The Time Has Come to Legalize Marijuana!

AUGUST 2, 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Marijuana Tax Act, making the use and sale of marijuana a federal offense. For around thirty years, this law was accepted as being a fact of life. Prior to the 60's, marijuana was connected to marginal social groups such as the Mexican laborers, blacks, beatniks and musicians. However, the 60's saw a rise the use of the drug in other groups such as the middle-class and the college students and some professors.

When the pattern of marijuana use changed, this forced society to look at the drug in a different light. Until the sixties, marijuana was known as the "killer weed" that turned its' users into madmen who would commit violent crimes against society. Prior to the 60's, federal laws and penalties on the sale or use of the drug had escalated. The issue was a minor one for most people, but when asked, the agreed that the drug was evil and that the policy of criminal sanctions was appropriate.⁽¹⁾ However, around 1964 the moral and legal career of marijuana began to change.

Two major articles appeared in 1964 that began to show the shift in viewpoint; "Dope Invades the Suburbs" and "the College Drug Scene".⁽²⁾ There was no longer any agreement on the dangers of the drug or the legitimacy of criminal sanctions against it. Some still maintained that marijuana was indeed a public menace, while others began to dismiss that time-honored image of the drug as superstition and exaggeration. A new legal direction began as the penalty for possession of marijuana for personal use was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor in most places and was even decriminalized in eleven states.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter officially proposed to decriminalize marijuana- to remove criminal penalties for its use and for nonprofit transfer for small amounts of it, while maintaining penalties for trafficking. This was to mark a complete change in views from the President who criminalized it in 1937. The 1980's and the "just say no" campaign saw marijuana once again described as the "killer weed". However, the 1990's have seen another push to find out the truth about the use and effect of the drug. Perhaps it is time we pushed all the mistruth and superstition out to the way and legalize marijuana.

Before I begin discussing today's social atmosphere and why I believe that the time has come to again legalize marijuana, let's take a short look at the situation that surrounded the 1937 Act. Marijuana has a very long history. Its use in mid-Asia by he Scythians, Persians and Assyrians occurred as early as 700 B.C.. Spanish and English settlers introduced the cannabis plant into the New World for fiber and seed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and it was a major crop in the U.S. throughout the nineteenth century. Cultivation of the plant fell off in the late 1800s as imported hemp fiber proved cheaper. The United States Pharmacopoeia listed marijuana as a recognized medicine form 1850 through 1942. So what happened in 1937 that made this once valued plant such an "evil weed"?

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics played the major role in the passing of the 1937 Act. However, in 1936, just a year before the signing of the Act, they were telling a different story. The Bureau stated in 1936, "A great deal of public interest has been aroused by newspaper articles appearing from time to time on the evils of the abuse of marijuana, or Indian hemp, and more attention has been focused upon specific cases reported of the abuse of the drug than would otherwise have been the case. The public tends to magnify the extent of the evil and lends color to an inference that there is an alarming spread of the improper use of the drug, whereas the actual increase in such use may not have been inordinately large."⁽³⁾ How could just a year later, this same bureau push for a national law against the drug? Two major theories surface when this subject is looked into.

One is the "Mexican theory". This has to do with the fact that at this time, the drug was mainly connected with Mexican laborers along with blacks and other marginal social groups. Many feel this Act was made to try to stop the influx of Mexicans and to find some ways of punishing those groups the agencies saw as a political risk to society. This theory may not be one hundred percent accurate, but the fact that the Burr states that, "The abuse of the drug is noted particularly among the Latin-American or Spanish-speaking population and follows wherever there are settlements of Latin-Americans"⁽⁴⁾ leads to this conclusion.

The other major theory is known as the Anslinger Hypothesis. This theory goes on the notion that the bureau itself would profit from the criminalization of the drug. The bureau had been losing funding since the end of prohibition and was looking for ways to bring themselves back into the limelight. Some suggest that by championing the cause to rid the U.S. of the "killer weed", the bureau would find itself in the thick of things again. This theory is definitely difficult to prove, yet it has some merit. The FBN was losing funding and for an agency that had been on the front pages for over a decade, it must have been hard to be swept away to the back pages. In fact, the bureau did see some major changes and was restructured and renamed several times as it fell under the control of other government agencies.

It is hard to look back and try to guess what may have been the real or major reason for this turn around, but one thing is clear, there were no major changes in the knowledge of the drug or its potential harm to society. No major study was produced that would make the Burr change its stand on the drug. In fact, the FBN used the same studies that they said showed no harm, to later prove it was evil. Without any change in the scientific data on the drug, it's hard to understand why the view would change from telling the public that they are over-exaggerating the drug, to telling them that it is a killer.

