, thereby destroying Britain’s navy by forcing it to cannibalize sails, ropes, and rigging from other ships; and Napoleon believes that eventually, with no Russian hemp for its huge navy, Britain will be forced to end its blockade of France and the Continent.

1807 TO 1809




1807 TO 1814


Hence, any ship that trades with Napoleon’s “Continental System” of allies is the enemy and is subject to blockade.


Britain “impresses” some American sailors into service in the British navy. However, England claims that they only “impress” those sailors who are British subjects ~ and whose American shipping companies refused to pay for the sailors’ return fares.

1807 TO 1810

Secretly, however, Britain offers the captured American traders a “deal” (actually a blackmail proposition) when they “overhaul” ~ board and confiscate ~ an American ship and bring it into an English port.


At the same time, the Americans will be allowed to keep and trade their own goods (rum, sugar, spices, cotton, coffee, tobacco) to the Czar for hemp ~ a double profit for the Americans.

1808 TO 1810

Our shrewd Yankee traders, faced with the choice of either running British blockades ~ and risking having their ships, cargo and crews confiscated ~ or acting as secret (illegal) licensees for Britain, with safety and profits guaranteed, mostly choose the latter.



(Bemis, John Q. Adams and the American Foreign Policy, New York, NY, Alfred A Knopf, 1949.)

The United States passes the 1809 Non-Intercourse Act which resumes legal trade with Europe, except Britain and France. It is soon replaced with the Macon Bill resuming all legal trade.

1808 TO 1810


Napoleon wants the Czar to allow him to place…station French agents and troops in Kronstadt to make sure the Czar and his port authorities live up to the treaty.

1808 TO 1810

The Czar says “Nyet!” despite his treaty with France, and turns a “blind eye” to the illegal American traders, probably because he needs the popular, profitable trade goods the Americans are bringing him and his nobles ~ as well as the hard gold he is getting from the Americans’ (illegal) purchases of hemp for Great Britain.


Napoleon’s allies invade the Duchy of Warsaw.



1810 to 1812

Napoleon, infuriated with the Czar for allowing Britain’s life blood of navy hemp to reach England, builds up his army and travels over 2,000 miles to invade Russia, planning to punish the Czar and ultimately stop hemp from reaching the British Navy.

1811 to 1812


Britain also blockades all U.S. traders from Russia at the Baltic Sea and insists that American traders have to now secretly buy other strategic goods for them (mostly from Mediterranean ports), specifically from Napoleon and his allies on the Continent who, by this time, are happy to sell anything to raise capital.









Napoleon is soon defeated in Russia by the harsh winter, the Russian scorched-earth policy, 2,000 miles of snowy and muddy supply lines ~ and by Napoleon not stopping for the winter and regrouping before marching on Moscow, as was the original battle plan.

Of the 450,000 to 600,000 men Napoleon starts with, only 180,000 ever make it back.

1812 TO 1814

Britain, after initial success in war with the United States (including the burning of Washington in retaliation for the earlier American burning of Toronto, then the colonial Canadian capitol), finds its finances and military stretched thin ~ with blockades, war in Spain with France, and a tough new America on the seas.




1813 TO 1814



Britain defeats Napoleon at Waterloo (June 18) and banishes him to St. Helena Island off Antarctica where, in 1821, he dies and his hair and private parts are sold to the public for souvenirs.


Tragically for Britain, more than two weeks after the December 24, 1814 signing of the Ghent peace treaty between the United States and Britain, Andrew Jackson defeats a huge British attack force at New Orleans (January 8, 1815) while news of the treaty slowly makes its way across the Atlantic.


American, British, French, Canadian and Russian schools each teach children their own, completely different versions of history with virtually no mention of hemp in this war (nor, in the American versions, at any other time in history).

I wish to apologize to history buffs for all the nuances I have left out from this outline of the 1812 Wars (for example, the involvement of the Rothschilds, the Illuminati, stock market manipulations, etc.), but I did not want to write “War and Peace.” It’s been done.

My intention is that our children are taught a true, comprehensive history in our schools, not watered-down nonsense that hides the real facts and makes the War of 1812 seem totally unintelligible and without rhyme or reason. But it’s no wonder. Our American school teachers themselves often haven’t the foggiest understanding of why this war was really fought. If they do know ~ or have recently learned ~ they are generally much too intimidated to teach it.

In 1806, it cost $50,000 to build the U.S.S. Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” and $400,000 to make the sails and rope for that ship. They needed to be replaced every two years. In 1850, it cost $50 to build an uncovered Calistoga wagon in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It cost $400 for the hemp canvas to cover it.

For a broader overview of the subject we’ve outlined in this chapter, read Alfred W. Crosby Jr.’s America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon, 1965.






































What socio-political force would be strong enough to turn Americans against something as innocent as a plant ~ let alone one which so many people had an interest in using to improve their own lives?




1 comment:

  1. Jack was a national treasure. He is missed and his work needs to be passed around every now and then to remind us not only of history but what we are up against today.

























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