The Relationship Between the Passing and Repeal of The

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PASSING AND REPEAL OF THE

PROHIBITION OF ALCOHOL AND THE PASSING OF PROHIBITION OF

MARIJUANA AND THE MOVEMENT TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Timothy Hawes

A Project Presented to

The Faculty of Humboldt State University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Business Administration

Committee Membership

Dr. Hari Singh; Committee Chair

Dr. Michelle Lane, Committee Member

Dr. David Sleeth-Keppler, Graduate Coordinator

July 2015

Abstract

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PASSING AND REPEAL OF THE PROHIBITION OF ALCOHOL AND THE PASSING OF PROHIBITION OF MARIJUANA AND THE MOVEMENT TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

Timothy Hawes

The purpose of this paper is to examine two Legislative social actions; one being prohibition of alcohol and the other being the prohibition of marijuana to see how they relate or differ. It focuses on the history of both alcohol and marijuana. It examines the key players involved in each movement and how each was brought to life. The paper examines how black markets were created in each movement, how violence and crime played a role, how both movements were acts of congress, how there were shifts in the public’s opinion, how they affected arrests, how the use of fear was used, how lies were used in favor of passing prohibition laws, how the movements affected consumption, and how racism was used to get the laws passed in both instances. It then ends with recommendations as to the many questions America will face once it is legalized.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank my mother father and brother. Thank You!!! I want to thank HSU professor Dr. Michelle Lane for the help and encouragement. Thank You!!!

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgements ...... iii

List of Tables ...... vi

List of Figures ...... vii

Introduction ...... 1

The History of Alcohol Prohibition ...... 3

1650-1750 The First Hundred Years ...... 3

1750-1825 Temperance Stirrings ...... 4

1825-1870 The Pledge ...... 7

1870-1913 Toward a National Conscience ...... 9

1913-1933: National Prohibition ...... 11

The History of Marijuana ...... 15

Reasons Marijuana Is Illegal ...... 17

Discussion of The Parallels ...... 30

Black Markets ...... 31

Violence and Crime ...... 35

Acts of Congress ...... 38

Shifts in Public Opinion ...... 39

Arrests ...... 40

Use of Fear ...... 42

Lies ...... 43 iv

Consumption Effects ...... 44

Racism ...... 45

Conclusion ...... 47

References ...... 51

Appendix ...... 53

List of Tables

Table 1 "Prohibition Parallels" ...... 30

Table 2 "U.S. and Mexico Drug Homicides" ...... 36

Table 3 "California State Prison Overpopulation Statistics" ...... 41

List of Figures

Figure 1 “The Puritans” www.endtimepilgrim.org (End Time Pilgrim) ...... 3

Figure 2 “John Wesley”anglicanhistory.org (Project Canterbury; Bringing Anglican History Online) ...... 4

Figure 3 “Alexander Hamilton” www.pbs.org (PBS) ...... 5

Figure 4 “Cotton Mather” travelphotobase.com (Travel Photo Base World Image Collection)...... 6

Figure 5 “Theobald Matthew” www.npg.org.uk (National Portrait Gallery) ...... 7

Figure 6 “Temperance Pledge” ruthcrisler.wordpress.com (Spot Check) ...... 8

Figure 7 “Anti Alcohol Propaganda” www.westervillelibrary.org (Westerville Public Library) ...... 10

Figure 8 “DuPont” prn.fm (Progressive Radio Network) ...... 11

Figure 9 “Booze Pouring” en.wikipedia.org (Wikipedia online Encyclopedia) ...... 12

Figure 10 “Bugsy Siegel www.people.com (People Magazine Online) ...... 13

Figure 11 “Prohibition Ends at Last” imgarcade.com(Gallery for End Prohibition Posters” ...... 14

Figure 12 “Hemp Rope” www.animatedknots.com (Animated Knots by Grog) ...... 15

Figure 13 "Reasons Marijuana Is Illegal" www.debate.org (Debate.Org) ...... 18

Figure 14 “Assassins of Youth” www.marijuanaplanet.us (Marijuana Planet) ...... 19

Figure 15 “Marijuana Makes You Crazy”all-that-is-interesting.com (All That Is Interesting) ...... 20

Figure 16 “Henry Anslinger” “www.drugwarrant.com (Drug War Rant) ...... 22

Figure 17 “William Randolph Hearst”inkwellbookstore.blogspot.com (The Inkwell Bookstore Blog) ...... 23

Figure 18 “Ford” fleetowner.com (Fleet Owner) ...... 24

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Figure 19”General Motors” www.10tv.com (Central Ohio News Leader ...... 24

Figure 20 “Reefer Madness” www.amazon.co.uk (Amazon) ...... 25

Figure 21 “Marijuana Tax Stamp” en.wikipedia.org (Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia .. 26

Figure 22 “Richard Nixon” www.rai.ox.ac.uk (Rothermere American Institute) ...... 28

Figure 23 Purple is legal, light green is legal medical, medium green is decriminalized, and dark green is both legal medical and decriminalized (Photo : Wikimedia Commons/Theshibboleth) Since this Graphic was produced Oregon and Alaska are now legal, and Washington D.C. is legal ...... 29

Figure 24 “In Compliance” www.heartlandbrewery.com (Heartland Brewery) ...... 31

Figure 25 “Al Capone” godfather.wikia.com (The Godfather Wiki) ...... 32

Figure 26 “Cartel Routes” thevelvetrocket.com (The Velvet Rocket) ...... 33

Figure 29 "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" en.wikipedia.org (Wiki Online Encyclopedia) ...... 35

Figure 31 "The Cartel" www.mientrastantoenmexico.mx (Mientras Tanto En Mexico) . 37

Figure 30 "Disappearances" www.tucsonsentinel.com (Tuscon Sentinel) ...... 37

Figure 32 "Work This Out" www.funnyjunk.com (FJ Weed vs. Alcohol) ...... 40

Figure 33 "Anti-Marijuana Propaganda Poster all-that-is-interesting.com (All That Is Interesting) ...... 42

Figure 34 "Beware" pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com (Points: The Blog of The Alcohol And Drugs History Society)...... 44

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Introduction

Has anyone noticed that the movement to legalize marijuana parallels the repeal of prohibition of alcohol in the 1930’s? Or how the passing of the 18th amendment and the 1970 Controlled Substance Act of 1970 has parallels as well? There are several comparisons to be made to the two movements. This research paper will explore a historical review of alcohol prohibition of the 1920’s. It will examine how it started, why is started and who was in favor of it. It will then describe the problems that occurred because of it and how those problems helped eventually repeal it with the 21st amendment. It will then detail the underground market that was created and how this negatively affected society as a whole. This research will examine the crime that it caused and the reasons that those crimes were happening so much.

Next the research will explore the history of Marijuana. It will examine the underground market that is seen because of it currently being illegal. It will detail the problems that it is causing in our legal system and the way it is clogging up prisons across the nation. Since three states and one district, Washington, Colorado, Oregon and

Washington D.C. have legalized recreational use for their citizens there is a current push by many other states to do the same (Green, 2013). It will explore such questions as why was it made illegal in the first place, who was pushing to make it illegal, and is it as harmful to our bodies and society as once thought by the government.

Then it will detail the parallels that we see between the repeal of the 18th amendment and what can be learned that will help legislators to deal with the legalization

of marijuana as it occurs. There are several things to be learned from the repeal of alcohol

that will pertain to the legalization of marijuana. It will explore how making a substance

illegal only fuels the fire of people to want to use the substance. So the question is, how does the lifting of prohibition of alcohol brought on by the 21st amendment and the

effects the 18th amendment had on society parallel the movement for the legalization of marijuana and how the movement to make alcohol illegal parallels the 1970 Controlled

Substance Act and what can we learn from these parallels?

The History of Alcohol Prohibition

1650-1750 The First Hundred Years

The history of alcohol prohibition goes back way further than the early 1900’s, it

actually originated in 1629 in Virginia by the Colonial Assembly that stated “Ministers

shall not give themselves to excess in drinkinge, or riott, or spending their tyme idellye

day or night” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d., p1).Just a few years later in 1633 Plymouth,

Massachusetts also tried to limit the use of alcohol stating that they “prohibited the sale

of spirits more than 2 pence worth to anyone but strangers just arrived” (McGrew, Jane

Lang, n.d., p.1). Massachuesetts followed suit in 1637 also trying to limit the

consumption of alcohol by having a law that “ordered that no person shall remain in any

tavern longer than necessary occasions” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d. p, ) These laws were

all trying to limit the consumption of alcohol because it made people “do things that no

man should do, seemed unfitting for ministers and down right dangerous for Indians.”

(McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) This was a large factor since the Indians had no tolerence for alcohol because they had yet to use it before the white man came to America.

