• roofuskit@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No, it’s not illegal because people thought it was evil. It was illegal because it allowed the government to jail black men and war protestors and throw away the key.

    • lefaucet@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      …And because the cotton industry didn’t want to compete with hemp. … and more recently booze companies don’t want to compete with weed

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah that isn’t true. Hemp is and always has been legal in many parts of the world and couldn’t compete with cotton for the bulk of applications.

        • lefaucet@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          My bad. I think I watched a documenrary on it like 15 years ago.

          Wikipedia says 1937 marijuana tax act effectively stopped hemp from being able to compete with heavy taxation and greatly reduced production. Thou it also attributes dupont and newspaper and timber magnate William Hearst and not cotton as the killer.

          Then in 1969 the courts struck down the Marijuana Taxation Act, but then the Controlled substances act of 1970 banned it all at a federal level.

          So yeas still shady AF, just not Cotton being shady. My bad