Why is Marijuana Illegal?

Why is Marijuana Illegal?


Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.


The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.


You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with:


Racism
Fear
>>>>>>>>>Protection of Corporate Profits<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.


Background


For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It’s not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it’s been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.


The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600&#8242;s, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900&#8242;s.


America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law “ordering” all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other “must grow” laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp — try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements – rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.


The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations” (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.


The Mexican Connection


In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing’s army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.


One of the “differences” seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing “preparations of hemp, or loco weed.”


However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church’s reaction to this may have contributed to the state’s marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)


Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.


When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator’s comment: “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.” In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”


Jazz and Assassins


In the eastern states, the “problem” was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong’s “Muggles”, Cab Calloway’s “That Funny Reefer Man”, Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag”).


Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”


Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the “assassins.” Early stories of Marco Polo had told of “hasheesh-eaters” or hashashin, from which derived the term “assassin.” In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler’s garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler’s wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.


By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp.” Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.


Alcohol Prohibition and Federal Approaches to Drug Prohibition


During this time, the United States was also dealing with alcohol prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Alcohol prohibition was extremely visible and debated at all levels, while drug laws were passed without the general public’s knowledge. National alcohol prohibition happened through the mechanism of an amendment to the constitution.


Earlier (1914), the Harrison Act was passed, which provided federal tax penalties for opiates and cocaine.


The federal approach is important. It was considered at the time that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to outlaw alcohol or drugs. It is because of this that alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment.


At that time in our country’s history, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of “local” affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause (since then, both provisions have been weakened so far as to have almost no meaning).


Since drugs could not be outlawed at the federal level, the decision was made to use federal taxes as a way around the restriction. In the Harrison Act, legal uses of opiates and cocaine were taxed (supposedly as a revenue need by the federal government, which is the only way it would hold up in the courts), and those who didn’t follow the law found themselves in trouble with the treasury department.


In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established — the Federal Bureau of Narcotics — and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.


Harry J. Anslinger


Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity — a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn’t be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.


Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from “Gore Files” — wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and… Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files:


“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 any others.”


“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”


“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”


“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”


“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”


“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”


“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”


And he loved to pull out his own version of the “assassin” definition:


“In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs’ ‘hashashin’ that we have the English word ‘assassin.’”


Yellow Journalism


Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn’t want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.


Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:


“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days — Hashish goads users to bloodlust.”


“By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”


And other nationwide columns…


“Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug.”


“Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim’s life in Los Angeles?… THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES — that is a matter of cold record.”


Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by >>>>Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis.

>>>>Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, >>with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.

(Shuette??--dow chemical ....he needs to go)



This all set the stage for…


The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.


After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress — complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs.


It was a remarkably short set of hearings.


The one fly in Anslinger’s ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association.


Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger’s view.


He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people’s minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren’t even aware of it.


Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee:


“That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.


But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.


You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.


Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.


Inquiry of the Office of Education— and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit— indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.


Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.


Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.


The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence.”


Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in:


The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.


Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.


After some further bantering…


The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:


The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.


The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.


The result is tragic.


School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.


High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.


This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.


The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.


That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.


And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science.


The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:


Member from upstate New York: “Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?”


Speaker Rayburn: “I don’t know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it’s a narcotic of some kind.”


“Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?”


Member on the committee jumps up and says: “Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent.”


And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.


The entire coverage in the New York Times: “President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions.”


Anslinger as precursor to the Drug Czars


Anslinger was essentially the first Drug Czar. Even though the term didn’t exist until William Bennett’s position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, Anslinger acted in a similar fashion. In fact, there are some amazing parallels between Anslinger and the current Drug Czar John Walters. Both had kind of a carte blanche to go around demonizing drugs and drug users. Both had resources and a large public podium for their voice to be heard and to promote their personal agenda. Both lied constantly, often when it was unnecessary. Both were racists. Both had the ear of lawmakers, and both realized that they could persuade legislators and others based on lies, particularly if they could co-opt the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views.


Anslinger even had the ability to circumvent the First Amendment. He banned the Canadian movie “Drug Addict,” a 1946 documentary that realistically depicted the drug addicts and law enforcement efforts. He even tried to get Canada to ban the movie in their own country, or failing that, to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing the movie in Canada. Canada refused. (Today, Drug Czar John Walters is trying to bully Canada into keeping harsh marijuana laws.)


