From Prohibition to Progress: The Oscillating Journey of Cannabis in America

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In 1611, King James I passed the first cannabis laws in North America, mandated that all English colonists must grow 100 hemp plants each. [1] Hemp served multiple industrial purposes, and remained popular in America until 1793, when Eli Whitney’s cotton gin shifted agricultural trends towards the more profitable cotton. [2]

After that, hemp fell out of fashion, and it took a long time for its psychoactive cousin cannabis sativa to replace it. Cannabis eventually became so popular that the Federal Government felt a prohibition was necessary to protect its citizens, but that legal precedent is slowly changing.

Today, cannabis is legal to consume for recreational purposes in 24 states, it is decriminalized in 7 more, and is legal for medicinal purposes in 13 additional states. [3] Even when evaluating markets where cannabis is still prohibited it remains the most consumed illicit drug with as many as 88% of adults feeling that it should be legal. [4] To understand this oscillating attitude towards cannabis, it is important to look at the actions of a few powerful men whose motivations affected millions of American lives.

Reefer Madness: The Rise of Prohibition

The United States didn’t attempt to regulate cannabis again until the 20th century. While the number of people using cannabis slowly rose during the 19th century, it exploded into the American consciousness thanks to America’s first Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger. [5]

Anslinger was appointed by President Hoover in 1930, and believed that all drug except alcohol should be prohibited. To achieve this goal, he set his sights on cannabis and began spouting rhetoric designed to play on racial and xenophobic fears amongst the white population.

The primary argument Anslinger presented was that Mexican immigrants and laborers brought the habit of smoking cannabis over the border into the US, where African American communities took up the practice. Anslinger believed that this trend would eventually spread to white communities, corrupting younger generations and spoiling America’s future. This propaganda proved especially effective, as most Americans had strong opinions regarding race, and limited knowledge about cannabis.

To put this in context, Anslinger’s appointment came only 65 years after the end of the civil war, and more than 30 years before the civil rights movement. It would be unrealistic to believe that just because slavery had been abolished that Americans had overcome their racial prejudices at that time. In terms of cannabis, medicinal use had been rising in America starting in 1839, but the way people consumed it only illustrated their ignorance. [6]

Cannabis, along with several other illicit drugs, were common ingredients in tinctures sold by traveling salesmen, often referred to as snake-oil salesmen.

Snake oil today implies a substance that promotes therapeutic benefits, but has no medicinal value. These snake oils sold consistently, indicating that most Americans had no idea what side effects these would produce. Anslinger took advantage of both of these ignorances and worked with a powerful, private sector ally to amplify his message.

 Like Anslinger, the newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst had his own reasons for wanting cannabis to be outlawed. [7] Cannabis scandals gave Hearst a constant source to feed his Yellow Journalism, but his commercial interests went beyond increased paper sales. Hearst had invested heavily in lumber to ensure that his paper supply would not be interrupted, and cannabis presented a possible alternative source for paper production. 

Cannabis grows faster than lumber and requires fewer resources to reach maturity. Hearst feared the disruptive potential of cannabis to the lumber industry and took action to protect his investment.

Together, these two men worked to connect cannabis to certain undesired qualities associated with racial stereotypes. The rhetoric spawned many of the myths surrounding cannabis that linger today, including the idea that cannabis increases criminal behavior, it can be a gateway to harder drugs, or that it causes psychosis.

Their message culminated in the release of the 1937 film “Reefer Madness,” which amalgamated all of this rhetoric into a single, narrative form.[8] White communities responded with outrage to what they perceived as threat to their communities, and the film lead to mass hysteria regarding cannabis consumption. This resulted in the passage of, The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which was drafted by none other than Harry J. Anslinger himself. [9]

The act required that in order for cannabis to be sold in America it must bear a stamp indicating the proper taxes had been levied. With no stamps issued, this law effectively prohibited the buying and selling of cannabis, not possession. Anslinger felt this would be sufficient to stop cannabis’s spread, but that proved not to be the case.

