Chapter Three

In the still disunited and heavily colonized Americas, in the early 17th century, a law was enacted in the Jamestown Colony in Virginia ordering all farmers to ‘make tryal of’ (grow) Indian hempseed. Similar laws were enacted ten years later in Massachusetts and Connecticut. A little under one hundred years later the Chesapeake Colonies followed suit. To encourage its growth nationwide, hemp was legal tender in the USA from 1631 until the early 1800s and for over 200 years it was possible to pay taxes with hemp.

Despite this depressingly prosaic and mundane history, there are intimations that cannabis was in use as a recreational substance. In the 16th century, Shakespeare is known to have smoked cannabis -- residue from the substance was discovered in one of his pipes. In the Americas both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson possessed large hemp plantations. And, Washington himself, is thought to have to used some of his cannabis for recreational purposes. There is a note from him that refers to separating the male from the female plants that intimates recreational use.

As we have seen in previous documents in this series, cannabis was extensively utilized in medicine and commerce pretty much right up until the advent of the Harrison Act in the USA in 1914. This banned the sale of opiates and cocaine without a license. The killer blow, however, came with the 1925 Geneva International Convention on Narcotics Control which banned ‘Indian Hemp and all resins and preparations based thereon’ worldwide.

There had, of course, been many previous prohibitions on the use of cannabis. Perhaps the earliest of these comes under Islamic law. Under Sharia law, derived from the Qur’an, all intoxicants are banned. This prohibition is, however, taken to apply to alcohol rather than cannabis, the use of which is widespread within the Muslim faith. Some 700 years later, in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII, prohibited the use of cannabis, possibly in response to the plant’s association with the herbalists who were being rechristened as witches and systematically burned. Despite these and other local prohibitions, cannabis, opiates and cocaine continued to be widely available on the high street and were extensively used by rich and poor alike. It was only after the International Convention on Narcotics and the national control measures that followed it into law that cannabis achieved a status resembling that which it holds today.

The prohibition of cannabis did not actually get teeth until newspaper magnet, William Randolph Hearst, and Harry J. Anslinger, newly appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics came on the scene.

It was Hearst who introduced the term ‘marijuana’ into the English language through his yellow journalism tirades against the ‘devil weed.’ Stirring up a popular hysteria around the use of cannabis by negroes and others intent on corrupting white women, Hearst created a social millieu into which Anslinger slipped like an iron hand into a velvet glove. Totally fabricated and without any substance at all, Hearst’s tales of degenerate practises amongst the cannabis ingesting populace were entirely cynical and commercially motivated. As well as owning many newspapers, Heart owned large tracts of tree-rich forest. Whilst he made little money from his newspapers, he made a tremendous profit from selling them paper produced from his own forests. In the face of new technology for processing cannabis fibre into high quality paper, Hearst saw his profits threatened and took steps to protect them.

In 1930 the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was established as a division of the Department of the Treasury and Harry J. Anslinger was appointed as its director. A career politician with a lust for power, Anslinger saw his appointment as an opportunity to make his name in the political arena. Although opiates and cocaine came within his ambit, they were not used by enough people to create a national crisis that would increase his own power and that of his agency. Marijuana, on the other hand was not only widely smoked but its use was mainly restricted to ethnic groups who fell outside of the WASP stereotype. Taking his cue from the yellow journalism of the Hearst empire, Anslinger drew on themes of racism and violence to draw public attention to the problem he had ‘identified.’

In a typically unbiased and fair-minded statement, Anslinger said: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, results from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.” Heaven forfend!

Inter-racial sex and the devil’s music were not, however, the main weapons in Anslinger’s armoury. Describing marijuana as “an addictive drug which produces in its users’ insanity, criminality, and death,” he possessed files, known as the Gore Files, containing 200 cases of blood-curdling violence, mayhem and rape perpetrated in a marijuana-crazed stupor. “Marijuana,” he said, “is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” One of his most sensational cases was that of Victor Licata. Poor Victor, who “had been addicted to smoking marijuana cigarettes for six months” got up one morning and killed his parents, two brothers and his sister with an axe. Although Victor was subsequently found to be suffering from hereditary insanity, that did not bother Anslinger. Of the 200 cases contained in the Gore Files, 198 have been found to falsely attribute marijuana as a factor in violent crime and many have been found to be total or partially fabricated, including the two of which there is no record whatsoever.

After two years of well-orchestrated propagandizing, Anslinger had placed marijuana in the untenable position of being a social curse that made “darkies think they’re as good as white men.” In 1937, clutching a scrapbook containing Hearst anti-marijuana editorials, tales of marijuana-induced axe murders, rape and degeneracy and a litany of racial slurs, Anslinger brought his case to Congress. Although Anslinger’s proposition did not go through unopposed, it did go through. On 2nd August, 1937, Congress passed a bill making marijuana illegal on a federal basis. Such was public interest in this evil substance that the entire coverage of the event in the New York Times on that day consisted of just 18 words.

There is a slightly more sinister aside to the marijuana prohibition mythos that has some credibility. Anslinger was appointed to his post by Andrew Mellon, Secretary to the Treasury and Chairman of the Mellon Bank, bankers to the DuPont Corporation. Anslinger was married to Mellon’s niece. Like Hearst, DuPont could see their profits being hit by the invention of a new hemp decoring machine that promised much cheaper fibre processing costs. They had recently developed a new process for producing wood-pulp paper and, in 1937, having spent over $1.5 million on research and development, they produced the first synthetic fabric, rayon. Keen to get a return on their investment, it is said that DuPont put pressure on their bankers to suppress the use of hemp fibre. Bring on Harry J. Anslinger.