These statements or laws are quite humorous because the puritans who sailed here

earlier “had taken care to carry with them 42

tons of beer (in contrast with 14 tons of water)

and 10,000 gallons of wine.” (McGrew, Jane

Lang, n.d.) At the time it was much safer to drink

Figure 1 “The Puritans” www.endtimepilgrim.org (End Time Pilgrim) 4

beer than water because of contamination issues. After the local governments enacted

these laws they were seeing that it was not doing a good job of curbing the use of alcohol

so, they came up with the idea of using people’s vices to make revenue through taxes,

policing the streets and enforced license fees. Fines were put on drunken behavior, unlawful sales to Indians and unlawful sales without a license.These laws were regularily enacted across the board. This was not effective and more and more people were unlawfully hanging around inns and what were refered to as “public houses” drinking alcohol. This led to the Colony of Georgia to enact a prohibition of “ardent spirits” in the year of 1735. This was the first of many actions that started to lead to the temperance movement.

1750-1825 Temperance Stirrings

Liquor became more and more of a problem for people and it was so bad that they could no longer use it in moderation so, John Wesley, a member of the ministry, called for its prohibition in 1773. Just after Mr. Wesley said this, a pamphlet called, "The

Mighty Destroyer Displayed and Some Account of the Dreadful Havoc Made by the

Mistaken Use, As Well As the Abuse, of Distilled Spiritous

Liquors," came into publication. This was written by Anthony

Benezet, a member of the Society of Friends, advised people to no longer consume alcohol because it “made men foolish, stealing away his senses and would cause them to become dangerous.”

Figure 2 “John Wesley”anglicanhistory.org (Project Canterbury; Bringing Anglican History Online) 5

(McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

At this time in history there were a lot of people who did not want to listen to

“authority” and the first master of Harvard was fired after his students were asking to get beer every other week. Then John Adams noted in his diary on February 29, 1760, that the taverns were "becoming the eternal haunt of loose, disorderly people” (McGrew, Jane

Lang, n.d.) The first time someone spoke about the health affects of alcohol use was in

1752 when the wirtter of the Almanak series, Nathaniel Ames wrote,

“Strong Waters were formerly used only by the Direction of Physicians; but now

Mechanicks and low-li'd Labourers drink Rum like Fountain-Water, and they can

infinitely better endure it than the idle. Unactive and sedentary Part of Mankind,

but DEATH is in the bottom of the cup of every one.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

Dr. Benjamin Rush was also concerned about the growing use and addiction to alcohol and published “Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind” in 1785 which characterized the sickness of the body and mind that came with this addiction. He stated that alcohol made men swear profusly and that men would suffer from fits of madness while intoxicated.

Even though there were publications and people speaking out about the use of alcohol, in the late 18th century taverns became the meeting place for the most defiant revolutionaries. Then the next move made to try and reverse the amount of people using alcohol came in 1791 when Alexander Hamilton decided to tax liquor

Figure 3 “Alexander Hamilton” www.pbs.org (PBS) 6

and the Revenue Act was passed doing just that. The following year the second congress

of the United States decided to start taxing ingredients that were imported for use of

making liquor and added license fees to distilleries operating within the country. Upset by

these taxes and fees a farmers in Western Pennslyvaina created a mob called the Whiskey

Rebellion and it took 15,000 armed militia members to get these people to stop mobbing

tax collectors and resisting the federal government’s taxation methods.

The movement to call for prohibition got its start in 1778 by an organization calling itself the Free African Society and soon after that the Organization of Brethern and the Conecticut Association who were also trying to stop people from consuming alcohol. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

Religious leaders Cotton Mather, Dr. Lyman Beecher, John Wesley and

Reverend Andrew Elliott began to speak out more aggressively on the over indulgence of alcohol and the Presbyterian, Methodist, Uniseralist, Baptist and Friends churches were all in support. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) It is thought that if the country had waited for a non-religious movement, they would have never begun prohibition. In 1813 the

Massachuesetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance not only condemed rum as a culprit of bringing down the country’s morality but also the act of gambiling and other

vices of profaneness. Before federal taxes on distilling were

repealed in 1802, in 1813-1817 retailers’ and distillers’ licences had

a federal tax placed upon them until 1818 when the industry went

tax free until 1862. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) This started a

Figure 4 “Cotton Mather” travelphotobase.co m (Travel Photo Base World Image Collection) 7

movement of people to pledge against the use of alcohol.

1825-1870 The Pledge

At first only liquors were considered to be evil but in the mid 19th century beer,

ale, and wine also became targets of the temperance movement. Then in 1849-1851 an

Irish traveler named Theobald Matthew gathered over 600,000 signatures for people in

25 states that were pledging not to partake in any alcohol use. This stregthened the

Temperance Movement and got some states to start experimenting with prohibition

because the thought of the time was that if liquor could travel

state to state legally, then all efforts to bring morality to the

people were for naught. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

It was thought there was only one cure for the problem at hand and that was complete abstinence from all liquor. Figure 5 “Theobald Matthew” Although there were efforts in Oregon to put prohibition in www.npg.org.uk (National Portrait Gallery) place in 1843, the law was repealed in 1848. In 1847 in

Maine. Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachuesets, Conneticut,

Pennslyvania, and New York came up with laws in the following few years but, they lacked support from most of the population and were very hard to enforce. They were ultimately repealed as well. This made people folllowing the Temperance Movement upset and and organizations such as the Martha Washington movement began to receive more support. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

This ultimately led to the Sons of Temperance being founded in 1842. Soon after in the 1860’s the civil war started and taxes were placed on liquor and beer again and the funds were used to fund the war efforts. These taxes were raised 900% over the war period. This was the start of hiding sales and although taxes rose substantially, revenues did not, for people stopped recording their sales and stockpiling began. The infamous

Whiskey Ring was part of this and 321 people were prosocuted for violating these tax laws. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) So ultimately the government decided to lower the taxes from $2 a gallon to 50 cents and this in turn caused a rise in revenue from the taxes from $13.5 million in 1868 to $45 million in 1869 and $55 million the folowing year. Now both sides of the table were mad because the government was making money off of liquor sales and tax evasion ran rampant. This led to the formation of the first industry lobby; the United Figure 6 “Temperance Pledge” ruthcrisler.wordpress.com (Spot States Brewers Association. (McGrew, Jane Check)

Lang, n.d.) This was when the national consinece began to form.

1870-1913 Toward a National Conscience

In the late 1800’s around 1873 women started to join the Temperance Movement. Although the feminist movement dates back to the early 1800’s, The Women’s Crusade and the

Women’s Temperance Union joined the battle in 1873 and

1874 respectively. Frances E. Willard stood for Figure 7 “Women’s Temperance Movement” the equality of the sexes and believed that www.metrojacksonville.com (Metro Jacksonville) temperance would bridge the gap between them. She recruited

kids to sign a pledge of abstinence and by 1902 the

Temperance Movement had reached the public school system.

(McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) All states but Arizona were

teaching kids that alcohol made your blood vessels so thin that

at any time they could burst causing instant death. This was

Figure 8 “Frances E. Willard” misinformation but, they thought it would help children en.wikipedia.org(Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia) choose to not consume alcohol. This kind of teaching leads to the mistrust of such authorities. Along with the WTCU was the National

Prohibition Party, who had formed earlier in 1869 but fizzeled out after peaking with

270,210 votes for the presidential candidate John Dewell. Their drop off was attributed to not being able to break voters away from their traditional parties. At this time the

Democratic party had the nickname of “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” and the

Prohibition party tried to recruit thousands of dry Republicans to join their movement.

(McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.).

There was a second attempt to enact prohibition laws on states between 1880 and

1890 but only six states ended up with such laws. Counties themselves were supposed to figure out whether they wanted to be dry. This is when the Anti-Saloon league emerged developing the art of lobbying, creating political pressure not only to stop liquor consumption but, also to end the reign they believed saloons were creating. Blaming the saloons themselves for corupting politics and creating self destructive youth. They claimed that “liquor was responsible for 19% of divorces,

25% of poverty, 25% of the insanity, 37% of pauperism, 45% of child desertion, and 50% of the crime in the country” and that this was a very conservative estimate. (McGrew, Jane

Lang, n.d.)

The protests of the League were against Figure 7 “Anti Alcohol Propaganda” www.westervillelibrary.org saloon-keepers saying that they were “profiters (Westerville Public Library) who feasted on death and enslavement.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) The new progressive movement of the time joined with the League and they combined their missions.

Scientists began to gather evidence that alcohol consumed in excess had adverse effects on the nervous system and the general health of individuals. The myth that alcohol improved the power of the muscles was debunked and it was shown to cause psychoses so, in 1915 brandy and whiskey were taken out of the United States Pharmacopoeia.

At this time the Temperance Movement was largly supported by middle class and

rural Anglo-Saxon Protestants who claimed to be the “best improved, hardiest and fittest”

people. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) Episcopal, Luthern, Jewish and Catholic groups

tended not to share the same opinions on the issue. Since the League was “ Born of God”

(McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) and the industrialists and union leaders tended to stand by this

and felt that alcohol abuse was responsible for injuries and people missing work. The indusry people then joined the Temperance Movement as well as the DuPonts, Rockafeller, Kresges and

Wannamakers who bank-rolled the campign each year with over $2.5 million. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) “When Figure 8 “DuPont” prn.fm (Progressive Radio powerful businesses don’t like something, they can usually Network) get something done about it. (Murphy, 2009, p. 7)”

1913-1933: National Prohibition

This is the time in history where the United States was being dragged into World

War I and the anti-German tremors started to reach across America. The anti-alcohol movement used this distrust of the immigrant population to fuel their fire. The war gave the movement strength because the leaders used the fact that brewing beer and distilling alcohol took away from the raw materials and labor that could be used to fight wihich in turn was taking away from the ability of the nation to defend its people. “Liquor is a menace to patriotism because it puts beer before country,” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d. p 9) were some of the things being quoted by the movement.