A Call for Reason

Anslingers’ claims were not entirely accepted as fact, and one prominent skeptic went so far as to challenge the constitutionality of the Marijuana Tax Act. In 1937, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia commissioned America’s first major cannabis study through the New York Academy of Medicine. This research was published as The LaGuardia Report in 1944, and used hard data to separate truth from fiction related to cannabis consumption. [10] 

The report favored objectivity, and corroborated certain evidence presented by Anslinger, including the fact that the most common cannabis users at the time were African and Latin Americans. Beyond that, the report went on to dispel many of the incorrect assertions posited by the Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner.

The report found data negating the theories that cannabis deteriorates physical or mental health, is a “gateway” to harder drugs, leads to increased criminality, causes insanity, is commonly used by school children, is physically addictive, and that it is being distributed by a central organization.

LaGuardia used these findings to argue the Marijuana Tax Act should be repealed, but Anslinger doubled down and discrediting the report claiming it was “unscientific”. [11] Even without Anslingers’ condemnation, it was a losing battle for La Guardia as most Americans’ opinions towards cannabis had already been cemented nearly a decade at this point. 

The Conflict Escalates

It wasn’t until the 1960s that the American counter cultural movement began changing their attitude toward cannabis again. [12] Often called “Hippies,” a new generation chose to embrace cannabis and other illicit drugs for numerous medicinal, spiritual, and social reasons. This trend produced a new opportunity for the Federal Government to weaponize cannabis to achieve its political goals. 

The late 1960s in America were a time of division and chaos unseen since the Civil War. [13] The Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Liberation Movement, and countless smaller organizations prompted bombings, assassinations, shootings, riots, and protests across the country. By the time Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he needed to take drastic action to restore order.

As a result, he launched the War on Drugs, one of the keystones of the Nixon administration, and an ongoing campaign today. The stated purpose was to curb drug use in America, but the administration had an ulterior motive. According to a 2018 Congressional testimony by Nixon aid John Ehrlichman: 

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. [14]

The War on Drugs marked the moment when possession of cannabis became illegal. This allowed the Federal Government to target groups it saw as undesirable, or potentially threatening, and could issue heavy sentences for even small amounts of cannabis. When looking at drug related arrest records, it is clear that this exploitation continues today, especially along racial lines. 

One of most glaring examples is the fact that African Americans are 2.7 times more likely to be arrested for drug related offenses than their white counterparts. [15] Numbers may fluctuate from one year to another, but this trend has been consistent since the start of the War on Drugs.[16]

This is even more striking considering African Americans constitute 12.2% of the population as of the 2020 census, whereas the white population represents approximately 58%. [16] That means even though there are almost five white people for every African American in the US, African Americans are almost three times more likely to be arrested for drug related offenses. The same is also true for Latin Americans, though these ratios are not as extreme. [18]

The New Era

A lot of time has passed since Anslinger, Hearst, and Nixon choose to use cannabis as a means to achieve their various goals. During that time, multiple groups advocated for cannabis legalization as a way of improving social justice, personal freedom, economic opportunities, and medical treatments in America.

The Federal Government continues to drag its feet when it comes to legalization, so most of the progress has come from state level legalization. That being said, the last two Presidents have both overseen legal changes that may signal progress for cannabis on the Federal level.

This began with former President Trump’s signing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized hemp in the United States.[19] While cannabis, and the primary psychoactive ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), remain illegal, it did open a Pandora’s Box for the hemp market. Products containing cannabidiol (CBD) and other hemp derived are booming, especially with new extraction techniques and delivery methods available.

When it comes to President Biden, no definitive action has occurred, but there may be a major change coming. On May 16, 2024, the US Department of Justice submitted a proposal to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, recognizing cannabis’ medical properties. [20] If passed, this would allow medical and scientific communities access to cannabis for therapeutic and research purposes.

It is difficult to predict the extent of this legal development, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s recent appeal of the Chevron Doctrine, but it could go so far as to constitute a Federal legalization of medicinal cannabis. [21] These actions may indicate the early stages of a new era for cannabis in America.

