The US Government tried to kill weed smokers with a toxic chemical in the 1980s(thoughtcatalog.com)
thoughtcatalog.com
The US Government tried to kill weed smokers with a toxic chemical in the 1980s
https://thoughtcatalog.com/jeremy-london/2018/08/paraquat-pot/
45 comments
I don't see why this should come as a surprise. The government poisoned liquor during prohibition, injected plutonium into unwitting pregnant women, gave innocent people syphilis while giving them fake treatments to see how it killed them (and just for the heck of it because the victims were black), and on and on.
Don’t forget that the CIA had to pinky swear not to use vaccine campaigns as cover for spy operations (anymore).
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/05/20/314231260...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27489045
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/05/20/314231260...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27489045
Yep, and, thanks to that little fiasco, we lost significant ground in trying to eradicate polio worldwide.
How is this any different than denatured alcohol today? You can buy 100% ethanol very cheap if it's been poisoned so you can't drink it.
If you choose to drink it despite a big skull and cross bones on it, was the US gov't trying to kill you?
If you choose to drink it despite a big skull and cross bones on it, was the US gov't trying to kill you?
I guess the difference would be the skull and bones label.
Oddly enough for whatever reason they don't seem to use that as much anymore. The visual symbols have been replaced with english text like CAUTION, WARNING, etc. A system of pictograms exists for chemicals but manufacturers must not have to use them.
Which would have been the orange peel extract if they had used it.
Thank you Ed Meese for being so righteous. I didn’t notice his name in the piece.
Thank you Ed Meese for being so righteous. I didn’t notice his name in the piece.
Huh, thanks to my completely destroyed sleep schedule, i get to continuously watch infomercials about class-action lawsuits related to paraquat. No idea it was used in this context though.
When I googled the chemical it was just the typical whining about how its the only thing that works and is completely safe.
When I googled the chemical it was just the typical whining about how its the only thing that works and is completely safe.
Complete tripe. The article doesn't even work up the guts to make the claim that's made in the headline. And even in what it actually says, it goes too far by claiming the government was trying to "purposely" harm the lungs of pot smokers. The only argument supported by the evidence is that the government was trying to kill weed crops as an early drug war tactic, which backfired because it wasn't killing enough of the crops but rather contaminating them with toxins.
The rabid desire to spin "uS GoVeRnMenT iS EvIl@!" narratives everywhere there's a shadow on the wall is just so old hat.
The rabid desire to spin "uS GoVeRnMenT iS EvIl@!" narratives everywhere there's a shadow on the wall is just so old hat.
Interesting historical snippets. Did I miss something in there that mentioned a conspiracy to murder or maim pot smokers?
The point is that the Government very quickly realised it didn't work to kill the plants, quickly realised contaminated crops were coming in to the US and that the poison they'd sprayed on it was harming people, and then continued to do it for decades...
So much this. From Wikipedia:
"Whether any injury came about due to the inhalation of paraquat-contaminated marijuana is uncertain. A 1995 study found that "no lung or other injury in cannabis users has ever been attributed to paraquat contamination". Also a United States Environmental Protection Agency manual states: "... toxic effects caused by this mechanism have been either very rare or nonexistent. Most paraquat that contaminates cannabis is pyrolyzed during smoking to dipyridyl, which is a product of combustion of the leaf material itself (including cannabis) and presents little toxic hazard."
"Whether any injury came about due to the inhalation of paraquat-contaminated marijuana is uncertain. A 1995 study found that "no lung or other injury in cannabis users has ever been attributed to paraquat contamination". Also a United States Environmental Protection Agency manual states: "... toxic effects caused by this mechanism have been either very rare or nonexistent. Most paraquat that contaminates cannabis is pyrolyzed during smoking to dipyridyl, which is a product of combustion of the leaf material itself (including cannabis) and presents little toxic hazard."
Reagan has much more to answer for.
The current US epidemic of Metabolic Disorder, killing way, way more than COVID-19, is a product of his Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz's program to institute absolutely massive over-production of corn. There was so much of it that it had to be turned into high-fructose corn sugar; then, a market for that had to be generated. So they demonized saturated fat and promoted adding sugar in its place.
And, here we are. Saturated fat has turned out to be totally harmless. What was blamed on it was caused, instead, by trans fats ("partially hydrogenated vegetable oil") added to replace it, and sugar.
Fred Kummerow spent his whole career, since the '50s, working to get trans fats out of the US diet, since he had proved they were responsible for the epidemic of circulatory disease. Trans fats were, finally, officially banned in 2017, although certain well-connected companies still have special permission to continue poisoning food with them.
To learn more about Metabolic Disorder, the best place I know to start is Robert Lustig's youtube lectures, and books. Short story: "sugar" is half glucose, which is relatively harmless, and half fructose, which your liver must process as a toxin. When fructose is ingested without enough fiber to slow its absorption, your liver takes a huge hit. It processes fructose by the same process as alcohol, and too much has the same effect as too much alcohol. (American children are getting liver disease just like alcoholics! Brits, Indians, and Pakistanis, too.) Take enough fiber with your sugar and you are OK. But all of industrial food processing is devoted to removing and throwing away fiber.
You can start healing your liver, fast, just by ensuring everything you eat has enough fiber: eliminate white flour, white rice, juice, and Red Bull. Livers have enormous regenerative ability, once you stop actively injuring them.
The current US epidemic of Metabolic Disorder, killing way, way more than COVID-19, is a product of his Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz's program to institute absolutely massive over-production of corn. There was so much of it that it had to be turned into high-fructose corn sugar; then, a market for that had to be generated. So they demonized saturated fat and promoted adding sugar in its place.
And, here we are. Saturated fat has turned out to be totally harmless. What was blamed on it was caused, instead, by trans fats ("partially hydrogenated vegetable oil") added to replace it, and sugar.
Fred Kummerow spent his whole career, since the '50s, working to get trans fats out of the US diet, since he had proved they were responsible for the epidemic of circulatory disease. Trans fats were, finally, officially banned in 2017, although certain well-connected companies still have special permission to continue poisoning food with them.
To learn more about Metabolic Disorder, the best place I know to start is Robert Lustig's youtube lectures, and books. Short story: "sugar" is half glucose, which is relatively harmless, and half fructose, which your liver must process as a toxin. When fructose is ingested without enough fiber to slow its absorption, your liver takes a huge hit. It processes fructose by the same process as alcohol, and too much has the same effect as too much alcohol. (American children are getting liver disease just like alcoholics! Brits, Indians, and Pakistanis, too.) Take enough fiber with your sugar and you are OK. But all of industrial food processing is devoted to removing and throwing away fiber.
You can start healing your liver, fast, just by ensuring everything you eat has enough fiber: eliminate white flour, white rice, juice, and Red Bull. Livers have enormous regenerative ability, once you stop actively injuring them.