There were a couple of attempts at passing acts such as The Wartime Prohibition

Act, The Wilson Original Packages Act, The Webb-Kenyon Act, and The Reed

Amendment to enforce the consumption of alcohol but none held teeth. The acts tried to enforce laws that wet states could not import their alcohol to dry states but these still did not give the federal gvoernemnt the power to enforce consumption. Finally, in 1917, a resolution was passed to “Prohibit the manufacture, sale, transportation or importation of alcoholic beverages in the United Stateswas approved by congress and sent to the states for ratification.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) All states had signed except three, New

Jersey, Conneticut, and Rhode Island, by February 1919 and the Volstead Act was passed with the intent to give effect to a new constitutional amendment. It took until

January 17, 1920 for the Eighteenth amendment to begin the liquor drought but, prohibition in the United states had begun. Figure 9 “Booze Pouring” en.wikipedia.org (Wikipedia The trouble that went along with this movement, online Encyclopedia) act, and amendment started to occur around this time. “The three months before the 18th

amendment became effective, liquor worth half a million dollars was stolen from

government wharehouses.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) In 1920 the federal courts in

Chicago were being overwhelmed with over 600 cases of liquor violations. This was

when a large violent underground market started and bootlegging became a huge problem

within the country. “In 1921, 95,933 illicit disstilleries, stills, still works and fermentors

were seized. In 1925 the total jumped to 172,537 and up to 282,122 in 1930.” (McGrew,

Jane Lang, n.d.) In connection with these seizures over eight years 75,307 people were

arrested and by 1932 61,383 people had been convicted for liquor offenses. (McGrew,

Jane Lang, n.d.) Speakeasies become the new saloons as an estimated 200,000 to 500,000

of them popped up during the time of prohibition.

A new underground market of “Rum-runners” were in the business of smuggling

alcohol from other countries into the United States and the smuggling from Canada

became ever so popular. A lot of people became very rich by doing this. “The

Department of Commerce estimated that, as of 1924, liquor

valued at approximately $40 million was entering the United

States annually.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.) Another bad affect

of prohibition was that it indirectly created younger drinkers in

the first five years of its existence. The average age of drinkers

in 1914 was 21.4 for males and 27.9 in females and it fell to 20.6

in males and 25.8 in females during th years of 1920-1923.

“During the past year (1926), an unuasually large amount Figure 10 “Bugsy Siegel www.people.com (People of patients who are of high school age were admitted for Magazine Online) alcoholic psychosis.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

Prohibition was enforced whereever it had backing but in most big cities gangs defied the laws and in small towns where mostly miners and inustrial workers lived just ignored it alltogther. In the rural South and the West prohibition has has long standing effects that are still in place today. So after all this, the Associaiton Against the

Prohibition Amendment was formed to work towards repealing the 18th amendment. The

associaiton did well to elect congress in their state that were open to submitting the

question of the repeal. They were excellent fund raisers and had around $3 million in

cash by January 1, 1931. Some of the people who made donations were the same people

who had fought for prohibition in the first place. The DuPont family, John D Rockafeller

and S.S. Kresge were some of the big names that donated money with the thought that

taxing liquor purchased, the way it was done, in the British system would alleviate the need for income taxes. (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

Franklin D. Roosevelt had a great deal to do with the repeal of the 18th

amendment for that is how he became president. He ran

on a platform that would abolish the 18th amendment and

he won. The repeal of the amendment was introduced

February 14, 1933 and won approval just two days later

with a 63 to 23 vote in the senate and 289 to 121 vote in

the house. 36 states need to sign to ratify the Figure 11 “Prohibition Ends at Last” imgarcade.com(Gallery for End amendment and 37 states approved, the only states Prohibition Posters” that objected were North and South Carolina. “Congress offically adopted the 21st

Amenment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933 and the prohibiton experiment was

over.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.)

The History of Marijuana

Just like the history of the prohibition of alcohol, what led up to the prohibition of marijuana was about politics, bad information and fear. The federal government did not use what they had learned from the alcohol prohibition experiment when deciding on the legality of marijauna and the vote had an agenda behid it. The vote to make marijuana illegal was completely based on a lie on the senate floor. (Guthier,P, 2012) People had been using marijuana for over 4 thousand years and would continue to do so even if it means getting in trouble with the law.

“The oldest known written record on cannabis use

comes from the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in

2727 B.C. Ancient Greeks and Romans were also

familiar with cannabis, while in the Middle East,

use spread throughout the Islamic empire to Figure 12 “Hemp Rope” www.animatedknots.com North Africa. In 1545 cannabis spread to the (Animated Knots by Grog)

western hemisphere where Spaniards imported it to Chile for its use as fiber. In

North America cannabis, in the form of hemp, was grown on many plantations for

use in rope, clothing and paper.” (Cannabis, Coca, & Poppy: Nature's Addictive

Plants)

There are some articles that even put it back further claiming that the “first woven fabric believed to be from hemp” as early as 7000-8000 B.C.(Guthier,P, 2012) This would lead one to conclude that marijuana has been used for over four thousand years

16 confirmed and possibly up to as much as 10 thousand years and there is yet to be a case where there was an overdose or death directly related to the use of the substance. (Dave’s

Not Here Man n.d.)

“Just using the at least 1.5 percent of the population or roughly three million

Americans that habitually use marijuana as a sample to say that a lot of people use

it every year, then the safety of its use is emphasized by the number of deaths

attributed to it in the March 22, 2004 Time magazine list of Annual Causes of

Death in the U.S. that follows:”

• Tobacco: 430,700

• Poor Dieting and Overeating: 400,000

• Alcohol: 110,640

• Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs: 32,000

• Suicide: 30,575

• Homicide: 18,272

• Anti-inflammatory Drugs (such as aspirin): 7,600

• Marijuana: 0

(Dave’s Not Here Man n.d.)

Reasons Marijuana Is Illegal

There are several reasons that marijuana is illegal at this point in time and it has very little to do with what the most of the public have been led to believe. The public currently believes that marijuana is illegal because it is bad for your health, one joint has more tar than 100 cigarettes, that it makes you slow and stupid, can’t remember things, and that only immigrants, Negros, assassins, and and that “marijuana influences Negroes

to look at white people in the eye, step on white man’s shadows and look at white woman

twice.” (Guither, 2012)

Figure 13 "Reasons Marijuana Is Illegal" www.debate.org (Debate.Org)

“We began outlawing marijuana in the United States in the 1910s. For Western states, a driving reason was a fear of Mexican immigrants who used the plant. In

Eastern states, it was fear of African Americans and jazz musicians who used

cannabis to take advantage of white women. Making marijuana illegal was

essentially a way to outlaw being an immigrant or not white.” (Hoff, 2014)

Marijuana was used as tool to harass nonwhite people in the early 1900’s. Just

after the Mexican revolution there were large numbers of people immigrating into Texas

and Louisiana and similar to other people who immigrated to the United States they

brought with them their culture, language and customs. “This method of controlling

people by controlling their customs was quite successful, so much so that it became a

national strategy for keeping certain populations under the watch and conrol of the

government.” One of these customs was the use of marijuana. (Burnett, et. al. 2014)

Mexican immigrants called cannabis “marihuana” which was not known to be the same thing by Americans until later in history. “Everyone knew what hemp was. But no one

new what marihuana was.” (Fairy,1997) Americans had been taking tinctures and medicine that had cannabis in them for years but were unaware of the different name. The media used this information and misunderstanding to play on the fears of the public. The demonization of the word marijuana was related to Mexicans that some Americans did not want in the country at that time and this began to demonize these immigrants.

“It has now been well documented that starting in 1932 the Federal Government

took part in (as well as helped orchestrate) a mass

hysteria campaign against the Medical Marihuana

plant calling it "The Assassin of Youth," and

claiming that its use was turning normally sane

Figure 14 “Assassins of Youth” www.marijuanaplanet.us (Marijuana Planet) 20

young men into hideous criminal beasts, sex fiends; the worst kind of cold

blooded murderers etc. As part of that campaign, Harry J. Anslinger (our nations'

first Drug Czar) ordered his DEA (than known as The Bureau of Narcotics) field

agents to start the compilation of what has now become known as "The Gore

File." Case after case, example after example, of the most hideous and depraved

criminal and sex acts imaginable. All allegedly committed, while under the evil

influence of Medical Marihuana:

• A man under the influence of the drug attempted to shoot his wife but

killed her grandmother instead and then committed suicide.

• A man 25 years old, charged with criminally assaulting a 10-year-old girl,

entered a plea of not guilty because of insanity. He was convicted and

sentenced to death.

• A young boy who had become addicted to smoking marihuana cigarets

killed his father, mother, two brothers and a sister, wiping out the entire

family except himself” (The Reefer Madness Era, n.d.)

