Since its inception, efforts to criminalize the marijuana plant and stigmatize those who consume it have been predicated almost entirely upon gross exaggerations, racial stereotypes, and outright lies.
The initial push for cannabis criminalization, which began in earnest more than a century ago, had little to do with promoting public health or safety. Instead, the decision to target and prosecute cannabis users was fueled by xenophobia and media sensationalism.
For instance, a July 6, 1927 story in the New York Times, headlined “Mexican Family Goes Insane,” farcically claimed: “A widow and her four children have been driven insane by eating the marihuana plant, according to doctors, who say there is no hope of saving the children’s lives and that the mother will be insane for the rest of her life.”
An academic paper titled “Marijuana,” Updated in 1933 in The Journal of Law and Criminology, similarly made over-the-top allegations about the plant’s supposed dangers. The authors wrote, “The inevitable result [of consuming cannabis] is insanity, which those familiar with it describe as absolutely incurable, and, without exception, ending in death.”
In 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — America’s first ‘Drug Czar’ — successfully lobbied Congress to ban cannabis nationwide. He did so through the continuous use of racist rhetoric. “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use,” he asserted. “This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
Fast-forward to 1971. That’s when the Nixon administration declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one.” The lynchpin of this campaign was stamping out the use of marijuana, which Congress had just classified as a Schedule I controlled substance — the strictest federal category available. Yet, privately, Nixon acknowledged that he did not think cannabis was “particularly dangerous,” and he lamented the “ridiculous” penalties faced by those arrested for possessing it.
Nonetheless, his administration publicly doubled down on the mythical marijuana threat for its own political gain. As his domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, later acknowledged, “We couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the (Vietnam) war or Black,” but we could get “the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin.”
By “criminalizing both heavily,” Ehrlichman explained, “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?” he asked. “Of course we did.”
Fifty-plus years and nearly 30 million marijuana-related arrests later, cannabis remains categorized as a Schedule I controlled substance — the same classification as heroin — and many politicians and prohibitionists continue to reiterate many of these same myths. Yet, despite their claims, mounting evidence affirms that cannabis is not a ‘gateway drug,’ it doesn’t sap users’ motivation, it doesn’t make consumers violent, and it doesn’t make them crazy.
Slowly but surely, the public is learning and accepting the truth.
Survey data compiled by the Pew Research Center finds that only about one-in-ten Americans support the federal government’s blanket criminalization of marijuana. Moreover, according to Gallup, 70 percent of U.S. adults think “the use of marijuana should be legal.”
That’s an increase of 19 percentage points since 2014 when Colorado and Washington became the first states to implement adult-use cannabis legalization. Twenty-four states have now done so — and no state has ever repealed marijuana legalization. In short, the more familiar the public becomes with legalization through first-hand experience, the more they like it. And the less likely they are to believe longstanding prohibitionist rhetoric and lies.
After nearly a century of canna-bigotry, the truth couldn’t be clearer. Marijuana prohibition has been a fraud from the beginning — often propagated by politicians and bureaucrats who were in on the sham. It’s high time we end it.
Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, America’s oldest cannabis consumers’ lobby. To become a member of NORML or to support NORML’s efforts, please consider making a donation here.
This article is from an external, unpaid contributor. It does not represent High Times’ reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.
Photo by PumpkinButter via WikiMedia Commons