Anslinger had 37 years to solidify the propaganda and stifle opposition. The lies continued the entire time (although the stories would adjust — the 21 year old Florida boy who killed his family of five got younger each time he told it). In 1961, he looked back at his efforts:


“Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana “reefers.” As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts.


I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides.”


After Anslinger


On a break from college in the 70s, I was visiting a church in rural Illinois. There in the literature racks in the back of the church was a lurid pamphlet about the evils of marijuana — all the old reefer madness propaganda about how it caused insanity and murder. I approached the minister and said “You can’t have this in your church. It’s all lies, and the church shouldn’t be about promoting lies.” Fortunately, my dad believed me, and he had the material removed. He didn’t even know how it got there. But without me speaking up, neither he nor the other members of the church had any reason NOT to believe what the pamphlet said. The propaganda machine had been that effective.


The narrative since then has been a continual litany of:


Politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and passing tougher penalties
Constant increases in spending on law enforcement and prisons
Racist application of drug laws
Taxpayer funded propaganda
Stifling of opposition speech
Political contributions from corporations that profit from marijuana being illegal (pharmaceuticals, alcohol, etc.)
… but that’s another whole story.


Interlude…


This account only scratches the surface of the story. If you want to know more about the history of marijuana, Harry Anslinger, and the saga of criminalization in the United States and elsewhere, visit some of the excellent links below. (All data and quotes for this piece came from these sources as well).


• The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference.


• THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION by
Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II. VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW. VOLUME 56 OCTOBER 1970 NUMBER 6


• The Consumers Union Report – Licit and Illicit Drugs
by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine


• The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn.
Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972


• The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse
I. Control of Marihuana, Alcohol and Tobacco.
History of Marihuana Legislation


• The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.
The history of how the Marihuana Tax Act came to be the law of the land.


• Marijuana – The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest L. Abel, 1980




http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/

Good read. I was aware of some of it but not the part about Anslinger.

We can all blame Anslinger for this ridiculous law, he wanted to keep his job, so he instacated the whole thing, "refer Madness". today people are beginning to understand that it's not as bad as it was proposed, thank God for us growers.

Propaganda and information control was easy back in Anslinger's day, even in this country. How the likes of Eric Holder has maintained and built upon this now billion dollar criminal empire is beyond explanation today. If the people knew the truth back then they'd have done something about it. Today we know the truth and the absurdity of our "Justice System" is unquestionable, yet these career criminals just keep on keeping on

TheMan13 said:

Propaganda and information control was easy back in Anslinger's day, even in this country. How the likes of Eric Holder has maintained and built upon this now billion dollar criminal empire is beyond explanation today. If the people knew the truth back then they'd have done something about it. Today we know the truth and the absurdity of our "Justice System" is unquestionable, yet these career criminals just keep on keeping on

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A+
Well put.

Henry Anslinger was a particularly evil man, and this thread does a good job of describing exactly how he practically ruined this entire country and filled the heads of our parents and grandparents full of lies that they were too busy being complacent about to refute. However, as a marijuana researcher with particular interest in Anslinger, I would like to present an additional piece of the puzzle that may help explain this man's zeal to persecute marijuana, and it doesn't have anything to do with racism or a grab for power.

About 16 years ago I was working on a special project with an underground biologist. We were working on using colchicine to alter cannabis plant chromosomes to become polyploid. Interestingly, after immersion nearly 98% of the plants did not survive, but those that did survive were polyploid, and the plants that reached maturity were...well, amazing to say the least.

Anyway, the biologist in charge of this operation was much older than me and had been working with cannabis for a long time. According to his sources - who were at one time close to the administration in Anslinger's time - Anslinger actually smoked marijuana.

Well, he thought he did anyway. The story goes that Anslinger had occasion to try smoking marijuana some time before he went on his insane prohibition crusade. The only problem was that the person providing the marijuana didn't provide marijuana at all, and instead Anslinger and several other people smoked Jimson Weed, AKA Datura Stramonium, which is a member of the deadly Nightshade family of plants.

