Schuette Hates Cannabis...Hey! Must be the Money!

     I wish I could say that I researched and wrote this but I found this article to accomplish the task of informing the public a lot better than what I could do myself.  Here is the link to the *article*.  After reading this, you will find the similarities to my DuPont blog posts to be uncanny.  (Here are the links to my DuPont posts:
http://thecannaculturist.blogspot.com/2011/09/dupont-hates-cannabis-part-1.html
http://thecannaculturist.blogspot.com/2011/09/dupont-hates-cannabis-part-2.html
http://thecannaculturist.blogspot.com/2011/09/dupont-hates-cannabis-part-3.html
If you are not appalled by this cronyism in our public servants, I really do not know how else I can help you!)

For those who wish not to go to the above link for the original article, here is the full text:

"Attorney General Bill Schuette's opposition to medical marijuana has been described by some observers as bordering on an obsession.

"Why is Schuette so obsessed?  Perhaps the real reason is to prevent industrial uses of the hemp plant, from which marijuana is derived, from competing with products of the Dow Chemical Company, in which Schuette's family has a large financial stake, while producing top executives.  Schuette's stepfather, Carl Gerstacker, was a Dow CEO, and his father, William Schuette, Sr., was in line to become CEO when he died of a heart attack in 1959.  The Schuette family's Dow-based wealth has helped to bankroll a long political career that began in 1984, when he was elected to Congress at 31.

"Dishonestly demonizing the use of marijuana, which is for the most part benign, as a cover for crushing potential competition from industrial hemp, is nothing new.  Back in the 1930s, one of the most successful campaigns that resulted in the 1937 federal marijuana prohibition was run by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who used his newspaper chain to spread lies about alleged harmful effects of marijuana.  But Hearst's real concern was that using hemp fiber to produce paper pulp for newspapers would cut into his own paper pulp business derived from extensive timber holdings.  At the same time, the DuPont family and financier Andrew Mellon wanted marijuana banned to prevent hemp fiber from competing with DuPont's nylon.

"So it is with Dow today.  Industrial uses of hemp include plastics, water purification and weed control that could compete with Dow products and perhaps cause its business to decline, costing the Schuette family a lot of money.  As such, Schuette, who led the failed campaign against Proposal 1 in 2008, is now doing all he can to undermine medical marijuana, interpreting the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act as narrowly as possible.  After all, if medical marijuana were to become solidly established as a legal business in Michigan, there would be no excuse not to allow industrial hemp, which has a THC level too low for recreational use.

"So the next time you hear Schuette, a hypocrite who has admitted smoking marijuana in college, dishonestly attack medical marijuana, understand that he isn't out to protect the public.  He's just in it for the money."