Edgewood High School Lecture Room: Fill & Download for Free

Harry J. Anslinger and Richard Nixon. Both did it for personal political gain and racism.Since the 1700s, cannabis was available throughout North America in a wide variety of medications and general items. In personal correspondence, it’s been revealed that former Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and James Madison, as well as Benjamin Franklin and Mary Todd Lincoln, all smoked hashish. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both used their immense personal wealth to grow vast acreages of hemp at their estates, contributing to their stature in the colonies, with Washington even referring to it as a staple crop of America.Cannabis saw a major surge in popularity after 1839 thanks to William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, whose research while in India helped its image both in Europe and the New World. It was most popular during the “snake oil” phase of medications in the late 1800s, being used as an ingredient in a wide range of tinctures and drinks used to cure and treat numerous types of ailments. Prior to the Civil War, it was used extensively to make rope, sails, clothing, paper and oil, but after being replaced by imported materials, made its way into medications. Across the pond in 1890, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the physician to Queen Victoria, wrote a summary in the The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, touting cannabis’ medicinal benefits. The Queen herself utilized it for her menstrual cramps. In 1892, Sir William Osler authored the first textbook of Internal Medicine, and advised that cannabis was the most effective treatment for migraines.In 1909, the San Francisco Police Department reported only one case of the use of hashish in Emergency Hospitals in the last six years, and that it was accidental and a result of polydrug use. Following the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, waves of Mexican immigrants began crossing into the US, bringing with them their recreational use of a “new” substance, marijuana. Prior to 1910, the Spanish term “marijuana” was mostly unknown, and it was instead known as hashish or Indian hemp. In 1911, Hamilton Wright was promoted to the Chief Architect of the US narcotics policy. He categorized all mind-altering substances as “drug evils,” and thought that if the ban of opioids were to happen, people would only move to hashish. He specifically targeted the “very undesirable Hindoos” (referring to Sikhs and Punjabis, among other East Indian immigrants), claiming they were spreading their terrible drugs to white people. Racism soared in the area, and during the first Progressive Era wave of anti-narcotics legislation, California became the first US state to outlaw cannabis in 1913.The US’ prohibition of alcohol in 1920 played a major hand to the spreading popularity of cannabis throughout the country. Speakeasies were springing up around the country, providing an illegal hub where patrons could consume any alcohol they pleased, and providing another home for marijuana enthusiasts. Marijuana’s popularity soared as jazz musicians toured the country, reaching points where a viper (term at the time for a cannabis smoker) could roll and smoke a joint on a public road with no repercussions. Numerous companies jumped at the opportunity as well, and branded cannabis cigarettes became rather popular. Brands like Cannadonna, Cigares De Joy and Grimault all contained cannabis, specifically marketed for the treatment of asthma, but typically used recreationally. Physicians at the time agreed with cannabis’ effects as well, and in 1921 alone, over 3 million prescriptions included cannabis.In the early 1930s, the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, had mass amounts of his funding cut. To solve this issue, he realized he needed a new substance to fight in order to keep his paychecks coming in. On top of this, government records show that he was contacted by William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont company, prominent figures in the lumber and petrochemical industries, offering financial aid should he help them to demonize a new competitor on the market; hemp. This may sound like a harsh interpretation of the events, but Anslinger himself actually admitted to this version of his story later in his life, stating he was aware all along. This is evident even before he became Commissioner of the FBN, as before he had financial incentive to demonize cannabis, he is quoted as saying that “there is probably no more absurd fallacy than the claim that [marijuana] caused violent crime.”With hefty pockets and a new drug to demonize, he began the Reefer Madness campaign, backed by the US Government, which publicly blamed the Mexican and black communities for trying to poison America’s youth with this new drug; marijuana. Falsified ads and paid-off doctors made the plant out to be worse than any other drug in the nation, and Hearst’s own newspaper was more than happy to print stories of teenagers going on murderous sprees following cannabis use, despite no evidence of that every happening. Harry J. Anslinger gave a statement before Congress that “Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality and death!” He would go on to say, in this same statement to Congress, that “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women seek sexual relationships with Negroes,” “Makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” “Makes Mexicans thirst for white blood,” and is “the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”Anslinger’s use of the term marijuana was calculated and intended, as it was generally unknown to physicians attending the original Congressional Hearings, and as such, they were unaware of the actual substance being attacked, therefore unwilling to defend it. They weren’t aware of what was being lost until it was too late, and the physicians that did dispute