There are a couple of things marijuana related that I want to bring up and since I do not feel like creating two posts I just combine the two on this one post. Here they are:
It’s incredible to see the progress we have made in recent years. Marijuana has been legalized for adults in nine states and Washington, D.C., and polls show two out of three Americans want to end the failed policy of prohibition.
But our opponents think they can stop our momentum — and they’re spending a lot of money to defeat Prop 1 in Michigan.
A win in Michigan would demonstrate the strength of our movement. But imagine the headlines if Prop 1 fails. Project SAM and their prohibitionist allies will claim that the tide is turning. Politicians in Congress would take note, and if they think voters are changing their mind, our reform efforts at the federal level could be jeopardized.
We have to prove the anti-legalization voices wrong. Make a donation to the YES on 1 campaign to help them fight back against their opposition’s fear tactics.
The Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol produced a series of powerful ads. These TV and digital ads tell the truth about legalization, and they are the perfect antidote to the opposition’s demonstrably false attack ads. Your contribution will go directly towards helping the campaign share these messages with more Michigan voters.
There’s not much time left. Election Day is just a few days away. I can’t emphasize enough how important Prop 1 is for the future of our legalization movement. Please, get in the fight and support the campaign today.
and this:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions may be waging a very public war against marijuana, but we have another Sessions to contend with, a much quieter one with an insidious agenda to ramp up the decades-old drug war, long ago proven to be wasteful and ineffective.
U.S. Representative Pete Sessions has been using his chairmanship of the Rules Committee to stifle popular amendments that would protect legal marijuana, refusing to bring them to the floor. This, despite a record 66% of adults in the U.S. being in favor of legalized marijuana, according to a recent Gallup poll.
This has to stop – and you can make it stop. Stand with the Drug Policy Alliance and tell Rep. Pete Sessions you won't stand for his harmful agenda to stifle drug policy reform. Sign our petition today.
Because of Rep. Sessions' actions, DPA hasn't even been able to produce our annual legislative report card to inform voters like you about elected officials' stances on marijuana reform, a resource we typically provide ahead of every election season.
Through his willful obstruction, Rep. Pete Sessions has halted reform that would help people across the board, including allowing veterans access to medical marijuana, protecting states from federal interference and expanding research into marijuana health benefits. Sign our petition now. Tell Rep. Pete Sessions his outdated, destructive drug war must end.
The election is on Tuesday. See you at the polls.
Showing posts with label marijuana prohibitionists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marijuana prohibitionists. Show all posts
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Jeff Sessions: ‘Medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much’
RICHMOND — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has repeatedly condemned the recreational use of marijuana. On Wednesday he went a step further, casting doubt on medical marijuana use.
“I think medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much,” he told reporters in Richmond after an event about violent crime. “Dosages can be constructed in a way that might be beneficial, I acknowledge that, but if you smoke marijuana, for example, where you have no idea how much THC you’re getting, it’s probably not a good way to administer a medicinal amount. So forgive me if I’m a bit dubious about that.”
Sessions also cast doubt, as he has before, on the use of marijuana to curb opioid addiction.
Studies have shown that medical marijuana laws and access to medical marijuana dispensaries are associated with fewer opioid deaths and less prescription painkiller abuse.
During his campaign, President Trump said he was “100 percent” in favor of medical marijuana. White House spokesman Sean Spicer recently confirmed that the president sees a “big difference” between using marijuana for medical and recreational purposes.
“The problem is that you’re seeing now a disagreement between Sessions and the president on the issue of medical marijuana,” said Michael Collins of the Drug Policy Alliance. “It’s concerning because the administration, the White House themselves, have sort of committed themselves to not going after medical marijuana. Sessions is out casting doubt on that.”
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Smoking is a necessary way to consume medical marijuana, he said, because chronic pain sufferers need the instantaneous relief other forms of the drug cannot provide. The dosage concern doesn’t make sense, he said, because there’s no evidence of fatal marijuana overdoses.
