HEMP AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES

As conspiracy theories go, the thought that hemp was outlawed because it was competition against certain large businesses is not far-fetched. As time has proven, there is definitely a case for this, and most mainstream newspapers, including the Times, have noted it.

One wonders though, why it took so long for the press to wake up. "Conspiracy" is something a number of journalists make a living sneering at, only to be found out pompous fools in the long run. What happened to any investigation of the Reichstag Fire in Germany? Since questioning Hitler was sneered at, so they just accepted Marinus van der Lubbe's guilt.

In today's G2 section of the Guardian, we find Mark Honigsbaum trying very hard to back pedal from his own earlier story about bombs under the trains on 7/7 in London. He seems embarrassed by his own account, which was not unique to him. Other journalists working on the same paper have worked hard to put a certain light on those questioning other events, especially taking a poke at Charlie Sheen earlier this year when he talked about 9/11 as an inside job. I talked to them, and found they were at a complete loss on many points of the story. Did they even research it?

Honigsbaum and his associates are not working for William Randoplh Hearst, or that other powerful pressman in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler, but they do parallel the journalism of that era. (Some might wonder at Hitler seen in this light, but yes, he did in fact own a paper and work as a journalist).

The hemp story might well serve as a blueprint for those studying press suppression and conspiracy today. Who was it that said "history repeats itself?"