Free Market : A Market Based On Supply And Demand

Cannabis began being outlawed all across the U.S. during the 1900’s and has remained illegal ever since, until recent years when states began legalizing it (huffpost.com). Although many people believe that the reason behind the prohibition of cannabis was based on genuine concern for the possible consequences it may have on the well-being of people if it remained accessible to all, the truth is that the drive behind the U.S.’s prohibition of cannabis was founded on racism. During the early 1900’s cannabis was considered an “ethnic drug” due to the fact that many Mexican immigrants smoked the plant (huffpost.com). With the tension in Western states regarding the migration of Mexicans into the states, laws concerning the use regulation of

In 1937, Hearst teamed up with Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, to spark a nation-wide smear campaign against Cannabis known widely as “Reefer Madness”. Cannabis was never really referred to as “marijuana” because marijuana is a type of wild mexican tobacco, a completely different plant. Hearst and Anslinger added a mexican name to Cannabis to make it’s image as a mexican product more easily hated by the American public. This campaign depicted african-americans and mexican immigrants as beasts who, when and after smoking marijuana, would seek to rape white women. The campaign claimed to congress that marijuana caused insanity, violence, and death. The inaccurate claims were based on no scientific research or studies

Isaac Campos wrote this book in order to provide a background history of Mexico’s use of marijuana and the effect it had in Mexican society. He displays marijuana’s extent both, socially and politically. He scripted his book to carry the reader from the arrival of cannabis (would later be referred to as marijuana) in Mexico through the substance’s prohibition in 1920. With this book, he attempts to “decipher the psychoactive riddle of cannabis in nineteenth and early twentieth century Mexico” (p.8). The “psychoactive riddle” is the way the drug, set, and setting are imposed on the resulting influence of marijuana. Home Grown is significant in understanding the War on Drugs and the impact marijuana has had on society in North America. It provided history of notable events due to the production and prohibition of the drug ranging from its introduction until the 1920s when it was banned. Campos argued that the negative stereotypes of marijuana, often thought to have originated in the United States, actually originated in Mexico as a way to control the use of the drug. Citizens of Mexico related the drug to causing the users to go mad, hence the reason of the term “Reefer Madness.”

During the 1920's many mexican immigrants fled to the United States for work. With them, many of them brought marijuana. The act of smoking marijuana was picked up on by many black and white jazz musicians during the 1920's and 1930's, but was not used widespread until the 1960's. During the 1930's, Louis Artmstrong was arrested in California and given a sentence of six months for possession of Marijuana [3]. In 1937, the Treasury Department established a marijuana transfer tax known as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, after testifying before Congress. After 1937 up until the passing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Act of 1970, which include the Controlled Substance Act of 1970, marijuana was legally controlled through a transfer tax. [2]

The beginning of Texas anti-marijuana laws can be traced back to the city of El-Paso (Drug Policy ORG). Prior to 1914 Texas had no laws concerning the usage or sale of the plant, but then the stories of people using marijuana in Mexico and terrorizing people made their way to El-Paso and the Deputy Sheriff Stanley Good. Deputy Good made it a personal mission of his to get El-Paso to make the substance illegal. The whole basis of his argument is that immigrants from Mexico will come to the Untied States and use the drug and terrorize El Paso. At the time marijuana use was prevalent in the border towns by both Americans and Mexicans but nobody gave it any

Mexican-Americans. 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 (Guither, 2013) Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolf Hearst greatly aided the widespread criminalization of marijuana. Anslinger saw the opportunity for success that the Bureau of Narcotics (now the DEA) could provide him. He could find the problem and the solution to drug addiction.

"These new Americans brought with them their native language, culture and customs. One of these customs was the use of cannabis as a medicine and relaxant" (Burnett and Reiman). Americans always knew the plant as "cannabis" but Mexicans referred to it as "marijuana." The term "marijuana" was foreign on United States' soil therefore, it raised suspicion and fear amongst not only Texans but Americans as well. Surprisingly, the herb was never illegal during the time period of the massive immigration. However, it was originally used in Texas for medical reasons, such as arthritis but evolved into substance abuse over the next decade or so. As more immigrants came into American territory, so did marijuana. "In an effort to control and keep tabs on these new citizens, El Paso, TX borrowed a play from San Francisco’s playbook, which had outlawed opium... the idea was to have an excuse to search, detain and deport Mexican immigrants" (Burnett and Reiman). Of course, the drug got into the hands of rich white men and since America is known for their free market economy, money started to be made. This turned into the entrepreneurship we know today as drug dealing. Laws were made to help regulate and control the exchange of marijuana. It became illegal during the 1930's."Twenty-nine states carried restrictions on cannabis by 1931" (Rathge). Eventually that's how the old "Say no to drugs" campaign was

Back in the 1900’s when there was a large immigration influx of Mexicans into the U.S., citizens not only saw there was an influx of their customs. This included the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes (Burnett and Reiman, 2014). What most Americans didn’t realize is that it is the same as what they knew as cannabis, which had been used in many medicines for years and was found in may American households. The U.S. had been known to control immigrants by having an excuse to search and deport certain races by outlawing the use of their traditional medicinal drugs, like had been done with Chinese immigrants and the use of opium in San Francisco (Burnett and Reiman, 2014). Texas adopted this way of thought by using marijuana to control Mexican immigrants. Claims were made that marijuana was able to “cause men of color to become violent and solicit sex from white women” (Burnett and Reiman, 2014). From accusation like this, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 came into being and