his claims were met with literal threats from Anslinger himself. His speech spread throughout the nation, and within days, his false propaganda was being reported as complete truth. His statement that “Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana” was followed by entire police departments supporting the claims by stating that cannabis is the cause for the majority of murders and “sex outrages,” mostly from minorities. A propagandic movie was even made in 1936 called Reefer Madness, whose plot revolves around a group of teenagers who smoke marijuana and proceed to murder someone with their car, commit suicide, attempt to rape people, hallucinate and descend into madness. In this same year, the first automated machine for harvesting and processing hemp was invented, and Anslinger saw increased pressure from his financial backer William Randolph Hearst to put an end to their rivals.The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed the next year, effectively banning all marijuana in the country. Joints were specifically targeted, with newspapers and even school textbooks stating that “harmless” tobacco cigarettes were being spiked with marijuana, sometimes clarifying that it’s specifically being done by Mexicans or black people, to drive white children insane.Technically, the new law didn’t outright ban cannabis as a plant. Instead, one was now required to purchase a Treasury Department tax stamp before they could legally cultivate, possess, use, sell or give away cannabis. However, attaining this stamp included a nightmarish maze of affidavits, sworn statements, depositions and thorough investigations by the Treasury Department police. Any physician wishing to prescribe cannabis had to provide all information on their client to the government, and if at any point the prescription was rejected, the physician faced up to $2,000 in fines ($36,000 in today’s money) and up to 5 years’ imprisonment. You can see how it was suddenly preferable to not take the risk. An estimated 45% of patent medicines at the time had some form of marijuana in it before the ban; over 99% of them were removed from prescription circulation in the following years.In the following year, 1938, Anslinger convened a meeting of 23 individuals to discuss the implementation of this prohibition, and included an information session to learn more about cannabis. The experts Anslinger had at the hearing were clearly planted and only there to further his own views and goals. Psychologist James C. Munch, regarded as an expert on cannabis’ effects on the brain, claimed that THC shrunk the brains in rat and dog models, but was conveniently unable to provide the study data. Munch would later testify at a murder trial in which the defendant was claiming marijuana-induced insanity, stating he had tried two puffs of marijuana before and it caused him to transform into a bat, fly around the room and down into a deep inkwell. The hemp experts claimed issues with the flowers of their plants vanishing from their hemp farms, as the neighbors seemed to enjoy them. Fearful of the flowers being psychologically active, researchers performed a Beam test on the flowers, an outdated measurement test from 1911, and turned up trace evidence of CBD. With no further evidence or research, they decided CBD was what gave the “high” associated with smoking marijuana, and included hemp in their overarching cannabis ban.One of the worst parts of this ordeal is that the US Government was fully aware that Harry J. Anslinger’s claims had no evidence to back them up. Wishing to better understand how cannabis works on a molecular level, Roger Adams, a renowned American organic chemist, discovered THC in 1940. He would go on to isolate CBN and CBD from cannabis as well, successfully synthesize them and even develop THC acetate. Unaffiliated scientists, baffled by the claims made by Anslinger and now capable of testing the molecules themselves, showed through numerous studies in the early 1940s that marijuana had no connection to violence, infidelity, insanity, addiction or many of the other negative claims Anslinger had been making. Despite these findings, the US government went ahead and removed cannabis from the United States Pharmacopeia in 1942.Roger Adams would go on to give a lecture at the National Academy of Sciences detailing his work, and casually remarked that marijuana had “pleasant effects.” This statement caused an uproar, with one reporter stating Anslinger himself visibly snarled. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) requested that Adams be labeled a security risk, and called on the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover to intervene. Hoover believed this was a massive overreaction, and decided to tell ONI that Adams was a common name and they must have gotten the wrong guy to try and save Adams' reputation. He was still placed on ONI’s list of “people to be watched” after this event.Despite the US government’s public view of cannabis, they began experiments with THC as a possible truth serum in 1943. Under the orders of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and conducted by St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington DC, THC infused cigarettes were administered to personnel within the immensely classified Manhattan Project, presumably due to their high security clearance. With no results, THC was then used on soldiers at US army bases, again yielding no results, and the program was closed with THC being classified as a “non-truth-inducing drug.”Interest in the compound didn’t yield, however, and government chemists began playing with the molecular structure of THC to try and produce different effects. Dimethylheptylpyran (DMHP) was invented in 1949 by the US Army Chemical Corps and tested by Edgewood Arsenal, a company producing chemicals for classified human subject research in Maryland. Initially contracted in 1948 until 1975, Edgewood took the public form of a vaccine and pharmaceutical