NEWSLANC EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an Op-Ed published in the Sacramento Bee.
It was 75 years ago this summer that the war on the Devil Weed was launched by a former railroad cop named Harry Anslinger. If Mr. Anslinger had found some other line of work, it’s quite possible that marijuana prohibition might never have happened.
A bull-necked tough guy with a talent for organizing, Anslinger rose through the ranks of Treasury Agents fighting for a booze-free America in the 1920s. When Alcohol Prohibition was repealed in 1933, Anslinger had already landed on his feet as Commissioner of the newly created Bureau of Narcotics. Unfortunately for the rest of us, he fell into a crime-fighting competition with his rival J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI.
By 1935 Anslinger had come up with a strategy to vastly increase his turf. A handful of border state sheriffs were complaining about a foreign plague creeping up from the south—a weed the Mexicans called “marihuana” that was driving its victims insane. A single toke, it was said, could cause you to chop up your grandmother.
Anslinger initially ridiculed the idea of banning the plant—“It grows like dandelions”—but he finally saw its value as a symbol. So he upgraded the cannabis plant from a medicinal herb to an evil “as hellish as heroin.” To stoke the flames, he played the race card.
“There are 100,000 total marihuana smokers in the U.S,” he warned the Hearst papers, “and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music—Jazz and Swing—result from marihuana use. This marihuana can cause white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
Most Americans had never heard of the weed and the U.S. Congress hadn’t either. But in a series of Committee Hearings, Anslinger managed to horrify the lawmakers with tales of rape, murder and mayhem brought on by the Devil Weed. The principal witness was Commissioner Anslinger and his evidence consisted largely of newspaper clippings quoting himself. No scientific studies were presented. None of his charges were ever corroborated. The Hearings were, as USC lawprofessor Charles Whitebread observed, “near comic examples of dereliction of legislative responsibility.”
On June 14, 1937 the bill came to the House floor without debate. In a vote they didn’t bother to record, on a matter of little interest, Congress casually passed a bill that would radically transform society. Last year alone we arrested over 750,000 people for simple possession. In California we have had to stop building universities in favor of prisons. The overall price tag is in the hundreds of billions. Surely after such a monumental sacrifice we must have something to show for it?
Sorry. The 100,000 tokers Mr. Anslinger warned us about have doubled and redoubled again and again. Last year an estimated 28 million Americans smoked the weed, nearly a hundred-fold increase per capita. Children say it’s easier to buy than beer.
But now, thanks to the state that so often points us toward the future, Californians have a chance to bring this tragic chapter to a close. Proposition 19 will free us from the bondage of this misbegotten policy and free our lawmen to focus on real rapists, robbers and murderers.
The opponents of Prop 19 use the same arguments they used in the battle against legalizing medical use. But in the 16 years since we passed Prop 215, a dozen other states have followed our lead and as everyone can plainly see, the sky has not fallen. If we’re willing to lead once again and the sky doesn’t fall, the others will surely follow.
Mike Gray, Chairman, Common Sense for Drug Policy
Mr. Gray is the author of Drug Crazy, a drug war history. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay for The China Syndrome