The first state that successfully outlawed the use of marijuana was Utah and this was because Mormons were traveling to Mexico, using it, and bringing it back with them. This upset the church and therefore it was outlawed. California had tried to pass a law but was unsuccessful because the law was for the “preparation of hemp, or loco weed”. (Guthier,P, 2012) Then other states such as Wyoming

Figure 15 “Marijuana Makes You Crazy”all-that-is-interesting.com (All That Is Interesting) 21

(1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923),

Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927) began outlawing marijuana use. What did all these laws have in common? They were enacted so that the Mexican-American population and anybody who was not white could be specifically targeted by law enforcement. When

Montana made marijuana illegal in 1927 the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislature saying “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff…..he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.” (Guthier, 2012) In an open floor meeting, a Texas senator was quoted saying,

“all Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.” (Guthier,

2012) This was all happening in the west but there were just as many problems in the east of the United States as well.

There was trouble on the east coast as well and people blamed it on Latin

Americans and Black Jazz musicians. Marijuana was a large part of the music scene and even huge stars like Louis Armstrong made hits that dealt with the topic. Then in 1934 newspapers editorialized, “Marihuana influences negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white man’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.” (Guthier, 2012)

The opposition also used fear tactics to gain support for the demonization of marijuana.

Rumors spread that Mexican, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with the stuff. The notion that assassins were also ones who used marijuana came from stories that Marco Polo had told about “hasheesh-eaters” or “Hashashin” which would be where the term “assassin” got its meaning. It was thought that assassins would use hashish in order to stay more focused and loyal during their employment. In 1930’s the

22 stories changed because of some quotes in a New Orleans medical and surgical journal that Dr. A. E. Fossier made. He stated, “Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies and ruthlessly massacre everyone within their grasp.”

This is how marijuana eventually became associated with violence and violent behavior.

(Guthier,P, 2012)

Then a fellow by the name of Harry J Anslinger was appointed the head of a new agency, The Bureau of Narcotics in 1931and he saw the position as an opportunity to take action against marijuana to build the agency and his own reputation.

“Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of

Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity — a new government agency with the

opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized

that opiates and cocaine wouldn’t be enough to help build his agency, so he

latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal

level.” (Guthier, 2012)

This was the start of Anslinger’s work of making marijuana illegal at a federal level. Through the themes of racism and violence Anslinger drew national attention to the problem of marijuana that he had somewhat created on his own. He was a racist man who read and helped write the “Gore Files” and promoted these ideas as well. The “Gore Files” were cases about axe murdering marijuana users who had committed some of the worst crimes. The titles of these crimes were such as “Axe Murderer; Kills Whole Figure 16 “Henry Anslinger” “www.drugwarrant.com (Drug War Rant)

Family”, “Lesbian Love-A Woman Stabbed to Death”, “Girl Slayers”, “Child Rapist”,

“Police Trooper Killed”, “Murderer/Hitchhiking”, “Ruthless slayer” and so on. Most of the people who were detailed were of color. These stories were gathered by his field agents and it was never confirmed that marijuana was involved in any of them. They used these cases to play on the fear of colored people by white society.

Then along came one William Randolph Hearst who was the owner of a huge newspaper chain and by demonizing the plant he was able to help sell his newspapers although most were lies. “Marijuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days—Hashish goads usersto bloodlust.” (Guthier, 2012) This man was extremely racist and most people were well aware of the fact that he hated Mexicans. “Hearst despised poor people, black people, chinese, hindus, and all other minorities.” (Fairy, 1997) He was also heavily invested in the paper industry so making hemp or marijuana illegal helped him continue his wealth gaining activities of producing and selling Figure 17 “William Randolph Hearst”inkwellbookstore.blogspot.com paper products. He had also lost over (The Inkwell Bookstore Blog)

800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa and this helped solidify his hate. (Guthier,P,

2012) Some sample text from his newspaper reaffirms these beliefs:

“Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days, marihuana is a short cut to the

insane asylum, hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of

the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever

get him, most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are

laid to users of that drug, three-fourths of the crimes of violence in this country

today are committed by dope slaves-that is a matter of cold record.” (Guthier,P,

2012)

This is why many people who believe everything that they read were so against marijuana and it was all based on subjective information formed out of prejudice and misinformation. These two men were at the forefront of the fight to make marijuana illegal and it was not because of any health problems that it caused. There was no evidence that it made you insane, and it did not make foreigners murderers, Anslinger and Hearst were able to use their influence through coercion and newspapers

respectively.

Other opponents of marijuana were huge companies

such as Gulf Oil Corporation, GM, Ford, Dupont and any

Figure 18 “Ford” company involved in the fossil fuel industry at the time that fleetowner.com (Fleet Owner) had the money to lobby and manipulate the government for their own profits. Dupont was just about to patent nylon and saw marijuana and its byproducts as a threat to their business model so they made the extra effort to help make it illegal. Oil companies spent a lot of money because hemp seed oil could be used as a fuel to power anything that gasoline currently does and provide oil as well.

“If things had turned out differently, I wonder if we

would be at the mercy of big oil companies today.

Knowing that hemp could easily provide the US with all

Figure 19”General Motors” www.10tv.com (Central Ohio News Leader 25

its oil and gas makes me upset and feel all the more foolish for being taken in by

the anti-marijuana propaganda taught to me in school.” (Murphy, 2009 pg. 3)

The research provides evidence that there is an elite group of special interests

dominated by Du Pont petrochemical company and it's major financial backer and key

political ally, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon was a banker who took over

Gulf Oil Corporation. In 1913, Henry Ford opened his first auto assembly line, and Gulf

Oil opened its first drive-in gas station. In 1919, with ethanol fuel poised to comptete

with gasoline, Alchohol Prohibition descended on the nation. When President Harding

made Mellon Secretary of the Treasury, he was considered the richest man in America. In

the 1920's, Mellon arranged for his bank to loan his cronies at Du Pont money to take

over General Motors. “Du Pont had developed new gasoline additives and the sulfate and

sulfite process that made trees into paper.” (Fairy, 1997)

Just as these companies were figuring out that marijuana could compete with

them in almost all of their product lines, Anslinger was drafting a secret plan to make

marijuana illegal. In 1937 Anslinger brought his plan to congress, it was called “The

Marijuana Tax Act of 1937” and he had not let in any outside expert opinions on what he

was claiming but, the law was passed and it made marijuana illegal at the federal level.

Since federal laws trump state laws, even if states did not agree they were forced to enforce the laws. Just before this law was introduced there was a propaganda film, “Reefer Madenss”, being

Figure 20 “Reefer Madness” www.amazon.co.uk (Amazon) 26 shown to the public that supported Anslinger and Hearst views toward marijuana.

The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 didn’t make marijuana illegal to use, sell or possess but it put a dollar tax on each transaction “on all buyers, sellers, importers, growers, physicians, veterinarians, and any other persons who deal in marijuana commercially, prescribe it professionally, or possess it” (Solomon n.d.) This was supposed to give the government some revenue but they used this tax to put people in jail. Although this is a very long quote it details how the Marijuana Tax Act was an extremely harsh law compared to others of the time.

“The deceptive nature of that apparent purpose begins to come into focus when

the reader reaches the penalty provisions of the

Act: five years' imprisonment, a $2,000 fine, or

both seem rather excessive for evading a sum

(provided for by the purchase of a Treasury

Department tax stamp) that, even if collected, Figure 21 “Marijuana Tax Stamp” en.wikipedia.org would produce only a minute amount of (Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia government revenue. (Fines and jail sentences

were further increased to the point of the cruel and unusual in subsequent federal

drug legislation that incorporated the Marijuana Tax Act. It is now possible under

the later version of the Act to draw a life sentence for selling just one marihuana

cigarette to a minor.) One might wonder, too, why a small clause, amounting to an

open-ended catchall provision, was inserted into the Act, authorizing the

Secretary of the Treasury to grant the Commissioner (then Harry Anslinger) and

agents of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Narcotics absolute administrative

regulatory, and police powers in the enforcement of the law. The message

becomes entirely clear when, having finished the short text of the Act itself, one

proceeds to the sixty-odd pages of administrative and enforcement procedures

established by the infamous Regulations No. 1. That regulation, not fully

reproduced here, calls for a maze of affidavits, depositions, sworn statements, and

constant Treasury Department police inspection in every instance that marijuana

is bought, sold, used, raised, distributed, given away, and so on. Physicians who

wish to purchase the one-dollar tax stamp so that they might prescribe it for their

patients are forced to report such use to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in sworn

and attested detail, revealing the name and address of the patient, the nature of his

ailment, the dates and amounts prescribed, and so on. If a physician for any

reason fails to do so immediately, both he and his patient are liable to

imprisonment-and a heavy fine. Obviously, the details of that regulation make it

far too risky for anyone to have anything to do with marijuana in any way

whatsoever.” (Solomon n.d.)