The roots of illegality sown by the International Opium Convention of 1925 and nurtured by Harry J. Anslinger flowered into a long-lived and hardy perennial. The hysteria generated by Anslinger’s tirades sustained over decades, far beyond his demise, to eventually produce the ludricious, ineffectual and vicious ‘War on Drugs’ in the home of the free. Despite a president who has openly admitted smoking cannabis and made commitments to curtail the persecution of cannabis users, the war goes on. Feeding on a blatant and cynical mix of bigoted lies and misinformation, the SWAT raids continue.

That, however, is not the full picture for, since the last decade of the 20th century there has been increasing acknowledgement that marijuana is not a ‘killer weed,’ does not have anti-social effects either on the individual nor more widely and has a strong case for inclusion in the international pharmacopeia.

Although attitudes towards cannabis as a harmful substance are changing worldwide, it continues to be more or less illegal just about everywhere. But change is on the way. In January 2010, in an ABC news poll 81% of those canvassed expressed a belief that marijuana for medical use should be legal in the USA. Whilst cannabis prohibition continues to be a priority for the federal lawmakers in the USA, in over 20 US states the use of marijuana for medical use has been more or less decriminalized. In one state -- Oregon -- it is decriminalized for recreational use through the law is applied erratically in some cases. In two states -- Alaska and Hawaii -- the cultivation of cannabis plants is allowed for personal use, though if too many plants are being grown the onus is on the grower to prove that the crop is for personal use since, in all states, trafficking remains illegal. In November 2010, California introduced legislation that would have not only made recreational use of cannabis legal but a taxable commodity. This initiative was narrowly defeated but it will no doubt appear again.

The patchiness of marijuana suppression and legislation in the USA offers a microcosm of the situation on a global basis. Although cannabis continues to be illegal worldwide, in many countries its use is tolerated or has been relegated to a misdemeanour.

Even in the Netherlands, regarded by many as the last bastion of freedom in the western world, cannabis remains an illegal substance and, despite their licensed existence, coffeeshops continue to be subject to a plethora of rules, regulations and raids. The contradictions within the Dutch socio/legal fabric are many. Whilst the police might respond to external pressure to persecute the coffeeshops, the reason for their existence and the function they provide within Dutch society is as valid today as it was when they first came into being. In Amsterdam, the coffeeshops were set up to try to contain a spiralling heroin problem by removing soft drugs from the black market. And it worked, Holland is one of the few countries in the world where heroin use decreases on an annual basis. (It also happens to have the lowest per capita crime figures of any major country in, I believe, the world and is closing down prisons rather that building new ones. But that is probably just coincidence and nothing whatsoever to do with increased consciousness.)

Although Amsterdam, which has come to epitomise the Dutch smoking experience, is a special place, it is not unique. At least as recently as 2006 there were said to be many ‘hemp shops’ in Switzerland, though here the spread was far from uniform with some cantons prohibiting such shops. Even without the shops, cannabis is said to be freely available on the street. Denmark, also, has an area in its capital city, Copenhagen, where coffeeshops and other cannabis marketeers operate. Although the Danish Christiana community has been through its ups and downs both with the police and with the Russian mafia, it continues to survive if not flourish -- now with an edict from the mayor to leave them alone.

Although marijuana tracking is not so much of a problem for Mexico as the cocaine cartels, there is an increasing mood towards decriminalization within the country. As of August 2010 there were four proposals covering decriminaliztion and/or legalization floating around Mexico’s House of Deputies. At least one of these proposes changes following the Amsterdam model.

For the rest of the world it is yes/no situation but mainly no. In most European countries, cannabis remains illegal but possession of small quantities (sometimes up to 30 grams) is a misdemeanour or less. Only in Spain and a couple of US states is growing legal and even there it is at least contentious. Further afield and we enter ‘Midnight Express’ territory. Scary. At least until you hit the places where cannabis started out and continues to be a part of the social or spiritual fabric where its use is tolerated, at least by locals.

Exemplifying the cannabis dilemma is good old England. A part of Europe while doing entirely its own thing, in England cannabis remains classified alongside such life-destroying substances as speed. There was a time when its classification was reduced to that of ketamine and mild tranquillizers but that was short-lived. Meanwhile the substance that really does destroy lives on a widespread basis -- alcohol -- remains outside the Misuse of Drugs Act. There is an apocryphal tale that I believe to be true but cannot verify that I have been telling for many years. It concerns a question tabled on the floor of the House of Commons some years ago. The question asked the Home Office how many people had died over the previous year through the use of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. The answer came back that 86,000 or so had died through alcohol, 92,000 through tobacco and three through cannabis. Taking up his right to ask a ‘supplemental’ the questioner asked how the three people using cannabis had died. They were, it seems, Customs and Excise Officers who had drowned while jumping from one boat to another during a raid on a suspected vessel. ‘Nough said.

Despite the law cannabis use is widespread in the UK and courageous fools continue to try to establish outlets for the supply. One or two maintain an uncertain survival but most get closed as they open. The mood of the country and of the Advisory Council on the Misue of Drugs, both current and recent, is that cannabis does not compare to alcohol as a socially harmful substance. Having commissioned a report into the reclassification of cannabis that recommended downgraded the substance, in May 2009 the then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced the government’s intention to ‘set aside’ the findings of the report committee. In November, 2009, Professor David Nutt, Chairman of the ACMD, hit the headlines when he published figures in a professional journal indicating that cannabis was far less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. He subsequently resigned from the ACMD, not without government pressure, and was followed a number of fellow members. Free to speak his mind, Professor Nutt did just that. Among his many noteworthy statements was ‘horse riding is more dangerous than ecstasy.’

Pressure for action on cannabis continues to build in the UK. A new government and a new Home Secretary could offer hope for those who indulge in the killer weed. Except -- new government but the same old lobbies.

We live in hope.