Effective Drug Control: Toward A New Legal Framework

appointment was an extremely significant event, as he would go on to become one of the
most prominent and influential figures in the history of American drug control policy.
“Reefer Madness”
Marijuana became the next major target of U.S. anti-drug efforts, which was a
curious development given the fact that for several years the Bureau of Narcotics had
consistently minimized the dangers of the drug. 145 Only a decade earlier, the U.S.
Agriculture Department had published pamphlets urging Americans to grow marijuana
(cannabis) as a profitable undertaking. 146 Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger had
stated that heroin was a much greater danger, that marijuana was only a “problem” in
areas with large Mexican populations and that marijuana legislation would be most
effective at the state level. 147
A closer look at the behind-the-scenes intrigue involving certain influential
Americans in the 1930s reveals how the sudden federal campaign against marijuana was
more likely related to economic factors and to commercial interests more than to any
legitimate fears over the drug itself. In the 1920s the Du Pont Company had developed
and patented numerous petroleum-based products, including fuel additives, chemical
processes for the manufacture of paper from wood pulp and numerous synthetic products
such as nylon, cellophane and other plastics. At the same time other firms were
developing synthetic products from renewable biomass resources, especially from hemp
(cannabis). By 1935 raw cellulose from hemp had become a viable option for fuel, fabric
and plastics and paper – a cheaper, cleaner and renewable raw material compared to
petroleum. Faced with this competition, Lammont DuPont lobbied the U.S. Treasury
Department to seek the prohibition of hemp. 148
Business interests of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, were also
threatened by hemp, as his timber holdings and his joint enterprises with DuPont for
wood-based pulp papermaking would have been rendered uncompetitive. 149 Hearst used
his chain of newspapers to aggravate racial tensions, portraying Mexicans in particular as
lazy, degenerate and violent and as job stealers and smokers of “marihuana” – a word
brought into the common parlance due in part to frequent mentions in Hearst’s
publications. 150 The aggressive efforts to demonize cannabis were effective, as the sheer
number of newspapers, tabloids, magazines and film reels under Hearst’s control enabled
him to inundate American media with propaganda. Americans readily accepted the
stories of crazed crimes incited by marijuana use, and official accounts of the “evils” of
marijuana continue to color popular opinion of the drug today.
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
Under pressure to take a stand against marijuana, Harry Anslinger and the Bureau
of Narcotics readily changed the agency’s position and sought a means by which to bring
the drug under federal control. Passage of a marijuana bill under the treaty power was
not feasible since Mexico declined to support a trilateral marijuana pact with the United
States and Canada, and it was also unlikely that a revenue measure could provide
adequate government control. 151 Therefore, the Bureau conceived the idea of regulating
marijuana with a transfer tax, an approach taken in the National Firearms Act, which