Homeless in Arizona

The full original article can be seen here, which is the previous article in this series.

The original article was titled:

It's Cheaper to Grow Pot in Arizona in Greenhouses Than Indoors, But Is It Better?

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Cannabis is believed to have first been cultivated many thousands of years ago in the area north of the Himalayas. It has been prized by civilizations around the globe and used for medicine, textiles, nutrition, and religious ceremonies. After two millennia of human use, cannabis was an accepted part of many societies’ pharmacopeia.

When the colonists arrived in North America, they brought their love of cannabis with them.

By the 1800s, plantations had sprung up throughout the American colonies, dedicated to the growing of hemp for industrial purposes. Preparations of the plant could be found at many drug stores, and were an accepted product for medical use, even in children.

A drastic change in public opinion surrounding the plant took place in the early 1900s. Increasingly, the plant was called by its Spanish name, marijuana, thereby associating it with the large influx of Mexican immigrants that arrived in the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century.

Many people accuse William Randolph Hearst, the wealthy newspaper publisher, and the DuPont family of purposefully attacking marijuana for the benefit of their industrial interests.

Cannabis fields began to disappear as it began to be perceived as a menace to public health, and around the world, the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes began to be outlawed.

In 1936, the famous propaganda film Reefer Madness was released. By 1937, the U.S. Congress fully outlawed cannabis cultivation via the Marijuana Tax Act, which created a cultivation license that was nearly impossible to attain.

Officials with the American Medical Association testified before Congress that the AMA was unaware of any proof to support the notion that cannabis was a dangerous drug. Still, four years later, in 1941, the cannabis plant was officially removed from the U.S. Pharmacopeia.

Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the counterculture movement became notably associated with the use of marijuana.

In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was passed by Congress as an effort to criminalize drug use and distribution, and by the 1980s, the War on Drugs was in full force under President Ronald Reagan. DEA eradication teams used planes and helicopters to patrol areas known to be centers of outdoor marijuana cultivation. In order to protect their crops, cultivators began to move indoors.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, increasingly harsh penalties for the use and distribution of the drug were introduced, and the number of incarcerations related to cannabis skyrocketed, a trend that continues today.

FBI crime statistics show that more than 11 million arrests for marijuana possession were made during the period between 1996 and 2012.

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