Marijuana Tax Act

The hemp plant, which grew abundantly in Colonial America, was used for many years beginning in the 1600s to make rope, as bases for paints and varnishes, and in birdseed. It was not until the early 1900s, however, that the smoking of marijuana, the mixture of dried, shredded flowers and leaves that comes from the hemp plant, was introduced to American culture. And it was not until 1937 that the first federal law to restrict the usage, distribution, and production of marijuana–the Marijuana Tax Act–was passed.

After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Mexican immigrants flooded into the United States, and smoking marijuana (as hemp had been known colloquially in the Sonoran region of Mexico) became associated with these immigrants. Fear and prejudice about the Spanishspeaking newcomers and the drug many of them used developed and eventually [Page 747]became widespread. During the Great Depression, massive unemployment increased public resentment and fear of Mexican immigrants, escalating public and governmental concern about the problem of marijuana.

In large measure, the hysteria created over marijuana, which ushered in the Marijuana Tax Act, was motivated by a desire to destroy the burgeoning hemp industry. Cheap, durable hemp paper posed a dire threat to timber companies, who feared that hemp would be used for paper and plywood instead of trees. The attack on the hemp industry was twofold: a massive propaganda campaign demonized cannabis in the eyes of the public, and the power of government was used to cripple and eventually exterminate industrial uses of hemp. The two leaders of the antimarijuana campaign who played a key role in the drug's criminalization were Harry Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst. Anslinger was the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) from 1930 until 1962. Beginning in the early 1930s the FBN flooded the nation with educational propaganda against marijuana use, portraying its use as a great menace that needed to be controlled because it was directly linked to crime, induced violent behavior, and caused insanity.

An ally of Anslinger was William Randolph Hearst, whose chain of newspapers made him among the most influential men in America. He also owned vast timber holdings, which fed the paper industry. He and other industrialists (including his friend Lammont Du Pont, who supplied chemicals that were needed for making paper) wanted industrial cannabis production to be stopped. Hearst warned his readers of terrible crimes attributed to marijuana and those who used it. Hysterical stories that denigrated Mexicans, African Americans, and jazz musicians whipped readers into a frenzy.

After a few years of this campaign, the FBN effectively lobbied for the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act, which was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1937, and went into effect September of that year. At the congressional hearings, Commissioner Anslinger had claimed that marijuana was an addictive drug that produced in its users insanity, criminality, and death. The only witness to appear in opposition to the administration's proposal, an American Medical Association spokesperson who argued that the evidence again marijuana was incomplete, was barraged with hostile questions.

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