A congressional provision prevents the Justice Department from spending money to interfere with state-level medical marijuana programs. However, that appropriations amendment must be reauthorized this year. Twenty-eight states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico have medical marijuana programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Collins said the federal government could easily do research into marijuana efficacy, but that opponents of legalization are standing in the way.
“The people complaining that more research needs to be done are the very people in a position to do the research,” he said. “But they’ll never do it, because they know the research will show the positives.”
Independent studies have generally found marijuana to be effective for treating chronic pain, nausea and vomiting in cancer patients, and muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. But the Drug Enforcement Administration, which operates under the Justice Department, maintains that marijuana has no medical value.
Source
“I think medical marijuana has been hyped, maybe too much,” he told reporters in Richmond after an event about violent crime. “Dosages can be constructed in a way that might be beneficial, I acknowledge that, but if you smoke marijuana, for example, where you have no idea how much THC you’re getting, it’s probably not a good way to administer a medicinal amount. So forgive me if I’m a bit dubious about that.”
Sessions also cast doubt, as he has before, on the use of marijuana to curb opioid addiction.
Studies have shown that medical marijuana laws and access to medical marijuana dispensaries are associated with fewer opioid deaths and less prescription painkiller abuse.
During his campaign, President Trump said he was “100 percent” in favor of medical marijuana. White House spokesman Sean Spicer recently confirmed that the president sees a “big difference” between using marijuana for medical and recreational purposes.
“The problem is that you’re seeing now a disagreement between Sessions and the president on the issue of medical marijuana,” said Michael Collins of the Drug Policy Alliance. “It’s concerning because the administration, the White House themselves, have sort of committed themselves to not going after medical marijuana. Sessions is out casting doubt on that.”
Local Crime & Safety Alerts
Breaking news about public safety in and around D.C.
Sign up
Smoking is a necessary way to consume medical marijuana, he said, because chronic pain sufferers need the instantaneous relief other forms of the drug cannot provide. The dosage concern doesn’t make sense, he said, because there’s no evidence of fatal marijuana overdoses.
A congressional provision prevents the Justice Department from spending money to interfere with state-level medical marijuana programs. However, that appropriations amendment must be reauthorized this year. Twenty-eight states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico have medical marijuana programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Collins said the federal government could easily do research into marijuana efficacy, but that opponents of legalization are standing in the way.
“The people complaining that more research needs to be done are the very people in a position to do the research,” he said. “But they’ll never do it, because they know the research will show the positives.”
Independent studies have generally found marijuana to be effective for treating chronic pain, nausea and vomiting in cancer patients, and muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. But the Drug Enforcement Administration, which operates under the Justice Department, maintains that marijuana has no medical value.
Source
How Jeff Sessions wants to bring back the war on drugs
When the Obama administration launched a sweeping policy to reduce harsh prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, rave reviews came from across the political spectrum. Civil rights groups and the Koch brothers praised Obama for his efforts, saying he was making the criminal justice system more humane.
But there was one person who watched these developments with some horror. Steven H. Cook, a former street cop who became a federal prosecutor based in Knoxville, Tenn., saw nothing wrong with how the system worked — not the life sentences for drug charges, not the huge growth of the prison population. And he went everywhere — Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox News, congressional hearings, public panels — to spread a different gospel.
“The federal criminal justice system simply is not broken. In fact, it’s working exactly as designed,” Cook said at a criminal justice panel at The Washington Post last year.
The Obama administration largely ignored Cook, who was then president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys. But he won’t be overlooked anymore.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has brought Cook into his inner circle at the Justice Department, appointing him to be one of his top lieutenants to help undo the criminal justice policies of Obama and former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. As Sessions has traveled to different cities to preach his tough-on-crime philosophy, Cook has been at his side.
Sessions has yet to announce specific policy changes, but Cook’s new perch speaks volumes about where the Justice Department is headed.
Law enforcement officials say that Sessions and Cook are preparing a plan to prosecute more drug and gun cases and pursue mandatory minimum sentences. The two men are eager to bring back the national crime strategy of the 1980s and ’90s from the peak of the drug war, an approach that had fallen out of favor in recent years as minority communities grappled with the effects of mass incarceration.
