Weed Saves Bush's Life.

Cannabis Sativa is the proper name for both marijuana and hemp. From 1619 until outlawed as "Marihuana" in 1937, Cannabis Sativa was the US' largest legal industry.

On October 2, 1937, the US Federal government passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which put a prohibitive tax on production of the "drug menace." To grow Cannabis Sativa legally, a citizen of the United States would need to purchase a Special Tax Stamp. To obtain the tax stamp, citizens were required to possess Cannabis Sativa when trying to buy the stamp. However, because of the rules of the Marihuana Tax Act, anyone who possessed marijuana without the stamp was then arrested as a drug dealer. The Federal government refused to release these Special Tax Stamps, thus ensuring that anyone who grew this ancient crop would be deemed a criminal. This was the beginning of marijuana prohibition.
The day the Marihuana Tax Act was passed, federal agents arrested Samuel Caldwell, 58, in Denver, CO, for selling two marihuana cigarettes. Samuel Caldwell became the first American convicted under the new federal law. He was sentenced to four years in Levenworth Penitentiary, and died a year after being released.

Despite the rampant propaganda of the 1930s against "Marihuana," where newspapers and Federal agencies condemned Cannabis Sativa as "the world's most dangerous narcotic," the US Federal government began issuing the Special Tax Stamps during World War II. Following the attack on Pearl Harbour, with imports of coarse fibers cut off by the Japanese, the US Department of Agriculture enacted a plan to ensure a steady supply of the world's strongest natural fiber by legally allowing Americans to grow Cannabis Sativa.

In 1942, the US Department of Agriculture made a fourteen-minute film for patriotic American farmers, titled "Hemp For Victory," on how to grow and process Cannabis Sativa. Shown in this film is the Special Tax Stamp issued for the price of only one dollar which clearly reads, "Producer of Marihuana." In the first year that "Marihuana" was legalized again, the USDA authorized at least 50,000 acres to be grown to support the US military. In 1943, the US Federal government's goal for Cannabis production was 350,000 acres, which the film even states is an "increase of several thousand percent."

The parachute used by George Herbert Walker Bush when his bomber was shot down over the Pacific in 1944 was 100% legal American "Marihuana." George W. Bush was not born until 1946. Therefore, legal "Marihuana" has saved the lives of two US Presidents.

During the three years that the United States was officially involved in World War II, nearly one million acres of "Marihuana" were legally grown throughout the country. For the next forty years, every Federal Administration denied the existence of the film, "Hemp For Victory." Finally, in 1989, independent researchers discovered two copies of the film in the Library of Congress. Yet to this day, the US Federal government refuses to admit that Cannabis Sativa has any uses, whether as medicine or as a resource.

This hidden history of Cannabis legalization should be reviewed by the voting public, especially considering that billions of tax dollars are spent each year incarcerating hundreds of thousands of otherwise non-violent Americans for what could be supporting our troops.