As I stated earlier, the pattern of marijuana use began to change in the late 50's to early 60's. This brought a change in how the drug was referred to during this time. Marijuana went from being the "killer weed" to the "drop out" drug. It was no longer seen as a drug that made you a madman, but as a drug that made you drop out of society. Once again, this was not based on any effect of the drug, but rather the lifestyle that was associated with it. The public mind conceived the marijuana user as a a long haired hippie who was for counter-culture. However, statistics at the time, showed that the typical user was not a hippie, but college educated with an average paying job.⁽⁵⁾ Today's statistic show that this, for the most part, has not changed, yet the view of the user has also not changed. The view the government took on the subject did change during this time. As started before, the legal sanctions were reduced and some states, such s Maine, decriminalized. In 1977, the President went so far as to say that he believed that criminal penalties for its use should be removed. So why did the next President do a complete turn around and again call it the "evil weed"?? Some say it was because of the old Mexican theory and the ongoing political problems with Latin-America and some say that he needed to champion a national cause. Once again it is hard to say what the real reasons were, but again, they were not based on any new evidence.

Which brings me to today's social and political atmosphere. Those who oppose the legalization of the drug base their argument today on the negative effects of the drug. The claim is made that it can lead to brain damage, even schizophrenia, which most doctors agree is a genetic, not a social disorder. They claim that it causes cancer, is addictive, can lead to harder drugs, causes the user to become violent, and may lead to many more health related problems. These claim seem to lose their validity when more deeply looked into.

As stated before, schizophrenia is a disease that most doctors and psychologists agree on, that it is caused by a genetic malfunction into a social or foreign biological cause. And the Surgeon General has never linked its use with any other brain disease. In fact, the Surgeon General has not linked the drug to any major health disease except cancer. However, the Surgeon General has linked over has linked over 200,000 different agents to cancer.⁽⁶⁾ It would be hard to make the conclusion that it should be kept non legal due to its small connection to cancer. The Surgeon General has released many reports over the years on the drug and none have stated that the drug is harmful to the user.

One of the non medical reasons to keep it criminal is the fact that it is referred to as a stepping drug to harder drugs. In nations where the drug is legal, this has not been shown to be true. One of the main reasons this theory may have some weight is the fact that marijuana is often sold by the same dealer who sells the other drugs. If the drugs was made legal, this would no longer be a factor. If marijuana was sold at state stores, the use could be regulated and the atmosphere controlled.

Looking over the evidence, it is hard to see why the federal government continues to block the legalization of the plant for personal use. In votes on the issue, the people have voted for the legalization for growth and use of the drug almost every time it has reached the elections. In an Associated Press poll done over the course of 1995 with readers around the U.S., the reader favored the use and sale of marijuana, handled in much the same way as the states regulate the sale and use of alcohol and tobacco, 3 to 1. Of course, this is not a true reflection of how the nation might vote if given the chance, but it is strong evidence to bring it to a state or national election vote.

Karl Paxton, professor at the University of Nebraska, asked the question of Congress in 1994, if large pharmaceutical companies were to take an interest in the drug, would it then be legalized? Doctors prescribe drugs every day whose effects can be many times worse than any suggested by those who oppose legalization or marijuana. Many of these mother's little helpers can do far more damage to one's system than anything shown about marijuana.

What makes one drug that may be used for pleasure or health purposes legal, and another similar drug, criminalizes? The U.S. government has been making these decisions on the legal sue or criminalization or marijuana since 1937. If the government looked over the facts, they would either have to outlaw many drugs in common use today or change their views on the drug. If marijuana was looked at like any other drug instead of some mystical "evil" or "killer" weed, would the government still feel the need to send users of the drug to jails and prison? The government would stand to have another "cash crop" for tax purposes. If the people are consuming half as much as s the government states, this stands to bring in some much needed revenue instead of continuing to lose billions trying to stop the use of marijuana. It is hard to understand, looking over the facts, why marijuana is not legalized. If this overwhelming information on the subject points to the fact that the drug can be and is used in an appropriate healthy manner, isn't' it about time we made the drug available to the adult population of America without the fear of legal sanctions.

(1) Himmel, L. Jerry. 1983. Politics and Ideology of Drug Control in America, Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. <back to article>

(2) Goldman, Robert. "Dope Invades the Suburbs," The Saturday Evening Post, 4 April 1964, pp. 19-25; Larner, Jeremy, "The College Drug Scene," The Atlantic Monthly, November 1965, pp. 127-130. <back to article>

(3) Bureau of Narcotics, Traffic, 1935 p. 61. <back to article>

(4) Ibid., 1936 p. 22. <back to article>

(5) McCormack, "marijuana," p. 899; Rowell and Rowell, Trail of Marijuana, p. 29 <back to article>

(6) Surgeon General Report, 1992, 1995, Journal of the American Medical Association, p. 65, p. 46. <back to article>