Crime is near historic lows in the United States, but Sessions says that the spike in homicides in several cities, including Chicago, is a harbinger of a “dangerous new trend” in America that requires a tough response.
“Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad,” Sessions said to law enforcement officials in a speech in Richmond last month. “It will destroy your life.”
Advocates of criminal justice reform argue that Sessions and Cook are going in the wrong direction — back to a strategy that tore apart families and sent low-level drug offenders, disproportionately minority citizens, to prison for long sentences.
“They are throwing decades of improved techniques and technologies out the window in favor of a failed approach,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM).
But Cook, whose views are supported by other federal prosecutors, sees himself as a dedicated assistant U.S. attorney who for years has tried to protect neighborhoods ravaged by crime. He has called FAMM and organizations like it “anti-law enforcement groups.”
The records of Cook and Sessions show that while others have grown eager in recent years to rework the criminal justice system, they have repeatedly fought to keep its toughest edges, including winning a battle in Congress last year to defeat a reform bill.
“If hard-line means that my focus is on protecting communities from violent felons and drug traffickers, then I’m guilty,” Cook said in a recent interview with The Post. “I don’t think that’s hard-line. I think that’s exactly what the American people expect of their Department of Justice.”
When asked for a case that he was proud to work on during his three-decade career as a prosecutor, Cook points to when his office went after a crack ring operating in Chattanooga housing projects between 1989 and 1991.
This was during the height of the crack epidemic and the drug war. After the cocaine overdose of black basketball star Len Bias in 1986, Congress began passing “tough on crime” laws, including mandatory minimum sentences on certain drug and gun offenses. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed one of the toughest-ever crime bills, which included a “three strikes” provision that gave mandatory life sentences for repeat offenders.
Federal prosecutors such as Cook applauded their “new tools” to get criminals off the street.
Cook said last year: “What we did, beginning in 1985, is put these laws to work. We started filling federal prisons with the worst of the worst. And what happened next is exactly what Congress said they wanted to happen — and that is violent crime began in 1991 to turn around. By 2014, we had cut it in half.”
To bring down the Chattanooga drug ring’s leader, Victor Novene, undercover federal agents purchased crack from Novene’s underlings. Prosecutors then threatened them with long prison sentences to “flip” them to give up information about their superiors.
Cook said in March: “We made buys from individuals who were lower in the organization. We used the mandatory minimums to pressure them to cooperate.”
Cook’s office also added gun charges to make sentences even longer, another popular tool among prosecutors seeking the longest possible punishments.
With the mandatory minimum sentences and firearms “enhancements,” Novene received six life sentences. Many of his lieutenants were sentenced to between 16 and 33 years in federal prison.
But sentencing reform advocates say the tough crime policies went too far. The nation began incarcerating people at a higher rate than any other country — jailing 25 percent of the world’s prisoners at a cost of $80 billion a year. The nation’s prison and jail population more than quadrupled from 500,000 in 1980 to 2.2 million in 2015, filled with mostly black men strapped with lengthy prison sentences — 10 or 20 years, sometimes life without parole for a first drug offense.
Obama, the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, launched an ambitious clemency initiative to release certain drug offenders from prison early. And Holder told his prosecutors, in an effort to make punishments more fairly fit the crime, to stop charging low-level nonviolent drug offenders with offenses that imposed severe mandatory sentences. He called his strategy, outlined in an August 2013 report, “Smart on Crime.”
Cook has called it “Soft on Crime” and said the Chattanooga case would have been much more difficult to make, “if possible at all,” in recent years.
“We were discouraged from using mandatory minimums,” Cook said about Holder’s 2013 charging and sentencing memo to prosecutors. “The charging memo handcuffed prosecutors. And it limited when enhancements can be used to increase penalties, an important leverage when you’re dealing with a career offender in getting them to cooperate.”
Cook has also dismissed the idea that there is such a thing as a nonviolent drug offender.
“Drug trafficking is inherently violent. Drug traffickers are dealing in a heavy cash business,” he said on the “O’Reilly Factor” last year. “They can’t resolve disputes in court. They resolve the disputes on the street, and they resolve them through violence.”
