Marijuana in North America
...ngton was a hemp farmer himself. The creation of the cotton gin made the need for hemp deplete making farmers loose interest in hemp a more lucrative endeavor. Yet hemp remained a cash crop until the United States Civil War for its availability and ease to make clothing. When the Civil war ended the price of hemp dropped and farmers went to tobacco but marijuana wasn’t finished. The buoyant marijuana plant then easily became a popular medicine for treating many ailments and the United States Pharmacopoeia recognized marijuana for it medical value in the late 1850's. In 1923 the Canadian Opium Drug act banned Marijuana throughout all of Canada. A campaign conducted in the 1930s by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics sought to portray marijuana as a powerful, addicting substance that would lead users into narcotics addiction. Marijuana stayed a medical drug almost 100 years but it was not until 1942 where they found marijuana to create painful conditions such as labor pains, nausea, and rheumatism and was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. In the 1960’s the drug was used by college students who were called “hippies” and thought to be rebelling against authority and were using marijuana as its symbol. Soon after the marijuana drug was back on the chopping block where the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 cl...