So, Why is Marijuana Illegal?
Taking a quick break from cryptocurrency to discuss some important history. We can talk about 420 crypto soon. ;) Enjoy!
I was shocked when the question first came to my mind sometime in 2015: “Why is marijuana illegal?” I didn’t know. Immediately I went to Google and started poking around. All that flooded my search results was “Should we legalize drugs?”
Everyone is familiar with that question, and everyone has an opinion, even if Colorado and California cannabis dispensaries are yesterday’s news. But before you ask “should we legalize” you should know some facts about why the US government originally federally outlawed marijuana.
The first law regarding marijuana, at the time generally referred to as “Indian Hemp,” was passed in 1619 in the Virginia Colonies, and it actually required farmers to grow it (now that’s something they don’t teach you in grade school). The plant was most often used as legal tender, rope, cloth, etc., and if the government caught you not growing your ration of hemp — marijuana, mind you — you could be jailed. This tradition of requiring farmers by law to grow marijuana continued until the early 1900s.
After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, many immigrants came into America, and with them, came marijuana. A cultural tradition, the smoking of cannabis was overlooked in the US until several Mormons traveled from Utah to Mexico, and later brought it back to their home state. Their church leaders were outraged at the “immoral” behavior surrounding the smoking of the plant, known then as “loco weed,” and they pressured the State to outlaw it as soon as possible (there is some scholarly dispute as to who actually outlawed marijuana first, Utah or California, but there is not enough substantial evidence to condemn either. It is safe to say they both prohibited it around the same time).
Other states quickly emulated them (as States often do), and by 1927, nine states had outlawed marijuana purely because a few Mormon churches thought it was unbecoming of their members to be partaking (if you’re not familiar with Mormonism, they are also disallowed from drinking coffee, tea, alcohol, smoking tobacco, and listening to “vulgar” music). By this time, however, legislators took to racist reasoning behind their prohibition laws, with one Texan Senator going so far as to say, “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”
During the era of prohibition that followed, a new division of the Treasury Department was made, called the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Directed by a man named Harry J. Anslinger, a man who saw drug prohibition as a means to great personal enrichment, the Bureau immediately began a campaign to federally prohibit cannabis, simply because there weren’t enough people using cocaine and opiates at the time to justify the budget (and salary) Anslinger was proposing to Congress.
Anslinger primarily used vehement racial slurs as evidences against marijuana use. He was cited saying,
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and many others, [and] the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
Some people think that marijuana wasn’t outlawed so early, and its usage was only taxed in 1937, but they are unwilling to investigate the intense racism of the years prior. Instead of saving us money, economists now estimate drug prohibition costs the US taxpayer $7.7 billion annually.
So just take a moment and think about why we outlawed marijuana in the first place, and the absurd amount of taxes you and I annually pay to support its prohibition. After knowing the truth behind marijuana, and in this age where we care passionately about racial reconciliation, do we really need to be asking, “should we legalize?” Isn’t the answer obvious?
In today’s political climate of “Make America Great Again,” we are sadly falling far behind in many political areas, and cannabis legalization is among them. With Canada recently becoming the second nation to federally legalize marijuana, and with Mexico soon to become the third, Congress and the Trump Administration should be ashamed of the fact that we’ve let racism and political corruption blind us for these many years.
And why didn’t we “wake up” to these facts decades ago? Racial injustices and ignorance of our history are certainly a contributing factor, but another factor is the money big pharmaceutical companies stand to lose if this natural remedy is federally legalized. You want to put a large dent in the opioid crisis? Take a look into legalizing cannabis.
And if you really want to be disgusted, take a look at the companies who have financially backed anti-marijuana politicians like Jeff Sessions. It was, in fact, the tobacco industry helped get Jeff Sessions elected to the Senate in 1996. During his 1996 campaign, Sessions received so much money from R. J. Reyonlds, the maker of Camel cigarettes, that his staff had to send money back to the company because they had donated more than was legally allowed.
If you believe marijuana should remain illegal, but you haven’t done the research, I hope this history lesson is a wake-up call for you like it is for me. But if this wasn’t enough, check out this video on how beneficial medical marijuana can be for people suffering from Parkinson’s. And then maybe follow that up with this video of former police officers smoking weed together for the first time.
Don’t just believe marijuana is bad or immoral just because society has told you so. They might be wrong.
If you are interested in finding out more about the history of marijuana prohibition (and about the sources for this article), check out drugwarrant.com, written and maintained by Dr. Pete Guither of Illinois State University, and prohibitioncosts.org for a unique perspective from Milton Friedman, famed economist of the University of Chicago.