Winning on the Hill
Cook and Sessions have also fought the winds of change on Capitol Hill, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers recently tried but failed to pass the first significant bill on criminal justice reform in decades.
The legislation, which had 37 sponsors in the Senate, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), and 79 members of the House, would have reduced some of the long mandatory minimum sentences for gun and drug crimes. It also would have given judges more flexibility in drug sentencing and made retroactive the law that reduced the large disparity between sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
The bill, introduced in 2015, had support from outside groups as diverse as the Koch brothers and the NAACP. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) supported it, as well.
But then people such as Sessions and Cook spoke up. The longtime Republican senator from Alabama became a leading opponent, citing the spike in crime in several cities.
“Violent crime and murders have increased across the country at almost alarming rates in some areas. Drug use and overdoses are occurring and dramatically increasing,” said Sessions, one of five members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted against the legislation. “It is against this backdrop that we are considering a bill . . . to cut prison sentences for drug traffickers and even other violent criminals, including those currently in federal prison.”
Cook testified that it was the “wrong time to weaken the last tools available to federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents.”
After GOP lawmakers became nervous about passing legislation that might seem soft on crime, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
“Sessions was the main reason that bill didn’t pass,” said Inimai M. Chettiar, the director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “He came in at the last minute and really torpedoed the bipartisan effort.”
Now that he is attorney general, Sessions has signaled a new direction. As his first step, Sessions told his prosecutors in a memo last month to begin using “every tool we have” — language that evoked the strategy from the drug war of loading up charges to lengthen sentences.
And he quickly appointed Cook to be a senior official on the attorney general’s task force on crime reduction and public safety, which was created following a Trump executive order to address what the president has called “American carnage.”
“If there was a flickering candle of hope that remained for sentencing reform, Cook’s appointment was a fire hose,” said Ring, of FAMM. “There simply aren’t enough backhoes to build all the prisons it would take to realize Steve Cook’s vision for America.”
Sessions is also expected to take a harder line on the punishment for using and distributing marijuana, a drug he has long abhorred. His crime task force will review existing marijuana policy, according to a memo he wrote prosecutors last week. Using or distributing marijuana is illegal under federal law, which classifies it as a Schedule 1 drug, the same category as heroin, and considered more dangerous than cocaine and methamphetamine.
In his effort to resurrect the practices of the drug war, it is still unclear what Sessions will do about the wave of states that have legalized marijuana in recent years. Eight states and the District of Columbia now permit the recreational use of marijuana, and 28 states and the District have legalized the use of medical marijuana.
But his rhetoric against weed seems to get stronger with each speech. In Richmond, he cast doubt on the use of medical marijuana and said it “has been hyped, maybe too much.”
Sessions directs federal prosecutors to target the nation’s most violent offenders]
Sessions’s aides stress that the attorney general does not want to completely upend every aspect of criminal justice policy.
“We are not just sweeping away everything that has come before us.” said Robyn Thiemann, the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy, who is working with Cook and has been at the Justice Department for nearly 20 years. “The attorney general recognizes that there is good work out there.”
Still, Sessions’s remarks on the road reveal his continued fascination with an earlier era of crime fighting.
In the speech in Richmond, he said, “Psychologically, politically, morally, we need to say — as Nancy Reagan said — ‘Just say no.’ ”
Source
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Last chance to stop Sessions
From The Drug Policy Alliance:
As soon as tomorrow, the U.S. Senate will cast a final vote on the nomination of drug war extremist Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.
Email your Senators right away urging them to oppose his nomination.
Then, follow-up with a quick phone call to your Senators at 877-959-6082. Tell the person your name, where you live and say:
I am calling to urge my Senator to reject Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. He is unfit to head the Justice Department and will likely escalate the failed war on drugs and undermine state marijuana laws. Please oppose his nomination and the giant step backwards for criminal justice that he represents. Thank you.
Jeff Sessions would be a nightmare as Attorney General and is a threat to the historic progress you’ve helped us achieve.
He has an appalling record on drug policy, civil and human rights, and criminal justice reform.