Jimson weed causes severe delusions, hallucinations and general crazy euphoria, but it's also extremely toxic and many, many people have had bad trips on this herb - or worse - deadly trips. Do some research on Jimson Weed and you'll be fairly shocked.

Anyway, the story has it that Anslinger smoked some Jimson Weed and had a very, very bad time. I heard from one other reliable source in addition to the biologist/chemist who said that Anslinger ran off into the forest on his own and was found some time later, naked and exposed in the woods in a catatonic state.

Supposedly Anslinger never knew the difference between Jimson weed and marijuana, so when he started eyeballing the opportunity the new office of Narcotics would mean to him, his crusade became a personal one.

It was not about racism; although Anslinger was certainly a racist. It was not about money, although Anslinger was a greedy turd. It was not about power, although Anslinger was greedy in this regard as well.

Instead, it was all about a mistake. A stupid mistake that caused one man to go temporarily insane, who then was able to convince the entire world (almost) that marijuana would make everyone who used it, also insane.

This was a personal mission, and you can bet that Anslinger would do everything in his power to make sure that no one ever found out he actually tried what he thought was marijuana. But he could still use racism and misinformation in order to achieve his mission of making sure the Devil's Weed (actually Jimson Weed) was eradicated so that no one would ever have to go through what he went through that day in the forest.

It's a fascinating story and I have no hard evidence to back it up. However, I learned of this story nearly 2 decades ago when people weren't even talking about legalization, and no one knew who Anslinger was. The sources were extremely reliable, so I am inclined to believe that this actually happened. It makes sense, and I hope that as I uncover more research for a marijuana history book that I am writing, that I will find some evidence - either hearsay or otherwise - to support what I was told in the lab while burning seedlings up with colchicine.

Check out the book "Home Grown" (Marijuana and the origins of Mexico's war on drugs), by Isaac Campos. (The University of North Carolina press, 2012) It is a dry read at times, maybe from a doctorial thesis?

It is very informative and Mexico predates making marijuana illegal decades before Anslinger arrived on the scene.

Marijuana was used be prisioners (and their guards), essentially the dregs of society (don't take that personal).

It seems that the few individuals that became crazed after using marijuana and performed bad things (killing, etc.) got a lot of press, with each successive telling of the tale more out to lunch. The stories grew bigger as time went on, the papers of the time sensationalized the stories without much truth. US papers began printing stories in their papers of the deviants in Mexico using marijuana and committing terrible crimes. Some of the stories printed were 10 to 15 years old at the time they were reported to the US reader. The time frame for this , 1890-1920. Marijuana had been illegal in Mexico for essentially 1800's forward.

Mexico has been fighting marijuana a long time, and throughout it's history has been anti-marijuana a long time. I believe that its softening stance towards it today (in Mexico) is out of the necessity to curb the violence surrounding the cartels. Mexico for the most part is still anti-marijuana.

phizzion said:

Check out the book "Home Grown" (Marijuana and the origins of Mexico's war on drugs), by Isaac Campos. (The University of North Carolina press, 2012) It is a dry read at times, maybe from a doctorial thesis?

It is very informative and Mexico predates making marijuana illegal decades before Anslinger arrived on the scene.

Marijuana was used be prisioners (and their guards), essentially the dregs of society (don't take that personal).

It seems that the few individuals that became crazed after using marijuana and performed bad things (killing, etc.) got a lot of press, with each successive telling of the tale more out to lunch. The stories grew bigger as time went on, the papers of the time sensationalized the stories without much truth. US papers began printing stories in their papers of the deviants in Mexico using marijuana and committing terrible crimes. Some of the stories printed were 10 to 15 years old at the time they were reported to the US reader. The time frame for this , 1890-1920. Marijuana had been illegal in Mexico for essentially 1800's forward.

Mexico has been fighting marijuana a long time, and throughout it's history has been anti-marijuana a long time. I believe that its softening stance towards it today (in Mexico) is out of the necessity to curb the violence surrounding the cartels. Mexico for the most part is still anti-marijuana.

Click to expand...

Former Mexican president endorses idea of legal pot business spanning U.S.


Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, has endorsed a local entrepreneur's vision for a legal pot business reaching across the U.S. and perhaps beyond its borders.


But former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively gave indications at a press conference this week that he may retreat from his earlier statements that he wanted to open up legal marijuana trade between Mexico and the United States.


