Racism Is The Reason Cannabis Became Illegal

I can promise you that not one public school in America teaches its students about cannabis’s racial history. Why would a federally funded school discuss how the government used propaganda and racism to spread lies and myths about a plant that is still considered to do this day by our federal government to be a highly addictive drug with no medicinal use. 

Public and private school systems are white-washing history. By not discussing the ways cannabis became an illegal substance, and the negative impacts the war on drugs has had on BIPOC communities, you are only talking about history through one perspective, the white perspective. 

Well, I am here today to tell you the history of how racism caused marijuana to become illegal. 

Photo – insta @ariellcasie

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) used to be the Federal Narcotics Bureau (FBN), and it was the first agency in America to enforce drug use. This bureau was run by a man named Harry Anslinger or as I like to refer to him, Harry Asslinger.  

Asslinger was promoted to head of the FBN in 1929. At that time, the FBN was responsible for prohibiting alcohol from the nation. Asslinger told his supervisors he knew how to make prohibition work, and it was by using maximum force. “Send the navy to hunt down smugglers along the coasts of American. Ban the sale of alcohol for medical purposes. Massively increase prison sentences for alcohol dealers until they were all locked up. Wage of war on booze until it was only a memory.”

By 1933 the ban on alcohol did not exist, and Asslinger’s department was no longer needed. His budget was slashed by $700,000; Asslinger was aware of the problematic position he was in. He knew he needed a narcotic to focus on if he wanted to keep his department alive after the huge loss against the prohibition of alcohol.

But that was no problem for Asslinger; he had seen the danger of drugs and felt he could eradicate all drugs in the world. He believed deep down to his core that drugs were evil, and he was the person chosen to save the world from all of its evils. He would do whatever it took to get drugs off the streets, and that’s exactly what he did. 

Asslinger once insisted that marijuana was not addictive, and it was absurd to think it could cause violent crimes. Asslinger wanted to go after cocaine and heroin — the real drugs threatening society; however, only a tiny minority used these drugs. His department needed a drug that was consumed by thousands and could be made a threat to American society.

Marijuana was his substance, but because cannabis was viewed as a medicine for thousands of years, his task was to convince the American public that this once safe medicine is now an addicting drug taking over the lives of teenagers, making them crazy and killing their families. 

Here are some of the racist lies Asslinger, the Head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, told the American people about marijuana. 

• Asslinger spread the idea that you could quickly get stoned and kill a person, and it would all be over before you even realized you had left your room, he said, because marijuana “turns man into a wild beast.”
• “Marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negros” and caused whites and blacks to dance cheek to cheek in teahouses and nightclubs
• “The most frightening effect of marijuana was on blacks.” It made them forget the appropriate racial barriers and unleashed their lush for white women. 
• In 1936 Asslinger disclosed to the American people that 50% of violent crimes committed in districts were occupied by “Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana”
• “The increase [in drug addiction] is practically 100% among Negro people,” which he stressed was terrifying because already “the Negro population … accounts for 10% of the total population but 60% of the addicts.”
• He presented the House of Committee on Appropriateness the story of “colored students at the University of Minn[esota] partying with [white] female students and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy.”
• “If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana, he would drop dead of fright.”

This is the type of information the American people were being told in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s. These statements and stories similar to Asslinger’s lies contributed to numerous newspaper headlines with anecdotal accounts of horrific murders falsely attributed to marijuana smokes. 

According to the Government and the media, marijuana caused people to become murderers, and the people who were smoking marijuana were ethnic groups — thus associating with murder and ethnic groups together to conform with the racists views that the white American people already had. 

Before the passing of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Asslinger wrote to 30 scientific experts asking a series of questions about marijuana and for their support with passing this act. 29 of the scientific experts wrote back disapproving the act against marijuana. As medical experts, they told Asslinger that it would be wrong to ban marijuana, and they were concerned that it was being widely misrepresented in the press.   

Asslinger ignored the experts’ concerns and continued for the passing of this act. He knew if he could get the support of the American people, it would prove that he is right, and everything that he is doing is for the good of the white American family.

Asslinger knew the best way to gain the support of the American people was to take advantage of what they fear and provide a safe alternative. Banning drugs banned the foreign cultures of blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese people from poisoning Asslinger’s precious white American culture. 

Discussing cannabis’s history will probably lead to much distrust of the Government and authority, especially for children and teenagers. No Karen would allow for their innocent child to be taught about the benefits of a drug. So what do we do instead of learning about history and educating our children to think critically and for themselves, we cover up the things we fear, we label them as, “evil, criminal, shameful” and do our best to keep them out of our community instead of attempting to understand the thing we fear. The real sad part about this truth is it’s not only referring to the fear of drugs but also the fear of communities merging with “evil, criminal, shameful” people, stigmatizing the BIPOC communities to be these types of people. 

We need to change. It’s time we get uncomfortable.

This is the American history on how racism made cannabis illegal, and it still continues today.

Photo – insta @ariellcasie