Advocates like you have been flooding the Senate with thousands of emails and calls. The response has been overwhelming.
But now it’s our last chance to keep the pressure up before the Senate casts a final vote this week.
Make your voice heard: stand against Sessions for Attorney General.
To sign the petition
As soon as tomorrow, the U.S. Senate will cast a final vote on the nomination of drug war extremist Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.
Email your Senators right away urging them to oppose his nomination.
Then, follow-up with a quick phone call to your Senators at 877-959-6082. Tell the person your name, where you live and say:
I am calling to urge my Senator to reject Jeff Sessions for Attorney General. He is unfit to head the Justice Department and will likely escalate the failed war on drugs and undermine state marijuana laws. Please oppose his nomination and the giant step backwards for criminal justice that he represents. Thank you.
Jeff Sessions would be a nightmare as Attorney General and is a threat to the historic progress you’ve helped us achieve.
He has an appalling record on drug policy, civil and human rights, and criminal justice reform.
Advocates like you have been flooding the Senate with thousands of emails and calls. The response has been overwhelming.
But now it’s our last chance to keep the pressure up before the Senate casts a final vote this week.
Make your voice heard: stand against Sessions for Attorney General.
To sign the petition
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Senate Judiciary Committee delays Sessions' nomination
From The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML):
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have requested a one week delay on the vote to advance Jeff Sessions to the full Senate for confirmation to become the next Attorney General.
Throughout his confirmation hearing, Sessions has yielded little information with regard to how he will address the growing divide between state and federal marijuana laws. If anything, his responses have left the door open for the enhanced enforcement of federal laws in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.
Senator Sessions has a long and consistent record of opposing any efforts to reform marijuana policy. He has a history of outrageous remarks including stating that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was okay until I found out they smoked pot,” that “good people do not smoke marijuana,” and previously spoke in support of legislation that would have opened the door to individuals with multiple marijuana distribution convictions receiving the death penalty.
Email your Senators to tell them to oppose Jeff Sessions and protect the security and liberty of the millions of Americans currently benefiting from legalization.
While the vote’s delay is not necessarily indicative that a majority of members are having second thoughts in regards to Sen. Sessions’ nomination, it does provide us with additional time to make our opposition heard.
Even if you have done so already, please take 30 seconds today to email your Senators and tell them to stand against marijuana prohibitionists like Jeff Sessions.
You can also call your Senators through the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Thanks for all you do,
The NORML Team
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have requested a one week delay on the vote to advance Jeff Sessions to the full Senate for confirmation to become the next Attorney General.
Throughout his confirmation hearing, Sessions has yielded little information with regard to how he will address the growing divide between state and federal marijuana laws. If anything, his responses have left the door open for the enhanced enforcement of federal laws in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.
Senator Sessions has a long and consistent record of opposing any efforts to reform marijuana policy. He has a history of outrageous remarks including stating that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was okay until I found out they smoked pot,” that “good people do not smoke marijuana,” and previously spoke in support of legislation that would have opened the door to individuals with multiple marijuana distribution convictions receiving the death penalty.
Email your Senators to tell them to oppose Jeff Sessions and protect the security and liberty of the millions of Americans currently benefiting from legalization.
While the vote’s delay is not necessarily indicative that a majority of members are having second thoughts in regards to Sen. Sessions’ nomination, it does provide us with additional time to make our opposition heard.
Even if you have done so already, please take 30 seconds today to email your Senators and tell them to stand against marijuana prohibitionists like Jeff Sessions.
You can also call your Senators through the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Thanks for all you do,
The NORML Team
Friday, November 18, 2016
The man behind the marijuana ban for all the wrong reasons
If you look for the roots of America’s ban on cannabis, you’ll find nearly all roads lead to a man named Harry Anslinger. He was the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which laid the ground work for the modern-day DEA, and the first architect of the war on drugs.
Anslinger was appointed in 1930, just as the prohibition of alcohol was beginning to crumble (it was finally repealed in 1933), and remained in power for 32 years. Early on, he was on record essentially saying cannabis use was no big deal. He called the idea that it made people mad or violent an “absurd fallacy.”