This maintained the law and kept the prohibition of marijuana rolling until the late

60’s when LSD poster boy Timothy Leary was charged with possession and his case went to the federal courts. The federal courts decided that it was against the Fifth

Amendment to charge Leary because purchasing a tax stamp would prove to be self- incriminating and the law was repealed. Soon after the Controlled Substance Act of 1970

28 was passed putting schedules on drugs according to their danger and the potential for addiction.

“Schedule I drugs are those that have the following characteristic according to the

United States Drug Enforcement Agency, the drug or other substance has a high

potential for abuse, the drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical

treatment use in the U.S., there is a lack of accepted

safety for use of the drug or substance under

medical supervision. No prescriptions may be

written for Schedule I substances, and they are not

readily available for clinical use.” (Drugs.com Be

Sure. Know More n.d.) Figure 22 “Richard Nixon” www.rai.ox.ac.uk (Rothermere American Institute) Marijuana was placed on The Schedule I list

next to Heroin, LSD or “acid”, MDMA or “ecstasy”, Khat, Mescaline or

“peyote”, GHB, Bath Salts, Psilocybin, and Methaqualone or “Quaalude” as far as

its danger and addictiveness. This means that a person charged with possession of

marijuana was just as bad as being charged with possessing heroin. The substance

was placed on the schedule one list, according to Richard Nixon, until a

commissioned report was put together so that he may make a final

recommendation on the future of marijuana. The Schafer Commission reported

back to Nixon that marijuana should not be placed in Schedule I and even doubted

that it should be designated as an illicit substance. Nixon dismissed this report and

to this very day

marijuana remains on

the list of Schedule I

narcotics even though

states have legalized it

for medical use and

some for recreational

use, which is still Figure 23 Purple is legal, light green is legal medical, medium green is decriminalized, and dark green is both illegal under federal legal medical and decriminalized (Photo : Wikimedia Commons/Theshibboleth) Since this Graphic was law. produced Oregon and Alaska are now legal, and Washington D.C. is legal The first break in the legalization was in 1996 when California became the first state to allow medical marijuana to be prescribed by doctors. This was the first time in 59 years that the substance was considered non -illicit with medical value because for over

5000 years it was used with no problems. As of 2012, there are 23 states and Washington

D.C. that have enacted laws to legalize medical marijuana. Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2012 and Oregon,

Washington D.C., and Alaska followed suit in 2014. This is where we stand today in the fight to legalize marijuana.

Discussion of The Parallels

There are several parallels between the movements to pass and repeal the prohibition of alcohol and the prohibition of marijuana and the movement to legalize marijuana. Underground Black markets, crime, the fact that “both substances were banned through an act of Congress”, the fact that there were “shifts in public opinion”

(Al-Khatib, T. 2012), the enormous amounts arrests made during these periods, how the government used fear to get them passed, the undocumented health effects and botched scientific reports, how making these substances illegal did not deter use and furthered use, and the use of these laws to harass immigrants are some of the more important parallels that deserve analysis. There is much to be learned from these parallels.

Table 1 "Prohibition Parallels"

Prohibition Parallels?? Issues Alcohol Marijuana Created Black Markets X X Had a Strong Religious Backing X Created The American Mafia X Used Revenues From Taxes to Help Fund The Federal X Government Lies from Dr.’s Were Used to Strengthen Movement X X Used Tax Revenue to Fund A War X Dr.’s Lied About The Health Effects of The Substance X X A President Ran On Getting Rid of Prohibition X Violence and Crime Increases X X Were Backed By Big Business Lobbies X X Passed Through Acts of Congress X X Legalization Passed by States Individually X Shifts in Public Opinion Changed X X Could be Used as an Energy Source to Help Get us off of X Foreign Oil The Amount Of Arrests Made Went Up X X Fear Was Used To Get The Law Passed X X

Women’s Movements Backed Highly X Lies To The Public Were Used To Get The Law Passed X X Consumption Were Not Effected X X Corporations Switched Views When the Public’s View X Shifted Racism Played a Role In The Movement X X May Be Used Legally In 4 States X May Be Used Legally In All 50 States X Can Be Used To Make Thousands Of Products X There Are Tons of Studies Done Proving It Makes Driving X Unsafe Propaganda Films Were Made To Support The Movement X Against

Black Markets

“The criminal gangs that supplied the booze were ruthless with over inflated prices, often fighting each other for control of the trade. A whole black market was created around alcohol.” (Nash n.d.)Bootlegging, smuggling, speakeasies, distilling operations, and illegal written Doctors prescriptions were all markets that gangs and organized crime took advantage of. “The earliest bootleggers began smuggling foreign- made commercial liquor into the United States from across the Canadian and Mexican borders and along the seacoasts from ships under foreign registry.” (Encyclopedia

Britannica n.d.)They used the fact that three miles from any U.S. land on the water is not under U.S. jurisdiction so these ships would drop cargo into speed boats that could outrace the U.S. coastguard. There were other ways

Figure 24 “In Compliance” www.heartlandbrewery.com (Heartland Brewery) 32

to get liquor like having doctors write false prescriptions because at this time whiskey

and other forms of alcohol could still be prescribed. The use of denatured alcohol as a form of liquor was quite dangerous in its process to be made drinkable.. (Encyclopedia

Britannica n.d.) Bootlegging was the start of the mafia and organized crime in America.

The bootlegging and distribution of alcohol was a complex task that was mainly controlled by local gangs in areas. When these gangs started to organize and hold strangle holds on the illegal market, they retained control of the “entire local chain of bootlegging operations, from concealed distilleries and breweries through storage and transport channels to speakeasies, restaurants, night clubs and other retail outlets.” (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d.) Once in control of these operations the gangs started getting into other forms of illegal offenses. “Narcotics traffic, gambling rackets, prostitution, labor racketeering, loan-sharking, and extortion” were some of the offenses and Johnny Torrio, James “Big Jim” Colosimo, Dion

O’Bannon, Joe Masseria, Myer Lanskey, Bugsy Figure 25 “Al Capone” godfather.wikia.com (The Seigel, Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Al Capone, the Godfather Wiki) most famous gangster of the prohibition era, were some of the infamous names that are still well known from then. “At one point in 1927 Al Capone’s estimated wealth was near

$100 million.” (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d.)

“Prohibition of marijuana creates a similar black market leading to drug trades and violence, similar to what happened during the prohibition era.” (Garcia 2014) Just like the prohibition of alcohol the prohibition of marijuana created a black market where gangs such as The Bloods, The Crips, Nuestra Familia, The Mexican Mafia, Mara

Salvachutra, The Latins Kings, The Hells Angels, and The Aryan Brotherhood all have a hand in the illegal distribution of marijuana across the United States. “Gangs make considerable amounts of money selling marijuana” (Garcia 2014) Quite a few Mexican

Cartels are also heavily involved such as The Sinaloa, Los Zetas, La Famila, Beltran-

Leyva, Juarez, The Tijuana Cartel, and the Gulf

Cartel of smuggling marijuana in from Mexico to

then be sold to the gangs. (Bender, 2014) “4323 U.S.

homicides between 2005 and 2009 have been

directly traced to the illegal drug trade—more than

the number of Americans killed on 9/11 or in Figure 26 “Cartel Routes” thevelvetrocket.com (The Velvet combat in Iraq.” (Stamper, 2011) The cartels have Rocket) made billions of dollars as a result of the drug war.

Mexican cartels make a large amount of profits from marijuana and have distribution centers in 250 cities throughout the United States. (Garcia, 2014) Mexico sends more than 5000 metrics tons to United States every year. (Stamper, 2011)

It is not just cartels and gangs who are heavily involved in the underground marijauna market. Regular citizens have been doing indoor grows in their homes for years. These grows are sometimes not set up very well and the house could end up

catching on fire because of the amount

of power that is need for the high

pressure sodium lights that are used to

grow the marijuana. Others have rented

large warehouses and jammed those full

Figure 27 “Large Indoor Grow” of plants and lights. Others have www.grasscity.com (Grasscity) bought or rented property to do large outdoor grows on because of the cheaper energy, the sun, can grow marijuana plants the size of small trees that produce multiple pounds of marijuana.

Throughout Northern California large outdoor grows are keeping the economy going in some small towns. People are recruited by local growers to help trim the marijauna so that it may be sold.

Others are making large amounts of money by using the mail to distribute marijuana to the rest of the United States where it is worth quite a bit more. “Keeping Marijuana illegal and confined Figure 28 "Large Outdoor Plant" to the black market creates a virtual monopoly on the lucrative www.grssscity.com (Grasscity) marijuana trade, in what some estimate to be America’s largest cash crop, a $36 billion-a-year industry larger than corn and wheat combined.” (Garcia

2014)

Violence and Crime

Another side effect that came with the prohibition of alcohol was the large jump in

violence. As speakeasies opened the amount of brawls inside the speakeasy raised

significantly. When Alcohol was illegal, suppliers had to hire private security for the

movement of their shipments. In a dispute between a supplier and a buyer there was no

way to take legal action, things got ugly. Instead of using courts and lawyers, guns and

intimidation were used to settle disputes.(Livingston, n.d.) Stories like the “St.

