Saturday, August second, marks the 88th anniversary of the signing of the Marihuana Tax Act, the primary federal marijuana prohibition regulation.
Since its inception, the criminalization of the marijuana plant and the stigmatization of those that devour it’s been predicated virtually solely upon the promotion of gross exaggerations, racial stereotypes, and outright lies.
As an example, a July 6, 1927 tale within the New York Occasions, headlined “Mexican Circle of relatives Is going Insane,” farcically claimed: “A widow and her 4 kids had been pushed insane via consuming the marihuana plant, in line with medical doctors, who say there is not any hope of saving the kids’s lives and that the mum can be insane for the remainder of her lifestyles.”
An educational paper titled “Marijuana,” revealed in 1933 in The Magazine of Legislation and Criminology, in a similar way made over-the-top allegations in regards to the plant’s intended risks. The authors wrote, “The inevitable outcome [of consuming cannabis] is madness, which the ones acquainted with it describe as completely incurable, and, with out exception, finishing in dying.”
In 1937, Harry J. Anslinger — The us’s first ‘Drug Czar’ — lobbied Congress to prohibit hashish national. He did so over the staunch objections of the American Clinical Affiliation, which disputed the federal government’s false claims that hashish use invariably triggered violence, madness, and dying. Undeterred via the AMA’s opposition, Anslinger relied virtually solely upon racist rhetoric to steer lawmakers. “There are 100,000 overall marijuana people who smoke within the U.S., and maximum are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic song, jazz and swing, outcome from marijuana use,” he asserted. “This marijuana reasons white girls to hunt sexual members of the family with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
Rapid-forward to 1971. That’s when the Nixon management declared drug abuse to be “public enemy primary.” The lynchpin of this marketing campaign was once stamping out the usage of marijuana, which Congress had simply categorized as a Agenda I managed substance — the strictest federal class to be had. But, privately, Nixon stated that he didn’t assume hashish was once “specifically bad,” and he lamented the “ridiculous” consequences confronted via the ones arrested for possessing it.
However, his management publicly doubled down at the legendary marijuana danger for its personal political acquire. As his home coverage leader, John Ehrlichman, later stated, “We couldn’t make it unlawful to be both towards the (Vietnam) struggle or Black,” however shall we get “the general public to affiliate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin.”
Via “criminalizing each closely,” Ehrlichman defined, “shall we disrupt the ones communities. Shall we arrest their leaders, raid their houses, get a divorce their conferences, and vilify them night time after night time at the night time information.”
“Did we all know we had been mendacity in regards to the medication?” he requested. “In fact we did.”
Fifty-plus years and just about 30 million marijuana-related arrests later, hashish stays classified as a Agenda I managed substance — the similar classification as heroin — and plenty of politicians and prohibitionists proceed to reiterate many of those identical myths. But, in spite of their claims, mounting proof affirms that hashish isn’t a ‘gateway drug,’ it doesn’t sap customers’ motivation, it doesn’t make customers violent, and it doesn’t cause them to loopy.
Slowly however for sure, the general public is finding out and accepting the reality.
Survey knowledge compiled via the Pew Analysis Heart unearths that best about one-in-ten American citizens reinforce the government’s blanket criminalization of marijuana. Additionally, in line with Gallup, 70 % of U.S. adults assume “the usage of marijuana will have to be felony.”
That’s an building up of nineteen share issues since 2014 when Colorado and Washington was the primary states to put in force adult-use hashish legalization. Twenty-four states have now accomplished so — and no state has ever repealed marijuana legalization. Briefly, the extra acquainted the general public turns into with legalization thru first-hand enjoy, the extra they adore it. And the fewer most likely they’re to imagine longstanding prohibitionist rhetoric and lies.
After just about a century of canna-bigotry, the reality couldn’t be clearer. Marijuana prohibition has been a fraud from the start — ceaselessly propagated via politicians and bureaucrats who had been in at the sham. It’s prime time we finish it.
NORML advocates for adjustments in public coverage in order that the accountable ownership and use of marijuana via adults is not topic to felony consequences. NORML additional advocates for a regulated business hashish marketplace in order that actions involving the for-profit manufacturing and retail sale of hashish and hashish merchandise are secure, clear, consumer-friendly, and are topic to state and/or native licensure. In the end, NORML advocates for added adjustments in felony and regulatory insurance policies in order that those that use marijuana responsibly not face both social stigma or place of work discrimination, and in order that the ones with previous felony data for marijuana-related violations have the option to have their data mechanically expunged.
In finding out extra at norml.org and skim the NORML Truth Sheets on the commonest misconceptions and myths referring to hashish and hashish insurance policies.
Photograph: Shutterstock
This text is from an exterior, unpaid contributor. It does now not constitute Prime Occasions’ reporting and has now not been edited for content material or accuracy.
