Movie Monsters

At this point in history Godzilla and King Kong are movie monster royalty. The “8th Wonder of the World” and his nuclear nemesis from Nagasaki have have topped the marquee a grand total of 48 times.

And yet, the celluloid beasts are still drawing crowds. Right now “Godzilla vs Kong” is the #1 Movie in the world, according to Deadline. The film has sold more than $400 Million in tickets in 19 major film markets.

If wondering if you've fallen into the wrong news page by accident... Fear not, Cannabi and here’s why: this movie headline is not only on-point, its speaks THE seminal moment cannabis history.

“King Kong” was first released in 1933. The story of an island of exotic brown natives that was terrorized by an uncontrollably violent monster that made them insane with fear. As they were offering a human sacrifice pacify the beast, an American filmmaker swapped in a beautiful blonde so he could make a movie of the whole thing. Kong fell insatiably in love with the blonde and even after he was captured, he escaped, unleashing terror on America as he tried to save her.

Also in 1933, the American billionaire William Randolph Hearst took a break from making movies starring his own platinum blonde girlfriend, and released a film designed to send a political message to Washington. Hearst was very good at this sort of thing, he was a mastermind of Yellow Journalism and even helped start a war.

A different kind of monster was keeping Hearst up at night. The Hearst empire was famous for his newspapers but a key source of his wealth was timber that was used to make ALL newspapers.

The monster in Hearst’s nightmares was HEMP which was grew faster than timber and produced 4x as much pulp per acre. It was an economic threat he wouldn’t stand for.

So what did he do? He created his own monster out of Hemp's lookalike cousin and called it Marihuana.

Just like King Kong, Hearst's Marihuana Monster had escaped a country of exotic brown people to terrorize America. The Marihuana Monster would make YOU (and your children!!!) uncontrollably violent, incurably insane, and insatiably sexual. Marihuana was a threat that American families should not stand for.

And after pounding the public with prurient pulp about marihuana mayhem and murders for 3 years, in 1936 Hearst released the scariest monster movie of all time: Reefer Madness,

You think I'm bering facetious?

Hearst's Marihuana Monster was SO SCARY:

• So scary that within 1 year, the American hemp industry was vaporized by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. (Psychoactive cannabis was always the sideshow)

• So scary that every country in the United Nations has signed Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, agreeing that marihuana is one the most dangerous drugs in the world

• So scary that 50 years after Richard Nixon redefined marihuana as “more dangerous than Cocaine and Methamphetamine", no US President or Congress has had the courage to fix the lie

• So scary that only 1 month ago, the Governor of Nebraska said "If you legalize marijuana, you're gonna kill your kids.”

What's truly scary is that some grownups still can’t tell the difference between movies monsters and real life.