But when Anslinger was put in charge of the FBN, he changed his position entirely.
“From the moment he took charge of the bureau, Harry was aware of the weakness of his new position. A war on narcotics alone — cocaine and heroin, outlawed in 1914 — wasn’t enough,” author Johann Hari wrote in his book, “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.” “They were used only by a tiny minority, and you couldn’t keep an entire department alive on such small crumbs. He needed more.”
Consequently, Anslinger made it his mission to rid the U.S. of all drugs — including cannabis. His influence played a major role in the introduction and passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which outlawed possessing or selling pot.
Fueled by a handful of 1920s newspaper stories about crazed or violent episodes after marijuana use, Anslinger first claimed that the drug could cause psychosis and eventually insanity. In a radio address, he stated young people are “slaves to this narcotic, continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, turn to violent crime and murder.”
In particular, he latched on to the story of a young man named Victor Licata, who had hacked his family to death with an ax, supposedly while high on cannabis. It was discovered many years later, however, that Licata had a history of mental illness in his family, and there was no proof he ever used the drug.
The problem was, there was little scientific evidence that supported Anslinger’s claims. He contacted 30 scientists, according to Hari, and 29 told him cannabis was not a dangerous drug. But it was the theory of the single expert who agreed with him that he presented to the public — cannabis was an evil that should be banned — and the press ran with this sensationalized version.
Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger announces a series of raids in the nation’s big cities aimed at crippling the narcotics traffic in New York on Jan. 4, 1958. More than 500 suspected peddlers were bagged. AP
The second component to Anslinger’s strategy was racial. He claimed that black people and Latinos were the primary users of marijuana, and it made them forget their place in the fabric of American society. He even went so far as to argue that jazz musicians were creating “Satanic” music all thanks to the influence of pot. This obsession eventually led to a sort of witch hunt against the legendary singer Billie Holiday, who struggled with heroin addiction; she lost her license to perform in New York cabarets and continued to be dogged by law enforcement until her death.
“The insanity of the racism is a thing to behold when you go into his archives,” Hari told CBS News. “He claims that cannabis promotes interracial mixing, interracial relationships.”
The word “marijuana” itself was part of this approach. What was commonly known as cannabis until the early 1900s was instead called marihuana, a Spanish word more likely to be associated with Mexicans.
“He was able to do this because he was tapping into very deep anxieties in the culture that were not to do with drugs — and attaching them to this drug,” Hari said. Essentially, in 1930s America, it wasn’t hard to use racist rhetoric to associate the supposed harms of cannabis with minorities and immigrants.
So as the nationwide attitude towards cannabis began to fall in line with Anslinger’s, he testified before Congress in hearings for the Marijuana Tax Act. His testimony centered around the ideas he had been pushing all along — including a provocative letter from a local newspaper editor in Colorado, saying “I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigaret can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents.”
All these years later, many of the threads in Anslinger’s arguments are still present in the American conversation about legalizing marijuana. The act was passed in 1937, and the rest, they say, is history.
Source
Anslinger was appointed in 1930, just as the prohibition of alcohol was beginning to crumble (it was finally repealed in 1933), and remained in power for 32 years. Early on, he was on record essentially saying cannabis use was no big deal. He called the idea that it made people mad or violent an “absurd fallacy.”
But when Anslinger was put in charge of the FBN, he changed his position entirely.
“From the moment he took charge of the bureau, Harry was aware of the weakness of his new position. A war on narcotics alone — cocaine and heroin, outlawed in 1914 — wasn’t enough,” author Johann Hari wrote in his book, “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.” “They were used only by a tiny minority, and you couldn’t keep an entire department alive on such small crumbs. He needed more.”
Consequently, Anslinger made it his mission to rid the U.S. of all drugs — including cannabis. His influence played a major role in the introduction and passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which outlawed possessing or selling pot.
Fueled by a handful of 1920s newspaper stories about crazed or violent episodes after marijuana use, Anslinger first claimed that the drug could cause psychosis and eventually insanity. In a radio address, he stated young people are “slaves to this narcotic, continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, turn to violent crime and murder.”
