For nearly a century officials have touted the dangers of marijuana. Many of us can dip into the memory banks to find attempts of officers visiting our classrooms to enlighten us on how drugs would ruin our lives.
The common narrative was that we’d get arrested and go to jail as they conveniently overlooked the fact that the only danger came from the legal system rather than the plant itself.
Predictably and perhaps ironically, the DARE program didn’t deter as many young minds from experimenting with marijuana as it intended. According to a Pew Research poll, nearly half of Americans have tried marijuana at least once.
Another more historical narrative is that marijuana would turn you into a lazy or perhaps crazed delinquent, worthless to society at best and a danger at worst. However, as nearly half of Americans can tell you, this is simply not the case.
So when did the government decide marijuana should be classified as a Schedule I drug on par with heroin and bath salts? Why is it that, after 100 years, a substance less dangerous than alcohol should warrant more than 7 million arrests between 2001 and 2010?
The reasons make about as much sense as you’d think.
There are a couple theories as to just how marijuana came to be considered as dangerous as heroin. In an article for the Huffington Post, Johann Hari, author of the book “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs,” attributed the prohibition to a single man: Harry J. Anslinger.
Anslinger was the first commissioner of the Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics beginning in 1930. According to Hari, following the failed prohibition of alcohol, Anslinger sought a new target.
Anslinger polled 30 scientists on whether marijuana was dangerous or not. Only one said yes. That was all Ansligner needed.
With the help of a little sensationalist journalism, Anslinger began to sell the idea that marijuana would turn you into a maniacal semblance of a human being, liable to partake in obscene sex acts and delirious, violent rampages. It’s enough to make you wonder what he was smoking.
Modern opponents of marijuana legalization still cling to this ideology.
However, there is another reason more often overlooked due to its unpalatable nature but perhaps more apparent in the current enforcement of marijuana prohibition.
Back in Anslinger’s day and following the Mexican Revolution, immigrants began to cross the border and start new lives in the southern states. Along with their culture and customs came the marijuana plant.
According to the Drug Policy Alliance, despite cannabis being used in medicinal remedies in the States, “marihuana” was a scary new epidemic for the white majority. Again the media played its part in alerting the masses to the horrors posed by drug-crazed people of color.
In 1875, San Francisco passed a law prohibiting opiates to discourage Chinese immigration. Roughly 30 years later, El Paso, Texas followed suit in outlawing marijuana to discourage Mexican immigrants.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a proponent of marijuana prohibition supporting a racist policy today, but the arrest numbers speak for themselves.
According to the ACLU, African-Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites despite a lower reported rate of use. In Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Washington, D.C., that number rises to seven or eight times more likely.
With medical marijuana legal in 25 states, recreational marijuana legal in four and more than half of Americans supporting legalization, it is only a matter of time before this defunct policy goes the way of alcohol prohibition remembered only as a chapter in history textbooks.
But as opponents continue to spew their message of societal costs and moral degradation, we’re left to wonder if they remain beholden to outdated ideologies or are simply supporters of systematic racism.
This article appears in Aug 11-17, 2016.
Excellent article. Regarding the two theories as to how MJ became illegal: both are true and one does not preclude the other. Thanks for the historical perspective and for mentioning Hari’s excellent book: Chasing The Scream. It is a well documented, global and comprehensive book – a really good read as well – on the so-called war on drugs, not just MJ.
As long as there is some kind of governmental agency dealing with Marijuana. Make it illegal you make the define the market. Make it legal where’s the profit.
As the story alluded to Harry Anslinger the new bureau of
” Department of Narcotic and Dangerous Drug ” BNDD. This new governmental agency was volling congress for monies along with another new agency the FBI.
Both Harry Anslinger and J Edgar Hoover were trying to outperform compete with enforcement parameters. Both lobbied the FDR Congress for more laws hence more monies. Even the job to enforce alcohol prohibition was given to the treasury.
And both didn’t like that either the repeal of the 18 amendment shut that police agency door. Now all governing agencies on both Federal and state levels as well as the FDA have concerns in the alcohol industry. Enforcement is left up to the in place laws and policing agencies
I believe it was Johnson that changed the denotation from BNDD to DEA . However the Schedule 1 category was put in under the Nixon Administration. Nixon carried on a secret war in south america on his drug .
As some said his paid death squads in Peru, Bolivia, Columbia actually got Pablo Escobar together with cocaine. The beginning of the cartels and we all know the story.