Valentine’s day massacre of seven alcohol trafficking gangsters in Chicago made

international headlines in 1929”were becoming

more normal. Gangsters had lined up 7 people

along a brick wall and riddled them with bullets

with their backs turned. (Stamper, 2011)

“Beginning around 1910 the homicide rates rises

steadily through 1933, when it begins a general Figure 27 "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" en.wikipedia.org (Wiki decline until approximately1960.” (Miron,1999) Online Encyclopedia) “Violence was a daily occurrence in Chicago. 227 gangsters were killed in the space of 4

years.” (Trueman, 2014) People started to commit more and more crimes and the gangs

and mafia were looked at as heroes by the common man. (Nash, n.d.)“It was the

prohibition of alcohol that made it so valuable to criminals, providing the tax-free dollars that turned neighborhood street gangs into national crime syndicates headed by the likes of Al Capone and Charles “Lucky” Luciano” (Stamper, 2011). These crime figures

organized crime members to supply the alcohol to the dry nation. With the prohibition of

alcohol starting in 1920 the government thought that this act would curb crime and

violence. Prohibition did not do this but actually made crime rates and instances of

excessive violence happen more often (Nash n.d.). “The Prohibition era also is

remembered as a period of gangsterism, characterized by competition and violent turf

battles between criminal gangs” (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d. p.2).

By making marijuana a schedule 1 narcotic, the U.S. government gave gangs and organized crime syndicates a new way to make billions of dollars. Cartels are extremely violent and are causing many problems for the U.S. “Like the bootleggers of old, today’s international cartels reap untold billions of dollars from the drug war, and they aren’t afraid to kill to protect profits or expand markets” (Stamper, 2011 p. 2). The violence that these cartels are involved in is extremely heinous.

Table 2 "U.S. and Mexico Drug Homicides"

U.S. and Mexico Drug Homicides Mexico U.S.A. Year Drug Homicides % of total homicides Drug Homicides % of total homicides 2007 2,595 29.3% 590 3.9% 2008 6,183 44.1% 500 3.5% 2009 8,906 45% 496 3.6% 2010 13,174 54% 463 3.5% Total 30,858 27.4% 2,049 0.66% Source El Paso Times Analysis rates are per 100,000 population Nacho L Garcia Jr./El Paso Times

“Today’s drug cartels regularily kidnap and murder police and other government

officials, roll severed heads into night clubs and hang mutilated bodies from

bridges—complete with threatening messages carved into the flesh. The violence

is so frequent that each grisly incident is but a blip

of the radar” (Stamper, 2011 p. 2).

Home invasions are another form of violence that

occurs because of the prohibition of marijuana. People who have indoor grow operations sometimes stockpile

their product and have large amounts of money there as

well. This makes an easy target for someone who wants to

kick in their door and rob them for their assets. This can Figure 29 "Disappearances" occur so easily because there is no legal action that a drug www.tucsonsentinel.com (Tuscon Sentinel) dealer or grower can take if they are robbed because it would be self-incriminating.

Another easy target is drug dealers who sell large amounts of product. One can get to

know them and then set them up and rob them by setting up a fake drug deal. Again there

is no course of action for the dealer/grower to take to retrieve their valuable product.

This becomes a problem because the law won’t protect these people they have to resort to

carrying guns or other weapons for protection from being robbed. The cartels take this to

the extreme in Northern California where their large scale illegal grow operations are

guarded by other members who patrol the grows with semi-automatic weapons. This is not just confined to California; as there have been large scale grow busts in DeMoines Iowa, Kentucky and numerous states throughout the Midwest.

Figure 28 "The Cartel" www.mientrastantoenmexico.mx (Mientras Tanto En Mexico) 38

This is causing the violence to spread throughout the country.

Acts of Congress

“Both substances were banned through an act of Congress. The 18th amendment was passed by Congress in 1917 and ratified by the states in a little more than a year”

(Al-Khatib, 2012 p.2). Another parallel to the movemnts were the way they were passed by Congress without the approval of the public. The repeal of the 18th amendment was

also led by congress and did not actually make alcohol legal but put the laws in the hands

of the states iteself to make the decsion. For the first and only time in history the congress decided not to trust the approval of a constitutional change to state legislators. Congress instead went about destroying the amendment by giving each state the power to ratify it by vote. Congress did not trust the fact that special interests groups would not influence the vote and affect America’s overall interests (Ko, 2013). Congress did not want to outright legalize alcohol so they did not go about repealing prohibition by changing the constitution with an amendment. They instead passed a new amendment that changed the way the policy for consumption was set, and by whom. Each state was now in charge of setting its own laws (Ko, 2013).

Richard Nixon signed into law the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 that established marijuana as a schedule one narcotic. This is the act that began prohibition of marijuana across the U.S. (Al-Khatib 2012) Again this was done without the approval of the public wich is ironic because at the time the public was in favor of banning marijuana.

Shifts in Public Opinion

There were shifts in the public’s opinion within both the passing of the 21st amendment and the ballot initiatives that voters approved in Colorado and Washington.

“When America tried alcohol prohibition between 1919 and 1931, the country and its lawmakers discovered that the crime and violence associated with prohibition law ended up being more damaging than consumption itself.” (Garcia 2014) So public opinion made a swift change and the public supported the use of alcohol. The same thing happened with marijuana as the years went by. During the time they were trying to impose prohibition public opinion was against the idea of becoming a dry nation. Polling data shows that after the law was repealed 58% of Americans in 1939 were using alcohol in one form or another (Ko, 2013).

This was the exact opposite for marijuana in the 1960’ as 84% of the population felt that marijuana should be illegal. This has flipped around the to the opposite in 2011 where 70% of Americans feel that doctors should be able to prescribe marijuana for pain and suffering from some ailments (Garcia, 2014). The government and other authorities had always spoke of marijuana having no medical purposes but, the marijuana plant contians numerous chemicals that have been recently proven to help alleviate all different types of aliments. As a result almost half the states have implemented laws to allow it to be used for certain ailments (National Institute on Drug Abuse 2014).

Arrests

With harsh laws to offenders for using alcohol and marijuana in effect during prohibition made criminals out of millions of Americans.

“Nevertheless, gross statistics drawn from 383 cities indicates that arrests for non-violent drunkenness per 10,000 population reached a high of 192 in 1916 and fell to 71 in 1920. From this level, they rose steadily again to reach 157 in

1928.” (McGrew, Jane Lang, n.d.p. 23) The war on drugs was most fully used during the Clinton administration when authorities arrested a Figure 30 "Work This Out" www.funnyjunk.com (FJ Weed vs. marijuana smoker every 45 seconds across Alcohol)

America. This was more than under any other present in American history. This was also an extremely expensive effort. There were 6o% increase in marijuana charges during his campaign and 10 million people have been arrested on marijuana charges since 1972

(Garcia 2014). The amount of arrests being made during prohibition of alcohol clogged up the legal system in court rooms and jails. It sometimes took more than a year before potential offenders were sentenced. This was the beginning of the plea bargaining system that has been in place ever since (Lerner, n.d.). We are still fighting to get non-violent drug offenders out of jails because of the bottlenecked system. California recently has let

41 out a number of low level drug offenders to ease the rising tensions in jails because of overpopulation.

Table 3 "California State Prison Overpopulation Statistics"

California State Prisons Name of Prison Percentage of Capacity 1 Pelican Bay State Prison 161.3% 2 California Correction Center 154.6% 3 High Desert State Prison 180.4% 4 California Medical Facility 139.1% 5 Folsom State Prison 185.5% 6 California State Prison, Sacramento 181.0% 7 Mule Creek State Prison 214.0% 8 California State Prison, Solano 226.0% 9 San Quentin State Prison 173.4% 10 Northern California Women’s Facility 180.3% 11 Sierra Conservation Center 158.7% 12 Deuel Vocational Institution 208.9% 13 Valley State Prison for Women 149.5% 14 Correctional Training Facility 218.1% 15 Central California Women’s Facility 157.1% 16 California State Prison , Corcoran 159.2% 17 Pleasant Valley State Prison 207.6% 18 Avenal State Prison 249.4% 19 North Kern State Prison 178.5% 20 California Men’s Colony 164.6% 21 Wasco State Prison 187.0% 22 California Correctional Institution 213.6% 23 California State Prison, Los Angeles 193.0% 24 California Institution for Men 205.0% 25 Ironwood State Prison 204.3% 26 Chuckawalla Valley State Prison 212.1% 27 California Institution for Women 166.3% 28 California Rehabilitation Center 197.8% 29 Calipatria State Prison 187.7% 30 California State Prison, Centinela 197.8% 31 R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility 210.8% 32 Lancaster State Prison 181.8%

Source: Department of Corrections

Use of Fear

The use of fear and propaganda helped to cement the fact that consumption of alcohol

and marijuana would make one go crazy. Harry Anslinger was know for playing of the fear of foreigners and crime saying it was marijauna use that made these people act insane and go on murdous rampages. He paleyd on the fears of mexicans saying that 2 to

3 tons of mairjuana was being grown in Mexico (Garcia, 2014). In the opening lines of the 1936 anti-marijuana film Reffer Madness marijuana was portrayed as a violent drug that makes one laugh uncontrollabley while takes over the mind of anyone who uses it making them violent and insane. This was the type of propaganda was out being used to try and curb marijuana use (Garcia, 2014). Media began to follow in the footsteps of Anslinger and began reinforcing the stereotypes that Mexicans behaved the crazy Figure 31 "Anti- way they did because they smoked marijuana and that seemed Marijuana Propaganda Poster all-that-is- to make them crazy. What Americans did not know at the time interesting.com (All That Is Interesting) was that they were using marijuana too just under a different name, cannabis (Reinian, 2014). The use of fear and propaganda seemed to work well at demonizing the cannabis plant.