In particular, he latched on to the story of a young man named Victor Licata, who had hacked his family to death with an ax, supposedly while high on cannabis. It was discovered many years later, however, that Licata had a history of mental illness in his family, and there was no proof he ever used the drug.
The problem was, there was little scientific evidence that supported Anslinger’s claims. He contacted 30 scientists, according to Hari, and 29 told him cannabis was not a dangerous drug. But it was the theory of the single expert who agreed with him that he presented to the public — cannabis was an evil that should be banned — and the press ran with this sensationalized version.
Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger announces a series of raids in the nation’s big cities aimed at crippling the narcotics traffic in New York on Jan. 4, 1958. More than 500 suspected peddlers were bagged. AP
The second component to Anslinger’s strategy was racial. He claimed that black people and Latinos were the primary users of marijuana, and it made them forget their place in the fabric of American society. He even went so far as to argue that jazz musicians were creating “Satanic” music all thanks to the influence of pot. This obsession eventually led to a sort of witch hunt against the legendary singer Billie Holiday, who struggled with heroin addiction; she lost her license to perform in New York cabarets and continued to be dogged by law enforcement until her death.
“The insanity of the racism is a thing to behold when you go into his archives,” Hari told CBS News. “He claims that cannabis promotes interracial mixing, interracial relationships.”
The word “marijuana” itself was part of this approach. What was commonly known as cannabis until the early 1900s was instead called marihuana, a Spanish word more likely to be associated with Mexicans.
“He was able to do this because he was tapping into very deep anxieties in the culture that were not to do with drugs — and attaching them to this drug,” Hari said. Essentially, in 1930s America, it wasn’t hard to use racist rhetoric to associate the supposed harms of cannabis with minorities and immigrants.
So as the nationwide attitude towards cannabis began to fall in line with Anslinger’s, he testified before Congress in hearings for the Marijuana Tax Act. His testimony centered around the ideas he had been pushing all along — including a provocative letter from a local newspaper editor in Colorado, saying “I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigaret can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents.”
All these years later, many of the threads in Anslinger’s arguments are still present in the American conversation about legalizing marijuana. The act was passed in 1937, and the rest, they say, is history.
Source
Monday, October 31, 2016
A message from NORML
Hi, I'm Rick Steves, TV travel show host and a proud member of NORML's Board of Directors. I've just returned from doing a barnstorming speaking tour in both Maine and Massachusetts to help build support for their legalization initiatives. It was an exhilarating week, meeting and talking with the good folks in those states, getting lots of great press, and feeling the excitement build in advance of what we expect will be victories in both states.
I'm investing my time and money in these latest state initiatives because I've seen first-hand the damage done to so many good, hard-working Americans because of a marijuana arrest. And we've got such a powerful message to share now that we have a solid legalization track record in my home state of Washington, and in Colorado and Oregon: teen use does not go up, crime does not go up, and DUIs do not go up. The only thing that goes up is tax revenue and citizens exercising their civil liberty to smoke marijuana recreationally.
I'm doing my part to help end prohibition and all the damage it does to our society, will you stand with me in this fight?
Our political opponents and the big money special interests they represent, including both the alcohol and the pharmaceutical industries, are investing millions of dollars to stop us:
$3.5 million from Casino Magnate Sheldon Adelson to oppose legalization in Arizona, Nevada and Massachusetts.
$500,000 from opioid producer Insys to fight legalization in Arizona.
$75,000 from the Beer Distributors of Massachusetts and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of Massachusetts to oppose legalization in Massachusetts.
$10,000 from the Arizona Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association to oppose legalization in Arizona.
And that's just to name a few.
We don't have deep pocketed special interests funding our work, but we do have something more important and powerful ... YOU!
So please, match my support and make a donation to NORML today and help us ensure that we not only win these current battles, but that we continue to expand the list of legalization states all across this country in 2017 and beyond.
Together, we have the power to end marijuana prohibition once and for all.
Let's do it. Thanks!
Rick Steves
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