We all have seen the expansion with the war on drugs. The expansion of courts rehab prisons policing cartels money laundering corruption along with use.
We see methadone being administered but still the increase of heroin. I understand the daily dose of Methadone is around $100.00 $36,500 a year. Paid for insurance along with most of the other pharmical abused drugs. Just how can we fold Marijuana into that and still have it recreational ?
Some people believe a new state governmental department will do that. This new State Department will have control over much of the Alcohol & Tobacco board. It would take over every Vap store Smoke shop, growing industrial hemp, testing away from AZDHS, licensing enforcement.
This new proposed Department of “Marijuana License and Controls” are of the idea that they can monitor prohibition as long as they are able to change and adapt according to market demands and supply. To do this there will be a surcharge. There no doubt this agency will introduce a regimented treatment that will be administered like methadone insurance paid.
If anyone is of the idea this is legalization I am sorry to say Disney is not real either. There is a long way to go with so many with their hands out saying give me a little off that it will be better.
Years ago, I took a trip to Amsterdam. I paid a visit to the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum. I learned quite a bit about why cannabis and related products are truly illegal in the good ole US of A.
The one thing that stood out on my visit were the US newspaper articles displayed which targeted cannabis as something enjoyed by (I don’t remember the exact words used, but you should get the idea) the scary jazz loving criminal negroes.
Need I say more? Okay, I shall.
There were also articles and other advertising propaganda targeted against the evil black man which were sponsored by none other than, get ready for this…Anheuser-Busch! Imagine that. There’s a definite conflict of interest here; yet the majority of White America in those days were convinced that, if spooky colored folk were the primary users of cannabis and its related products, then there must be something inherently sinister happening inside of that plant.
It’s incredible to me that, damn near 90 years later, people are still swayed by greedy corporations, slimy politics, racism and plain old ignorance. It’s time to realize that we must legalize.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ABc8ciT5QLs
Well with the recent DEA announcement it looks like the political hacks running today have given in again.
This has become a great windfall for so many policing and social structuring part of the economy. These have great interest in keeping it going as well as establishing their need or promoting so.
The sorry part these have missed their mark time after time. There are no benchmarks for success other than the money numbers game. More confiscated more arrested more interned more addicted.
Can anyone take the time what would actually happen if this did change the schedule classification from 1 to 2. Overnight and in a storm fashion upsetting so many established businesses. The Dispensaries and agents growers need this to stay the same.
As not under federal eye on so many fronts Banking, FDA, DEA, IRS, Interstate Commerce, International Trade, FTC, Commercial banking and investment banking business structure. States will be open to federal court oversight on business practices and investor holding.
Federal courts will be open on so many fronts criminal as well as civil. This will really test states rights over federal rights on so many fronts. LIke the story this is just another chapter in the BS and so many are thinking AZ has legalization possible in November.
The truth of the matter is the DEA cannot and does not want to mess with commerce laws. The DEA would just as soon to have this parameters of law enforcement and control left up to commerce laws. They would lose as sure as sun sets way to much case law precedent.
Want the next chapter of corruption graft greed and civil discourse related to marijuana being tied to all drugs. Vote to legalize in November a whole new read. Screw the patient the mentally dependent the chronic ailing dependent extort as much as possible to educate LMFAO
And if we legalize drugs, border crossers will vanish. Home invasions will stop and fewer jobs will be needed.
You left out Nixon. His administration created the “schedule” system, and put marijuana on Schedule 1. When people, including scientists and physicians, objected, he created a blue ribbon panel to study the matter, and then promptly ignored their findings. Marijuana has continued to be on Schedule 1 ever since, for no good reason, other than the fact that Nixon associated its use with “hippies” and “negroes.”
I didn’t leave out Nixon it is just the most common name the ignorant on this subject use to think they have knowledge and background. Use the Nixon name as a anti prohibition chant that way it will focus, NOT HARDLY !
I can go back to June 1971 Time Magazine did an article on Catalina High School “Most Drug Ridden High School in America”. In the article they show the student body in the auditorium Class picture. You look at all, as they were billed at the time, anti social, drug infested, hair farming, tye dyed, mistake for the future.
Reluctant to even mention this is previous posts. Just a look at that I can see who became the who’s who of Tucson. I see judges business owners, prominent Atty’s, State rep’s of all sorts we have all grown in Tucson and Arizona with Marijuana. The biggest fallacy is that it breaks down into political lines which it does not.