The marijuana tax act of 1937 was drafted by Harry Anslinger. When he wrote it he deliberately used the spanish word Marijuana rather than hemp or cannabis. Most farmers had never heard the spanish word for it. In addition Anslinger said such inflammatory remarks as "This weed Marijuana causes negroes and mexicans to become so inflamed with passion that they will go out and rape white women." This and other remarks sparked public outcry and led to the tax act. Many farmers were later shocked when they realized that Marijuana and the hemp they were growing for textile and paper use were one in the same.
Now lets discuss the stupidity of some of the things said about Cannabis vs. Alcohol.
Lets start with the LD50 of Cannabis vs Alcohol. The LD50 (Lethal Dose 50%) of THC is 46g/kg where the LD50 of alcohol is only 7.06g/kg. This means that alcohol is 6 times as deadly as THC. Now lets factor in the fact that the concentrations of THC in 1 ounce of Cannabis range 10-25% This means a person weighing 70kg would have to consume over 6 pounds or 3kg of cannabis to die.
According to the CDC Non-accident related deaths from alcohol are
- Number of alcoholic liver disease deaths: 15,183
- Number of alcohol-induced deaths, excluding accidents and homicides: 24,518
By comparison the number of non-accident related fatalities caused by Cannabis- 0, zilch, zip, nada, none. The CDC has NO RECORD of ANY deaths that can be attributed solely to the use of Marijuana.
Now let us look at accidents.
- In 2009, 10,839 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (32%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.
- Of the 1,314 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2009, 181 (14%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver.
- Of the 181 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes in 2009, about half (92) were riding in the vehicle with the with the alcohol-impaired driver.
- In 2009, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.3 That's less than one percent of the 147 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year.
- Drugs other than alcohol (e.g., marijuana and cocaine) are involved in about 18% of motor vehicle driver deaths. These other drugs are often used in combination with alcohol.
Again the CDC has no statistics for accident related deaths that can be attributed directly and solely to Cannabis.
All data was found on the CDC website
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
except for the LD50 info which was taken from the Merck index 12th ed.