Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some
kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it
was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug. The
actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate
of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied
by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that
the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a
documented lie on the floor of the Senate. You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s
criminalization is filled with: Racism Fear Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators Personal
Career Advancement and Greed these are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.
Background For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It’s
not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has
been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it’s been in use. Its known uses
go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald
Reagan was a boy. The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible
number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and
over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much
more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United
States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600’s? But did not reach
public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900’s?
America’s
first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a
law ordering all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other must
grow laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp
during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of
that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp try
that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including
essential war requirements rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way
to encourage growth. The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp plantations
(minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the
cordage used for baling cotton. The Mexican Connection In the early 1900s, the
western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of
Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border,
with General Pershing’s army clashing with bandit Poncho Villa. Later in that
decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms
that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased
tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce. One of the differences
seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana
and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California
apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing preparations of
hemp, or loco weed.However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana
may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly
enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910
came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana.
The churches reaction to this may have
contributed to the states marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation
is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a
paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges
Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)Other
states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming
(1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington
(1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be
specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population. When Montana
outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator’s
comment: When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff¦ he thinks
he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all
his political enemies. In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: All
Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy. Jazz
and Assassins In the eastern states, the problem was attributed to a
combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz
traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana
became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of
the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong’s Muggle’s, Cab Callaway’s That
Funny Reefer Man, Fats Waller’s Viper’s Drag).Again, racism was part of the
charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: Marijuana
influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows
and look at a white woman twice. Two other fear-tactic rumors started to
spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white
children with marijuana; and two, the story of the assassins. Early stories of
Marco Polo had told of hashish-eaters or hashish, from which derived the term assassin.
In the original stories, these
professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler’s
garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon
successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug
disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler’s wishes with cool,
calculating loyalty.
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