Calling Shively's plans for a national brand of legal marijuana a "game-changer," Fox said in Seattle Thursday that he'd much rather sit next to the entrepreneur than Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most notorious drug warlord.


''It's time for a new start, a new vision. That's why I applaud this group," said Fox, who heads a think tank operating out of his presidential library. He said he is not involved in Shively's business venture.


Fox said it's time for his country to debate legalization because it's being savaged by illegal drug cartels. He noted that South American countries such as Uruguay are proceeding in that direction. "I am here convinced of the need for change and new avenues in a different direction," Fox said.


Shively predicted that in five years the Seattle headquarters of his nascent company, Diego Pellicer, would employ more than 1,000 people.


But Shively offered few details about the deals he said he has made to acquire Washington and Colorado medical-marijuana dispensaries. He also provided virtually no details about investors, amounts they've contributed and how those investments would not violate the federal prohibition of marijuana.


Shively's lawyer said the structure of the investments is confidential. Shively said details of his dispensary deals are private and privileged.


A filing by Shively's company with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late March showed that he had raised only $125,000 at that point. Shively said much has changed since then and in several weeks he will have raised $10 million.


A U.S. Department of Justice representative in Seattle had no comment on Shively's plans and referred questions to Washington, D.C. A department spokeswoman there would only say "the department is continuing to review the legalization initiatives passed in Washington and Colorado."


Flanked by a lawyer, doctor, dispensary owner, military veteran and others, Shively said Washington state has waited long enough for a green light from Washington, D.C., to move ahead with the voter-approved law legalizing adult-recreational pot in the state.


Shively said he had bought ownership rights to Northwest Patient Resource Center, a company run by local activist John Davis, which has two dispensaries in Seattle.


Shively said he's in the process of buying a smaller, but "equally professional" dispensary chain in Colorado.


Davis would be Shively's point person as his company tries to open shops in other states that allow medical marijuana. Davis said no money or marijuana would cross state borders in the company's expansion plans. Currently, 18 states and the District of Columbia allow medical marijuana.


Dreps said Shively's goal is to one day open franchises in Mexico for selling pot. But Shively's company would not be sending American pot across the border nor importing Mexican pot, he said.


In his evolving plan, Shively said, Mexican stores would offer local pot products. The idea of pot trade between the two countries is still worth considering, he said, adding that he and Fox intend to pursue it.


Shively estimated the current size of the U.S. marijuana market -- for both medical and recreational use -- at about $100 billion. He said he expects his company to one day have more than 10 million customers.


His estimate of the national market is more than three times the figure of $30 billion used in a book co-authored by the state's top pot consultant, Mark Kleiman.


That book, "Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know," also downplays the impact U.S. legalization would have on Mexican drug cartels.


http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2013/may/31/former-mexican-president-endorses-idea-of-legal/#axzz2vEGTIQFs



Remember....one 'cartel' is from the people.....the other one is the govt arm......just like here-

Leftist Mexican lawmakers present medical marijuana bill


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Left-wing Mexican senators on Tuesday presented an initiative to legalize medical marijuana, saying a new approach was needed to speed up drug liberalization and help end a cycle of cartel violence that has killed tens of thousands.


Mexico has been shaken by a wave of gang-related violence since former President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on drug cartels seven years ago, and there is growing pressure both domestically and regionally to explore new ways of tackling the problem.


"Seventy thousand dead, 26,000 disappeared and an incalculable number of internally displaced are more than sufficient reason to look for an alternative model," congressman Fernando Belaunzaran told reporters.


The proposal is one of several efforts by members of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to decriminalize cannabis.


Officials have said that President Enrique Peña Nieto is watching developments in marijuana legislation around the world, but he has so far opposed any move to legalize any illegal drugs.


The PRD is the third largest party in Mexico's Congress, and neither Pena Nieto's party nor the country's conservative opposition have supported marijuana legalization efforts.


The Senate bill will provide a legal framework for the production, transportation and distribution of medical marijuana, PRD Senator Mario Delgado said. The PRD said it would present the same initiative to the lower house next week.


In 2009, Mexico made it legal to carry up to 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of marijuana, 500 milligrams (0.018 ounce) of cocaine and tiny amounts of heroin and methamphetamine.