References:

1. Howe, Jonas. “Early attempts to introduce the cultivation of hemp in Eastern British America.” (1892).
2. Herndon, G. Melvin. “Agriculture in America in the 1790s: An Englishman’s View.” Agricultural History 49.3 (1975): 505-516.
3. Chapekis, Athena, and Sono Shah. “Most Americans Now Live in a Legal Marijuana State – and Most Have at Least One Dispensary in Their County.” Pew Research Center, 29 Feb. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/02/29/most-americans-now-live-in-a-legal-marijuana-state-and-most-have-at-least-one-dispensary-in-their-county/#:~:text=Which%20states%20have%20legalized%20marijuana.
4. Vankar, Preeti. “Lifetime Illicit Drug Users by Drug Type U.S. 2022.” Statista, 8 Mar. 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/611118/illicit-drug-use-during-lifetime-in-the-us-by-drug/. 
5. Däumichen, Marvin. “The Great Cannabis Scare-Harry J. Anslinger in the 1930s.” (2016).
6. Mills, James H. “Colonizing cannabis: medication, taxation, intoxication and oblivion, c. 1839-1955.” (2018): 200-216.
7. Speaker, Susan L. “Creating a monster: Newspapers, magazines, and America’s drug problem.” Molecular interventions 2.4 (2002): 201.
8. Hall, Wayne, and Sarah Yeates. “Reefer Madness: an undeserved classic movie.” Addiction 116.4 (2021): 963-969.
9. Musto, David F. “The 1937 marijuana tax act.” Archives of General Psychiatry 26.2 (1972): 101-108.
10. LaGuardia, Fiorello. “The Laguardia Committee Report New York, USA (1944).” (1944).
11. Anslinger, H. J. (1964). Hemp Around Their Necks: The Story of the Narcotics Gangs. Retrieved July 30, 2024, from https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/33720017/Marco_A._Pinal_-_A_Moral_Crusade-libre.pdf?1400299941=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DA_Moral_Crusade_The_Process_by_Which_Mar.pdf&Expires=1722320050&Signature=McGbuR1nzlqhFLFB1sPPYYDb49fWskkcd2Uq1mHp3Ou~fTaqaE7YwTaztEYXPLWUxn3XRQfz7YyupBS8xieY6ut-RTxDrrF~AiC6xHTy8Ie3T7gjM7f3JiqXP0M5pzbjExLW08Pg0ZpFkD8-jbkIHrXB70S6gKP-V-aqUhEyyQLJ49Jlqq7KXlyrAvnbVtkkAVcRQxEB14V-5lUU1qStFOkuSe71~B8ks9ki9E7xFRhEZFRAU7phXReGlnMBywE7NAkNiJKYAn38mEz-LYAnYIPPTknKN07vXEB7-wODtNWsnvD5dCtYVtziwcXj1fmK8PXP-DOLZ6mGVXy0oXLQ~g__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
12. Warf, Barney. “High points: an historical geography of cannabis.” Geographical Review 104.4 (2014): 414-438.
13. Collins, William J., and Robert A. Margo. “The economic aftermath of the 1960s riots in American cities: Evidence from property values.” The Journal of Economic History 67.4 (2007): 849-883.
14. US House of Reprentatives. (2018, June 12). H. RES. 933. Retrieved July 30, 2024, from https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-115hres933ih/html/BILLS-115hres933ih.htm
15. Mitchell, Ojmarrh, and Michael S. Caudy. “Examining racial disparities in drug arrests.” Justice Quarterly 32.2 (2015): 288-313.
16. Mitchell, Ojmarrh, and Michael J. Lynch. “Criminal justice, race, and the war on drugs.” Disproportionate Minority Contact: Current Issues and Policies (2011): 139-155.
17. US Census Bureau. “Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census.” Census.gov, 12 Aug. 2021, www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html.
18. Lehmann, Peter S., and Ryan C. Meldrum. “Disparities in youth arrest across racial and ethnic subgroups.” Youth violence and juvenile justice 22.1 (2024): 22-45.
19. “H.R.2 – 115th Congress (2017-2018): Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018.” Congress.gov, 2017, www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2.
20. “Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Submits Proposed Regulation to Reschedule Marijuana | United States Department of Justice.” Www.justice.gov, 16 May 2024, www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-submits-proposed-regulation-reschedule-marijuana.
21. Supreme Court of the United States. (2024, June). Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. US Supreme Court. Retrieved July 29, 2024, from https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf

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