Lies

The use of lies was a big component in both the prohibition of alcohol and the

prohibition of marijuana. The government used lies to convince the people that alcohol

could cause death at the end of every bottle. Marijuana was demonized by the

government by linking Mexican immigrants with the term Marihuana, because people

did not know that marihuana, which they had been using for years, was the same as

cannabis. They told tales of marijuana’s fatal qualities. “The Marijauna cigarette is one of

the most insidious of all forms of dope, because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities” (Fairy, 1997 p. 3). These lies directed the people to feel that marijuana was harmful and a tool of the devil.

The way that the Womens Temperance Movement used unscientifc ways to show school children what happens to the insides of one’s body by pouring alcohol onto sheep and cows brains turning them a weird grayish hue (Garcia, 2014). This was supposed to make children not want to consume alcohol.

People who were against marijuana proposed that there are serious health risks associated with use and that it is a gateway drug to harder drugs. (Garcia 2014) Ronald

Reagan even made a statement that scietific, reliable sources said that its use cuases brain

damage. (Murphy, 2009 ). What Ronald Reagan did not explain for six years was that he

was refering to a different study that was done by Tulane university in 1974 that was

measuring carbon monoxide poisoning. Playboy magazine and the pro-legalization

group NORML had to sue the governmnet to get the truth about these lies told mto the

American public (Murphy, 2009). All though Americans have been taught all the way through school that marijuana is bad for one’s health and that was why so many people were being arrested and thrown in jail for it but, it just is not true. Figure 32 "Beware" pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com (Points: The Blog of The Alcohol And Drugs Consumption Effects History Society)

The law that was passed to curb alcohol abuse just made things worse in the long run. It gave the average American a chance to produce their own liquor at home which could sometimes be dangerous. Bathtub gin and whiskey would sometimes blind people if it was not made correctly. People used the fact that the law was unclear to continue to consume alcohol.

With the laws being unclear about making wine at home, the American grape industry began to sell kits of juice concentrate that was not to sit to long for it could ferment and become wine. The people began buying these kits and installing stills in their homes and use instructions that were available at the library written by the U.S.

Department of Agriculture. This was turning americans into excellent in-home wine makers (Lerner n.d.). An exception to the laws against prohibition was that pharmacists could prescribe whiskey for an assortment of ailments, so organized crime figured that getting into the pharmacy business would be a natural thing to do (Lerner, n.d.).

There were supposed to be a special policing units set up by the federal

government to enforce prohibition but this only made people want to drink more (Nash

n.d.) and although there are no solid statistics available it was well known that people

could still get a drink in local neighbor speakeasies. Some places throughout the country others were drinking more now than they did before prohibition(Lerner n.d.). The enforcement was not handled well and it ended up with millions spent in tax payer dollars.

Racism

In both cases of alcohol prohibition and marijuana prohibition the laws were used

to harass people who were not white. This helped support the idea that alcohol and

marijuana made minorities commit crimes and look at white women which was not

tolerated at this time. In the early 20th century opponents of marijuana did not want to

discuss issue of the substance but to blame foreigners and blacks for bringing it around

white people. Lies to congress came from representatives who said that alcohol would

make the red man a savage and would cause the tribes to go on war paths. Another

misrepresentation was that alcohol made black people commit unnatural crimes (Garcia,

2014). Rumors spread by Anslinger to Congress were that Mexicans were selling joints to

white high school kids for 25 cents for two (Garcia, 2014).

A common theme was that blacks, Hispanics, jazz musicians and entertainers

worshiped the devil and when white women used it they became sexually attracted to

these people (Hoff, 2014). Hearst’s newspaper articles grossly exaggerated that black

46 people would ingest marijuana and then rape white women. With lies of this kind

Anslinger was able to testify in front of congress that marijuana causes mass violence

(Murphy, 2009). Cannabis became an excuse for authorities to search, detain and deport

Mexican immigrants the same way the city of San Francisco outlawed opium to keep tabs on the Chinese immigrants in the early 1900’s (Reinian, 2014).

Conclusion

The research in this paper has concluded the following main points. Both of these legislative social actions were highly motivated by racism. The women’s movement and the religious movements had much to do with the prohibition of alcohol. Richard Nixon played a heavy role in making marijuana a schedule 1 narcotic. Maybe if he hadn’t got caught up in the Watergate scandal things may have turned out differently. Cannabis has many, many different uses and can be turned into a lot of different products. Hemp seed oil can be used as a fuel similar to gasoline.

The graphic on page 17 (the different uses for cannabis) puts it into perspective why marijuana was really made illegal. It is a shame that the United States rather rely on fracked or foreign fossil fuels just to make a small number of lucky families extremely rich and powerful. Recent polls suggest that educated Americans would vote to reschedule marijuana so that it may be used for recreation or at least studied for its positive qualities. One of the many uses is a clean energy alternative for fossil fuels.

Misrepresentation by individuals within the government happens all too often as with the case of both of these legislative social actions. Most Californians are aware of the overpopulation of prisons within the state but are not aware of how bad this situation actually is. Henry Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst are not commonly talked about names but maybe they should be. It is surprising what some people will do to others no matter the consequences to get what they want out of life.

There were rich powerful families behind the prohibition of alcohol movement.

Part of the argument to make alcohol illegal was that it would curb absenteeism and improve production in the factories were people worked for these rich families. America was formed on the ideas of the free market and these families were just doing what was right for themselves. There were also rich and powerful families who were involved in the prohibition of marijuana as well such as the Koch brothers. Some of the same organizations or families were involved in both cases such as the DuPont family.

Both of these social actions created black markets in which illegal activities gave gangs and organized crime a way to make large amounts of money. Big names such as Al

Capone and Bugsy Siegel got their reputation and start due to the prohibition of alcohol.

Gangs and cartels are involved in the smuggling and distribution of marijuana giving them a way to profit highly. Once the prohibition era was over the mafia lost its reign and less was heard about them as time went along in history. Even now there is little heard about the mafia’s actions. Only speculation about what would happen to the gangs and cartels can only be discussed until marijuana is made legal and the results are studied.

Consumption of both substances was affected by the legislative actions. In the case of alcohol consumption there is evidence that the amount of alcohol being consumed went up during the prohibition period. Although there is also evidence that point to the fact that prohibition kept people from drinking so it depends where one searches. The facts are not truly clear because they did not take these statistics back in those days.

Marijuana consumption levels before and after being made illegal was not covered in this

paper but it is possible that marijuana use may have went down. There is further research

to be done in this area.

In both cases the social actions were heavily influenced by lies from people in

positions that should not lie. Doctors, politicians, and big business executives used lies,

misrepresentation of facts, and bad information to get these laws slipped through without

the public’s opinion or say.

The amount of arrests that came from each of these legislative social actions grew

substantially during the period. As with marijuana arrests are still being made. The

population in prisons grew during the prohibition of alcohol period and the population is

still on the rise due to non-violent offences. There are 32 state prisons in California and all of them are grossly overpopulated.

There are a lot of complications that are going to come about if marijuana is legalized. The government is going to have to figure out how to regulate marijuana without incentivizing people to create a black market for it. They are going to have to come up with a test kit that can test how under the influence a person is on marijuana. As of now they have tests that show if the active chemical that impairs your ability drive is present, but they don’t know if that means the person is too affected to drive. Marijuana is unlike alcohol in the fact that it does certain things differently to certain people. Each strain has different effects and depends on the way your body tolerates it. With marijuana the body does build up a tolerance so the more you ingest regularly the less it affects people’s cognitive ability.

The government is going to have to figure out the rules of growing: will R.J.

Reynolds be able to buy tons of land and grow marijuana like they do with tobacco? Will it be limited in area? Will regular stores sell it like alcohol? Who will be in charge of regulation? DEA? ATF? These are some of the questions that will be answered in the future if marijuana is ever legalized in the entire country.

California has been dealing with medical marijuana regulation since 1996 so they have a leg forward in knowledge if it becomes legal. There are still tons of questions out there and only time will tell!.

