Marijuana. John Hudak
and xenophobia.
In speeches around the country, testimony before Congress, and articles that he published in both the popular press and more serious journals, Anslinger made it his mission to outlaw drugs, and he wholeheartedly embraced “marihuana” for its “Mexican-ness” and its ability to serve the ends he sought. In one essay, Anslinger tells readers about marijuana’s entry into American society and its effects: “Marijuana was introduced into the United States from Mexico, and swept across America with incredible speed. It began with the whispering of vendors in the Southwest that marijuana would perform miracles for those who smoked it.… They were not told that addicts may often develop delirious rage during which they are temporarily and violently insane; that this insanity may take the form of a desire for self-destruction or a persecution complex to be satisfied only by the commission of some heinous crime.”12 Anslinger goes on to list multiple brutal crimes, attributing each to the use of the scary weed from Mexico.
In addition to Anslinger, local police chiefs and district attorneys played an important role not just in pushing the word “marijuana” into common parlance but in slathering it in a coating of racial resentment. In 1931 the district attorney of Orleans Parish in Louisiana, Eugene Stanley, published an article in the American Journal of Political Science about the different groups that historically had been “marihuana” users, including Mexicans, Indians, Persians (a group called Assassins), Malays, and others.13 Stanley goes on to note, “The underworld has been quick to realize the value of this drug in subjugating the will of human derelicts to that of a master mind. Its use sweeps away all restraint, and to its influence may be attributed many of our present day crimes.… It has been indulged in by criminals so as to relieve themselves from the natural restraint which might deter them from the commission of criminal acts.”14
These efforts by government officials are clear in their intent: to link marijuana to unknown, mysterious, or feared groups from other parts of the world, and to link marijuana use to lawlessness and serious criminal offenses. In effect, marijuana—not cannabis or hemp—was a scourge on society, brought to us by all the people we fear or should fear. The race baiting is obvious, and “marijuana” became the preferred term for those spewing xenophobic rhetoric.
The advocacy community’s rejection of the term “marijuana” is based on a legitimate interpretation of the history of the term’s use. Other authors and speakers who prefer to use “cannabis” are perfectly within their right. I understand fully their position, continue to respect the concerns of those who despise the term, and know this note will do little to justify my position or convince some of the legitimacy of my choice. I have chosen to use “marijuana” in this book—even in the title—because of contemporary uses of the term. It is mainstream; it is standard; it is the term Americans use almost universally when discussing cannabis and its products. There may well be people who still use the term as a means of invoking racialized language, but most Americans do not.
Part II
THE GOVERNMENT STEPS IN
2
Early Regulation and a New (Drug) Deal
During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Progressives sought to institute reforms to empower the federal government to regulate commerce in ways that protected workers, consumers, and the public. Progressive regulation grew to touch many facets of American life, such as the temperance movement and the push for workers’ rights. It also shaped early efforts to regulate food and drugs.
The American medical system of the nineteenth century was largely unregulated and doctors were often poorly trained. Little standardization was applied to the elixirs the medical community used to treat conditions and diseases. Patient safety was threatened. The medical community and state governments began to consider ways in which the quality and delivery of medicine and medical products could be improved.
The Government Steps in as Regulator
In 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, one of the nation’s first efforts to regulate and standardize commercial drugs, food, and other products. The focus was on the branding, packaging, and adulteration of such products. The law, which empowered the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Chemistry to test and regulate substances, had a clear impact on marijuana. “Drugs” in the law are substances defined “in accordance with the standards of strength, quality, and purity” in the United States Pharmacopeia or National Formulary (USP–NF), a two-volume compendium of “public pharmacopeial standards for chemical and biological drug substances, dosage forms, compounded preparations, excipients, medical devices, and dietary supplements.”1 Published annually by the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, the USP-NF is the Holy Bible for pharmacists; until 1942, marijuana had its own chapter and verse.
The Pure Food and Drug Act did not outlaw marijuana, nor even tax it. Essentially it allowed the Agriculture Department to put standards in place to ensure its safe use. In fact, as long as the USP-NF included marijuana, the substance was legal and regulated under the act. However, the act did mark the expansion of the federal government’s regulatory power into a new arena—an expansion that would eventually be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. It put the federal government in the business of controlling drugs, a power that would only grow over time.
In fact, shortly thereafter Congress passed what came to be known as the Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 in response to racially motivated disputes with Chinese immigrants in the West. This act banned the import of opium and its derivatives into the United States. Over time the banning of opium imports would be expanded to other drugs.
In 1914 Congress passed the Harrison Act, named after its chief sponsor, Representative Francis Burton Harrison (D-N.Y.), which created a prescription registry and imposed a special tax of one dollar per year for anyone manufacturing, distributing, or dispensing opium and cocaine.2 It allowed the government to keep an account of prescriptions written for such substances and prescribed criminal penalties for doctors who violated the act by dispensing or possessing such substances without permission or without paying requisite taxes. In fact, doctors were prosecuted under this law. Physicians undertook efforts to have the law overturned on constitutional grounds, but a series of Supreme Court rulings upheld it.
These laws not only flexed the regulatory muscle of the U.S. government but also marked a period in American history in which drug control policy was executed through taxation. Criminalization of drug use did not come via prohibition of possession, distribution, or production. Instead, during this period criminal charges were pinned on those skirting tax requirements. This system reflects a type of government power still used today—the use of tax penalties or incentives to stimulate preferred behaviors. Tax policy can be an effective behavioral incentive in not requiring but spurring individuals to make specific choices that the government believes creates social benefits. People are allowed to purchase cigarettes, but the federal and state governments impose taxes in efforts both to generate revenue and to reduce use. Conversely, the government offers tax deductions for people who attend college, own a home, and make energy-efficient improvements to their dwellings.
In the case of drug policy, a taxation regime sought to raise revenue and incentivize certain behaviors among consumers and doctors; namely, doctors would no longer prescribe opium as a maintenance drug for those experiencing dependence.3 Much of the regulation of drugs during the early part of the twentieth century fell to the Bureau of Chemistry, but as drug control policy expanded in scope, the administrative state regulatory structure expanded as well. In 1922 the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act (more commonly referred to as the Jones-Miller Act) established the Federal Narcotics Control Board and limited the importation of opium and cocaine into the United States except as authorized by the board (composed of the secretaries of state, treasury, and commerce). It expanded criminal penalties for illegal importation and put restrictions on the ability to export narcotic drugs.
At this time, opium was seen as a worldwide problem, and the Jones-Miller Act was passed to comply with the International Opium Convention (1912) that emerged from the First International Opium Conference (1912). Fears about addiction to opium were legitimate, but opium also elicited xenophobic fears about Asian immigrants and cultures. With this act, U.S. drug control policy began to shift away