The PRD bill would increase the amount of marijuana that is legal to carry sixfold to 30 grams (1.06 ounces).


The move by Mexican lawmakers follows recent marijuana legalization initiatives in Uruguay and the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington.


Belaunzaran noted the United States, "the champion of prohibition," is changing its approach to marijuana, citing the Obama administration's decision not to intervene federally in state marijuana measures. Medical marijuana is now legal in 20 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.


Cannabis decriminalization is also being considered by Mexico City's city assembly, which has been controlled by the PRD since 1997. Last week, city lawmakers announced details of a proposal to establish legal marijuana sales in the capital, although the bill will not be formally presented until March.


The Mexico City decriminalization effort could be subject to a federal crackdown without the Senate reform.


Legalization efforts have been boosted by several high-profile supporters, including former Presidents Vicente Fox and Ernesto Zedilllo.


http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-02-18/news/sns-rt-us-mexico-marijuana-20140218_1_marijuana-legalization-fernando-belaunzaran-medical-marijuana




Perry endorses state control of marijuana


posted at 10:41 am on January 24, 2014 by Ed Morrissey


Over the last couple of days, I&#8217;ve argued that the White House has begun to set up another &#8220;evolution&#8221; on a social issue that plays strongly among younger voters &#8212; marijuana legalization &#8212; and that Republicans would likely have to keep pace with the change. Count Rick Perry as one getting ahead of the curve. Perry told the World Economic Forum in Davos that he opposes legalization in Texas, but he wants to start moving toward decriminalization &#8212; and that he fully supports a federalist approach in letting states make those decisions. The Daily Beast&#8217;s Ben Jacobs wonders whether his &#8220;liberal stance&#8221; will make him stronger for a 2016 bid for the GOP presidential nomination:


Well, he isn&#8217;t for legalizing the drug but the Governor of Texas, in the rather un-Texan setting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, endorsed taking steps towards decriminalizing cannabis possession on Thursday.


In a panel at the prestigious forum, Perry said: &#8220;What I can do as the governor of the second largest state in the nation is to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization and keeps people from going to prison and destroying their lives, and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve done over the last decade.&#8221;


In a statement to the San Antonio Express-News, Lucy Nashed, a Perry spokeswoman attempted to clarify the governor&#8217;s position. &#8220;Legalization is no penalty at all whereas decriminalization doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean jail time (for minor possession offenses),&#8221; she said. &#8220;It means more of a fine or counseling or some sort of program where you don&#8217;t end up in jail but in a rehabilitative program.&#8221;


The headline states, &#8220;Rick Perry mellows on pot.&#8221; Well, decriminalization might be a mellower position than Perry&#8217;s previous stance, but not by a whole lot, I&#8217;d guess. Perry himself noted that during his tenure as governor, the emphasis on enforcement has shifted over the past thirteen years of his tenure. Most states have already &#8220;decriminalized&#8221; simple possession to a low-ranking misdemeanor with a fine. Dealing is another matter, of course, but most jurisdictions have found that the cost of jailing people for simple possession is far costlier than its deterrent value, and that the better approach to this prohibition is at least some attempt at counseling and rehabilitation rather than housing people for what they do to themselves. And in some jurisdictions, that &#8220;mellowing&#8221; on simple possession and use isn&#8217;t limited to marijuana, either.


On the other hand, this gets right into Perry&#8217;s federalist wheelhouse. In his speech, he also noted that what works for Colorado won&#8217;t necessarily work for Texas, and vice versa:


&#8220;But,&#8221; he continued, &#8220;the point is that after 40 years of the war on drugs, I can&#8217;t change what happened in the past. What I can do as the governor of the second largest state in the nation is to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization and keeps people from going to prison and destroying their lives, and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve done over the last decade. So I think there&#8217;s some innovation that goes on in the states that can translate not just to Oklahoma or California or New York, but to Switzerland, to France, to other countries that have this drug issue facing them, that there are some alternatives without going that big full step and decriminalizing and sending a message to people that it&#8217;s OK.&#8221;


The federalist message will sell with libertarian-minded Republicans, but will that alienate social conservatives that mostly support Perry? Peter Weber at The Week says yes:


Let&#8217;s look at the polls: An October 2013 Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana, a number that drops to 35 percent when you look at just Republicans. Similarly, in an April 2013 Pew poll that found 52 percent support for legalizing weed, only 37 percent of GOP voters (29 percent of conservative Republicans) and 33 percent of voter 65 and older were on board. In a January poll from CNN/ORC International, 55 percent backed legalizing pot, but only 36 percent of Republicans and 48 percent of voters in the South agreed.