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Appendix

Prohibition Table

Author and year Major pts Takeaways Anderson, B. G. Prohibition was a Prohibition followed the growth in religious (1995, June 15) movement beliefs in the 1800s, evangelicals felt that wanted by immigrants tended to drink more, senators religious people possessed differing personal attitudes on the to start but then issue of prohibition, underground organizations became favored were in favor of the laws and tried to keep by organized prohibition going for their profits and control, crime because of support and opposition at the legislative level profit grew out of the underlying demand for and opportunity supply, other income driven governmental organizations were in favor of repeal as well Burnham, J.C. Prohibition was a Typically middle class people did not drink social experiment during this time, thought that prohibition would of the change people’s minds about using alcohol, progressive progressives and businessmen were the ones movement calling for prohibition, 18th amendment was not brought up to keep people from possessing or drinking alcohol but to make the making, transporting and selling illegal, presidents did not enforce the laws for political reasons, claims that there was no crime wave or more drinking during prohibition, President Harding and Coolidge did not push for enforcement of prohibition, people feel prohibition was a failure because they think about it after 1925 because from 1915-1923 the experiment was a success, criminal organizations did thrive Green, J. (2013, There are a lot of Al Capone and other gangsters thrived when December 5) reasons to end government outlawed alcohol, they waited 40 drug prohibitions years for marijuana to have the same problem, same solution: legalize, license, regulate and tax, prohibition of alcohol was actually closer to what reformists today call “decriminalization” the removal of criminal penalties for use and possession while sales, distribution and manufacture remain prosecutable offenses,

when we finally came to our senses and repealed the prohibition of alcohol 80 years ago homicides went down appreciably nationwide, we will realize the same phenomenon when we finally repeal marijuana prohibition Lawn, John C This article Prohibition was not backed by the consensus argues the fact but, illegal drugs are at the time, the laws of that prohibition prohibition are different from the laws was more prohibiting illegal drugs, like marijuana laws effective than we today several states did not enforce prohibition, give it credit laws are much harsher now than then, United historically States was a "dry" nation within a "wet" international community McGrew, Jane The paper Who was for it, who was against it, how it Lang intensively unfolded, the major players, and the complete covers the history of prohibition including all the details history, rise, and fall of prohibition Nadelmann, E. This article Growing numbers of political leaders, law (1989, September examines the enforcement officials, drug abuse experts, and 1) cost and common citizens insist that a radical alternative consequences, to prohibition of drugs is needed, few law and alternatives enforcement officials any longer contend that to drug their efforts can do much more than they are prohibition already doing, $10 billion spent in 1987, 10% of the 550,000 in state prisons were there on minor drug charges, repealing the drug prohibition laws clearly promises huge advantages from reduced government expenditures to enforcing drug laws and new tax revenue from legal drug production and sales Zweibel, J. A. Prohibition did Prohibition provided a setting to examine the (1991, May) not stop people impact on how legal restrictions placed on drugs from consuming or alcohol effected the community, estimating alcohol during alcohol consumption during prohibition is prohibition complicated, consumption dropped a lot at first but then went back up after it set in Marijuana Table Author and year Major pts Takeaways Mandelman, E. A. Lots of people Half of those between the ages of 18 and 50 (2004, July 12). have smoked have tried marijuana at least once, prominent

marijuana and it figures such as Al Gore, Bill Bradley, John is not likely to Kerry, Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush change have admitted prior use, no other law is both enforced so widely and harshly and yet deemed unnecessary, 700,000 arrests a year of which 600,000 are for simple possession, Federal law still prohibits medical marijuana, millions of Americans use marijuana not just “for fun” but because they find it useful for many of the same reasons that people drink alcohol or take pharmaceutical drugs with less harmful side effects Room, R. (2010, The prohibition Efforts to suppress the selling and use of October 9) of cannabis is not marijuana increased substantially, cost of the doing what it is fight increased from $1.5 billion in 1981 to $18 intended to do billion in 2002, arrests have gone up and possibly is substantially as well, seizures have gone from making it worse 350,000 lbs to 2,500,000 lbs from 1990 to 2006 but was more available and more people are using than ever before, the prohibition and repeal of prohibition of alcohol could be a precedent for the legalization of marijuana Single, E. W. The labeling of The movement to legalize marijuana started in (1989) marijuana as a the US and Canada in the 1970’s, Oregon lead “decriminalized” the way by “decriminalizing” possession of offense caused under on ounce in 1973, there is not a some problems consensus as to what the word decriminalized and some good means, marijuana laws are supposed to help with health and safety and social issues that arise from use, decriminalization has had little or no impact on use, very hard to determine if this is true because of lack of people willing to talk about their illegal usage, amount of money spent on law enforcement and prosecuting offenders went down substantially after it was “decriminalized” Zweibel, J. A. There are Most feel that prohibition will detour people (1995, November economic reasons from not using drugs but, have found out that 4) why drugs should the opposite is more likely, revenues for the not be prohibited sales of illegal drugs are estimated to be worth at minimum $10 billion but more likely up to about $50 billion a year, a high percentage of people in the prison system are there due to

drug charges, prohibition raises the profits of dealers and violence rates, it is felt that drug users will commit crimes to fuel their addictions, there is lack of evidence that all drugs are extremely addictive, making drugs illegal causes the use of alcohol and tobacco to raise which have been linked to more serious illnesses, before 1937 when marijuana was made illegal you could buy it in stores and our nation was not full of addicts Parallels Table Author and year Major Points Takeaways Al-Khatib, T. There are Colorado and Washington made an (2012, November parallels between unprecedented move of legalizing marijuana, 9) prohibition and there are similarities in the legal histories of legalizing government treatment of marijuana in the marijuana modern day and alcohol in the Prohibition Era, both substances were banned through acts of Congress, the anti-marijuana movement was initially rooted in a moralizing argument that marijuana is a deadly, addictive drug that enslaved its users and turned them into violent, deranged freaks, before the 18th Amendment was repealed, it was only irregularly enforced and, in its twilight years, practically ignored altogether Garcia, C. (2014, Fear was used to Over the last 40 years the opinion on whether or February 10) make alcohol not to legalize marijuana has changed, made illegal as well as illegal first in 1937 then moved to a schedule marijuana one narcotic, it is known as a dangerous drug that turned people into deranged freaks, the best way to detour people from the use of something is to educate and further regulate it, during the Clinton administration a marijuana smoker was arrested every 45 seconds on average, people have lost jobs, cash, land, and many other assets Ferner, M. (2012, Policy changes The legalizing of marijuana will lead to mass November 14) and regulation policy decisions like whether or not the state will have to be will be able to make money on the sales of determined marijuana, will there be tradable stocks that are related to marijuana, will you need a license to sell it, and how old must one be to legally smoke marijuana, many proponents of

legalization do not think that the federal government will intervene in Colorado and Washington. Ko, A. (2013, There will be an The 21st amendment was the first put in place September 6). end to the by congress without the states legislatures help, prohibition of the 21st Amendment changed how alcohol marijuana just policies are set and who sets them, with each like the end of state having the authority to decide for itself, alcohol states have done Congress one step better by prohibition turning key aspects of alcohol regulation over to county and municipal governments, in 2013 the Obama administration was doing the same with marijuana McLaughlin, E. C. There are several There are parallels that are seen between the (2012, December parallels between 18th amendment and the movement to legalize 4) prohibition and marijuana, marijuana laws and prohibition were legalizing based on prejudices and scientific studies that marijuana were done wrong on purpose, 1936 film “Refer Madness” that portrayed people who smoke marijuana as crazed lunatics, medical marijuana laws that passed first in California in 1996, alcohol was available by prescription from a doctor, controversy over the taxing of marijuana if it is legalized Miron, J. A. This article Increased enforcement of a prohibition tends to (1999) examines the increase the use of violence to settle disputes, relation between there is a view that use of drugs and alcohol prohibitions and leads to violence, prohibitions often give rise to violence black markets, violence occurs because of disputes that cannot be handled by a court, some or all prohibited drugs can be prescribed by doctor Owens, E. The ending of Gangs run drugs and driving them out of prohibition of business will reduce violence and crime, marijuana will currently the sales of marijuana is on the black lead to a fall in market and you cannot regulate it, argues that violence urbanization and the New Deal were the real cause of the spike of violence in the early 1900’s but, the data needed to show this wasn’t available then, physical effects of consuming marijuana and alcohol are different, violence usually is done by those between the ages of 20- 30

Peck, G. (2013, Taxes and Prohibition essentially deregulated the alcohol May 22). regulation are market, essentially the way the underground going to be market for marijuana is currently, it is going to difficult to make be taxed and we really need money in this country, DUI laws will have to be changed to fit marijuana use because at this time there is no way to test Renharman, H. G. This article The temperance movement was created in the (1991) covers the early temperance nineteenth century by physicians, ministers, and movement, the large employers concerned about the effects of drunkenness of workers and servants, the prohibition on temperance campaign was devoted to consumption, convincing people that alcoholic production, and drink in any form was evil, dangerous, and distribution, and destructive, prohibitions drive out less quality Alcohol drugs, the new public debate about drug laws production and has increased interest in the effects of distribution prohibition on public health, the economy, and during social problems, spirits do not go bad fast and prohibition have more alcohol than beer therefore it was much more profitable to bootleg spirits causing people to drink higher doses of pure alcohol, not all of the liquor was bootlegged by gangsters, people sent wagons and trucks to Canada and small families distilled spirits as well Thornton, M. Facts about History of smuggling in the United States, 18th (2014). smuggling and amendment was one of the worst social prohibitions are mistakes, no push to make marijuana illegal based on before it was taxed, prohibitions are normally movements based on ignorance, prejudice, and religion as well as on bureaucratic interests and special interests