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My first foreword for this book was written in 1985. A lot of time has passed since then, but some things have remained constant. In 1985 I wrote of 600,000 pot arrests nationwide. Last year, in 1997, there were still 642,000 new arrests for marijuana-related offenses. At least 75% of those cases involved marijuana possessed or grown for personal consumption.
Thirteen years have brought some changes, of course. Today’s sentencing laws are even more severe than they were in 1985. More people are losing their homes for marijuana offenses than they were in 1985. As a result of the “war on drugs”, prison-building—not schools—has become the hot new growth industry, and the protections of the Fourth Amendment are becoming a find, but increasingly vague, memory.
Another disturbing change has been the heightening—if that is imaginable—of the level of government hypocrisy. Public proclamations to the contrary notwithstanding, no one today can seriously believe the war on drugs is any more winnable than was the war in Vietnam. No one now can seriously doubt the benefits of a permanent cease-fire in this insane drug war.
Nonetheless, the war wages on. Our medical knowledge alone puts the therapeutic value of marijuana beyond question, yet people are still being prosecuted for their purely medical use of cannabis. The government says: “Maybe so, but we’re sending a message.” Then those 642,000 people were casualties in a war that has only a symbolic rationale? Seems like an awful waste.
I look at my comments of thirteen years ago with a certain amazement that the words are still accurate. Quite disappointing, actually. I had hoped we could have put the issue to rest and that, by now, Jack’s book would have become an historical curiosity. No, the book today is as timely as ever, and the Emperor still quite naked.
—Michael E. Rose
Attorney at Law / Portland, Oregon
May 13, 1998
the authorized on-line version of Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”
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| Introduction | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |
| Overview of the History of Cannabis Hemp | Brief Summary of the Uses of Hemp | New Billion Dollar Crop | The Last Days of Legal Cannabis | Marijuana Prohibition | Medical Literature on Cannabis Medicine | |
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| Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 |
| Therapeutic Use of Cannabis | Hempseed as the Basic World Food | Economics: Energy, Environment, & Commerce | Myth, Magic, & Medicine | The (Hemp) War of 1812, Napoleon & Russia | Cannabis Drug Use in 19th Century America | Prejudice: Marijuana and Jim Crow Laws |
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| Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Appendix | Initiatives | Bibliography | Bonus Section |
| More than Sixty Years of Suppression | The Official Story: Debunking “Gutter Science” | The Emperor’s New Clothes | Original Sources | Recommended Reading |
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