86 years ago today was a day that should live in infamy, for that was the day cannabis became illegal.
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Pub. L. 75–238, 50 Stat. 551, enacted August 2, 1937, was a United States Act that placed a tax on the sale of cannabis. The H.R. 6385 act was drafted by Harry Anslinger and introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina, on April 14, 1937. The Seventy-fifth United States Congress held hearings on April 27, 28, 29th, 30th, and May 4, 1937. Upon the congressional hearings confirmation, the H.R. 6385 act was redrafted as H.R. 6906 and introduced with House Report 792. The Act is now commonly referred to, using the modern spelling, as the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. This act was overturned in 1969 in Leary v. United States, and was repealed by Congress the next year.[1]
Anslinger was a virulent racist who was also a tool of big business. The reasons for banning it have always been bogus.
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 banned Hemp production in the United States for 2 reasons
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Economic competition with Cotton, Timber and Synthetic Plastics
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1930’s anti-hemp propaganda caused a moral panic, persuading Americans to believe Hemp and Marijuana were the same and would both lower the moral values of American culture. The Farm Bill of 2018 lifted the ban on Hemp.
Hemp paper was cheaper and better.
Interested parties note the aim of the Act was to reduce the hemp industry through excessive taxation[7][8][9] largely as an effort of businessmen Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family.[7][9] The same parties argue that with the invention of the decorticator, hemp was an economical replacement for paper pulp in the newspaper industry.[7][10] Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst realized cheap, sustainable, and easily-grown hemp threatened his extensive timber holdings. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury and the wealthiest man in the US, invested heavily in the Du Pont family's new synthetic fiber, nylon, to compete with hemp.[7] 1916, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewey created a paper, USDA Bulletin No. 404 "Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material", in which they concluded this paper from the woody inner portion of the hemp stem broken into pieces, the 'hemp hurds', was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood".[11] Dewey and Merrill believed hemp hurds were a sustainable source for paper production. The concentration of cellulose in hemp hurds is generally around 35%.[12] Manufacture of paper -- on equipment designed to use wood-pulp -- with hemp as a raw material shows hemp lacks the qualities needed to become a major competitor to the traditional paper industry. 2003, 95% of the hemp hurds in the EU were used for animal bedding, almost 5% were used as building material.[13] Spokespersons from DuPont and many fiber manufacturers dispute a link between their promotion of nylon over hemp. They explain that the purpose of developing nylon was to produce a fiber competitive with silk and rayon.[14][15][16]
Anslinger’s wife was Mellon’s niece. Some things never change.
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