Which overall shows that the Constitution would have left this issue to the states. In 1920 prohibition came into effect, which was the ban of all alcohol. However, because it was not specifically stated in the Constitution whether the national government could interfere with this issue, an amendment was added. Eventually, this was changed and another amendment was added to remove Prohibition and the previous amendment. There are many similarities between prohibition and the issue of marijuana. When prohibition started, it produced a lot of gangsters and illegal activity, because suddenly it was illegal to have alcohol. Which related to marijuana because the government has kept it criminalized and because of that, there has been crime related to the drug. This shows that people are going to do what they want regardless. People drank and sold alcohol regardless of its criminalization, and weed is so prevalent in our society that quite a lot of people have been already been consuming it for a long time. According to the Forbes article, a study has shown that the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado “has not had much of an effect on the prevalence of cannabis consumption” (How is Marijuana Legalization Going?), so in other words, people who have already been consuming marijuana, are mainly the people who have continued

Marijuana became a problem in America from 1913 to the late 1930s. California was the first state to ban marijuana in 1913, and Utah outlawed marijuana in 1914. From 1915 to 1937 it was banned by 30 states, in the southwestern states it was outlawed because of racial prejudice against the mexicans who used it. In other states they thought that marijuana was a “gateway” drug and lead to heroin addiction. Marijuana also became illegal because of Henry Hearst, he invested in the timber industry to support his newspaper business and he did not want hemp as a competitor. Another man was also trying to get marijuana banned, he was the director of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger. He saw a business opportunity, like many other corrupt

*** Also consider the historical context behind this war against marijuana. When the first laws against marijuana use were enacted in 1915, it was a reaction against the Mexican immigrants, the Mormons, and the African American jazz musicians. At a congressional hearing, Texas legislator Harry Anslinger testified, "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy!" The whole congregation just nodded their heads. If that isn 't blatant racism, then what is? In Utah, half of the Mormons left to Mexico once polygamy was publicly denounced by the head of the church; when these Mormon missionaries came back with their new drug and Mexicans, they were met with harsh criticism and new laws. In 1947, Anslinger wrote in a letter to another legislator, "Jazz musicians aren 't good musicians; we 're going to round the up, but we need more agents." At this time, doctors tested marijuana on dogs (for reasons they couldn 't even explain); congressional hearings lasted twenty minutes at most; women on death row were latching onto the drug as a plea bargain; and after the Korean and Cold Wars, fighting drugs became a campaign to unite the country against a common evil. *** Today, marijuana prohibition symbolizes many things. It 's a way for the US Government to shirk responsibility for social problems like unemployment,

The first marijuana laws weren’t directed at blacks and Mexicans by statute, but they were sponsored by law enforcement and an extension of Jim Crow tactics. Historians Richard J. Bonnie and Charles H. Whitebread, authors of The Marijuana Conviction: A History of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States, documented a pervasive racial bias that motivated the formation of these laws. Only a few press clippings were necessary to drum up enough fear to pass those early marijuana laws. “All Mexicans are crazy, and this (marijuana) makes them crazy,” was a quote from the floor of the Texas Senate which passed the first state marijuana law in 1914. From 1915 to 1937, 27 states passed laws against marijuana.

El Paso, Texas is the first U.S. city to ban marijuana. In 1915, city officials start rounding up Mexicans who smoke marijuana and have them deported. During this time, the Mexican population uses the drug for medicinal purposes to treat a variety of illnesses and maladies. In the late nineteenth century, marijuana becomes a popular ingredient in many medicinal products and is sold openly in public pharmacies. With regard to pain alone, marijuana greatly reduces the demand for narcotics and simultaneously decreases the number of accidental painkiller overdoses. Aside from using it for medicinal purposes, Mexicans have used it recreationally. They have brought new ideas about cannabis to the U.S., in fact, they refer to it as "marihuana." This new name and new way of looking at cannabis allows for white Americans to experience the drug differently, smoking it recreationally for the first time. The Mexicans begin to use marihuana more recreationally than medicinally, actually using it as often as Americans would drink beer. Cannabis was grown like corn is grown today; it was everywhere. With the Mexicans using marihuana not just for

Marijuana use is not uncommon in the United States of America. “In 1996, 68.6 million people— 32% of the U.S. population over 12 years old had tried marijuana or hashish at least once; 5% were current users” (Joy, Watson, and Benson 137). In the beginning of the twentieth century, marijuana was legal in all of the states until 1915 where California chose to criminalize use of the drug in twenty states by 1931. Moberly and Hartsig believed the regulation for marijuana came about for three reasons: “racial prejudice; an assumption that marijuana would be used as a substitute for narcotics and alcohol; and publicity surrounding the 1925 Geneva Convention’s attention to marijuana” (415). Then, in 1996, California

The criminalization of marijuana started in the early 1900’s when after the Mexican revolution many Mexicans moved into America and they needed a reason to start arresting Mexicans. They claimed that marijuana made “men of color aggressive”. Harry Anslinger said “Its more dangerous than heroin or cocaine”. Anslinger claimed that marijuana “Leads to pacifism and communist brain washing”.