Maybe Perry&#8217;s talk of easing up on the war on pot will appeal to the younger, libertarian-leaning Republicans who formed the backbone of the Ron Paul Revolution &#8212; but they already have a candidate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Perry is hardly libertarian on social issues. As GOP strategist Ford O&#8217;Connell says at U.S. News, &#8220;the growing &#8216;conser-tarian&#8217; movement&#8230; will find much to like, although some to dislike, in Perry&#8217;s agenda.&#8221;


More to the point, look at who voted in the 2012 GOP primaries: Old (white) people, mostly. &#8220;In 12 of the 16 states where exit polls have been conducted,&#8221; said National Journal&#8216;s Ron Brownstein in March 2012, &#8220;voters over 50 cast at least 60 percent of the GOP primary votes; in the other four, they represented at least 55 percent of the vote.&#8221; In Florida and Nevada, more than 70 percent of the GOP primary electorate was AARP-eligible.


It&#8217;s true that a majority of Americans now appear to back legalizing marijuana, but Perry can&#8217;t try to win their vote until he gets through the Republican primary. And even if he did win the nomination, he still needs older voters to back him in large numbers: In 2012, Romney won 52 percent of voters age 50 to 64 and 56 percent of the 65+ demographic. These are the only cohorts that don&#8217;t support marijuana legalization.


Yes, but that assumes marijuana prohibition occupies the same priority level as, say, abortion. It doesn&#8217;t, though. While social conservatives (and some progressives) still oppose legalization for the signals of moral approval it sends, it&#8217;s not likely to be a make-or-break issue, even in a Republican primary. We do see some single-issue voters on abortion, but I&#8217;m unaware of any on pot, especially since until very recently both parties wanted to maintain the government prohibition on it. And since decriminalization is a process that has been ongoing for a couple of decades, it&#8217;s hardly radical enough to be a last-straw issue, even in Republican primaries and caucuses in deeply conservative states.


The issue here isn&#8217;t moral signals, but political signals. Marijuana is about the only issue left that will energize college-age and graduate voters, especially now that they&#8217;re getting a good look at the costs associated with ObamaCare. Perry&#8217;s approach is a good model for Republicans &#8212; defuse the issue with both a not-total-legalization policy married to federalism that gets Washington out of the mix on the issue. That&#8217;s enough to dilute the impact of the inevitable &#8220;evolution&#8221; that will come later this year when Democrats get desperate for campaign energy.

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/01/24/perry-endorses-state-control-of-marijuana/

They are doing it for 'votes' now......and to look like they support it....(dialectic?)

Read politics of heroin in southeast asia to understand the drug war/dialectic--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia

http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Heroin-Complicity-Global/dp/1556524838


http://www.druglibrary.eu/library/books/McCoy/mccoy.pdf

Heres some bad press....sensationalizing the need for regulation





3rd-Graders Caught Smoking Weed In School Bathroom: Cops




Dude, when's snack time?


Three third-grade California students were caught smoking marijuana at their elementary school, police say.


The San Francisco students, two 8-year-olds and a 9-year-old, were toking up in the school bathroom when another student saw them and told a teacher on Feb. 27, CBS San Francisco reported. School administrators then contacted police.


&#8220;We saw the three kids get taken out of the bathroom, but that is all we saw,&#8221; seventh grader Mary Montano told KTXL-TV.


&#8220;[I&#8217;m] shocked. To be in third grade and have their own pipe,&#8221; parent Linda Rodriguez told the station. &#8220;I think they should be expelled, but I also think they should follow it further to where they found [the drugs].&#8221;


The Tuolumne County Probation Department is now looking into the case.


In 2011, two New Mexico third graders were also caught smoking weed at school. When one boy was asked by an officer how many times he's smoked weed, the boy said that "he hit it hard a lot," KOAT reported.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/05/3rd-graders-smoke-weed_n_4905776.html