A Brief History of Marijuana Prohibition, Pt. 2

So, how did cannabis go from being viewed as one of the most useful, profitable crops in the world to where it is today? The campaign demonizing marijuana began with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst.  Yep, that's right, the father of "yellow journalism" himself.  

For those of you who aren't familiar with Hearst, he was the inspiration for Welles' Citizen Kane.  He exerted huge political influence and even greater influence on public opinion through his thirty plus newspapers.  He greatly abused his power, filling his papers with lurid sensationalism, seldom backed by fact, to promote whatever personal cause he was championing at the moment.  He is regularly credited with instigating the Spanish American War with his yellow journalism and his papers were a constant source of slander and blatant bigotry against Mexican-Americans, Spaniards, Latinos, and African Americans.

From 1910 Hearst led a campaign against cocaine, claiming that in most cases where blacks were accused of raping white women the incident could be traced directly to cocaine use.  But beginning in 1920, he got a new poster child in his anti-drug campaign, marijuana, and that suddenly became the cause in the majority of such incidents.  According to his newspapers marijuana was also responsible for a crime wave of epic proportions, directly responsible for such offenses as "Negroes" and Mexicans - stepping on white mens shadows, looking white people in the eye, looking at white women twice, laughing at white people, etc.

While marijuana is the name most people relate to the cannabis plant today, it wasn't always so.  At that time, hemp and cannabis were the most used names for the plant, and most Americans had no idea whatsoever that marijuana, hemp, and cannabis were actually the same plant! It was Hearst who pounded the name "Marihuana" into Americans' brains, doing his best to make it synonymous with crime, insanity, and death.   

From 1935-1937, the Treasury Department held a series of secret meetings where prohibitive tax laws against marijuana were drafted without the knowledge or input of the public or health professionals.  Now here is where an interesting pattern emerges for those looking closely enough.  On April 14, 1937 the Marijuana tax bill was introduced directly to the House Ways and Means Committee, the only committee that can send its bills directly to the house floor without debate.  It was stamped quickly by Ways and Means Chairman Robert Doughton, a key ally to the DuPont Company.

Pt 3 tomorrow or the next day!