laboratory, but whose actual documented purpose was psychochemical warfare for the US military involving over 7,000 human subjects. DMHP was specifically created to produce stronger effects than THC, of which it is very chemically similar to, and intended to be used as a non-lethal incapacitator for use in single-dose agents; the assumed intent was for US spies to use this substance to subdue targets quietly. DMHP was found to be over 1000 times more potent than THC, and could create a high lasting over 48 hours. In declassified trials, it produced hallucinations, severe dizziness, fainting, ataxia and muscle weakness, to the point of patients being too weak to stay standing up. Deaths occurred in many animal models, typically from hypothermia, but was preventable with supportive treatment. Edgewood concluded their tests a success, but DMHP was eventually dropped and replaced with another Edgewood chemical, 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ), which proved more effective.In the early 1950s, the CIA’s continued interest in THC and its related compounds meant more experiments. Edgewood Arsenal’s findings with DMHP, as well as other tests they conducted using LSD, piqued their interest the most. Approved and sanctioned in 1953, now declassified documents have revealed the conspiracies surrounding Project MKUltra were found to be mostly true. Tasked with creating a chemical capable of mind control, THC laced cigarettes were used in early trials on unwilling prisoners, mental patients, vagrants and sex workers, but yielded no results. MKUltra would move on to more serious compounds, like LSD, for the remainder of its testing until 1973.Although THC, CBD and CBN were first discovered by Roger Adams in 1940, many news outlets report they were discovered by Israeli researcher Raphael Mechoulam at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1964, and credit to this discovery is almost always given to him. This mistaken credit is due to Mechoulam’s researchers having the benefit of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy, something Adams did not have, but even at the time Adams was able to successfully infer the chemical structure of THC, CBD and CBN. Mechoulam’s work was more of an affirmation of what was already known.As the years pressed on, cannabis’ image in the US culture began to evolve. Millions began questioning what they had originally been taught, and following the Vietnam War, thousands of veterans were coming home with waterproof sea bags stuffed with hundreds of pounds of exotic hash oil and cannabis, fresh from Vietnam itself. In 1967, the Summer of Love, cannabis becomes an incredibly popular recreational substance among hippies, bikers, veterans and many other demographics. The government even began listening, and in 1969, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was unconstitutional and a violation of the Fifth Amendment rights.The scientific community’s insistence for marijuana’s legalization, or at least decriminalization, came at a head in 1971 when a bipartisan commission recommended President Nixon remove the Marihuana Tax Act altogether. Nixon’s response was to form the Shafer Commission and the Nixon Marijuana Commission with the public goal of researching the substance to consider this move, but with the real goal of finding any reason to continue marijuana’s ban. The Shafer Commission later presented him with the Shafer Report in 1972, which included a wealth of scientific evidence in favor of the plant being decriminalized and allowed for at least medical use by adults. Soon after, the Nixon Marijuana Commission similarly recommended legalizing recreational cannabis. Instead of listening to the report, Nixon disregarded them entirely, requested the commissions be disbanded, passed the Controlled Substances Act, and soon after formed the DEA in 1973. So began the infamous War on Drugs. Schedule I, the worst rank and new home of cannabis, is described as having no medical value and having a high chance for abuse. Hilariously enough, marinol, which is chemically-identical synthetic THC, was placed in Schedule III.In 1994, Nixon’s aid and the White House Domestic Affairs Advisor from 1969 to 1973, John Ehrlichman, gave his reasoning behind this decision during an interview. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana, and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”That’s a real quote. The criminalization of marijuana and the War on Drugs as a whole were a method to bully his political opponents and attack minority groups, built on racism and lies. The government itself has always been aware of this as well. This is evident even inside the DEA, as Francis L. Young, the Chief Administrative Law Judge at the time, sent a report in 1988 to reclassify marijuana as one of the “safest therapeutic agents known to man,” but was turned down by his superiors.Some would like to hear that it’s gotten better, and despite numerous state’s steps to legalize it on their own terms, marijuana still carries a mandatory federal minimum. First offenses can land you in prison for 2 to 10 years in states where it’s illegal. According to the FBI, marijuana accounts for nearly half of all drug arrests. Over 659,000 US citizens were charged with marijuana law violations in 2017 alone, with 90.8% of those being possession only, despite the majority of US states having legalized medical marijuana. Despite the fact that white people are statistically more likely to consume marijuana, black people and Latinos make up 46.9% of those arrested for marijuana charges, even though they make up just 31.5% of the US population.There’s no happy ending to this. There is in some places like California, Nevada, Colorado and Washington, among others, but until the federal ban on marijuana is removed and it’s reclassified from a Schedule I substance (on par with heroin, MDMA, LSD, worse than meth, cocaine, codeine, fentanyl, Adderall, Ritalin, Demerol, OxyContin, etc.), the marijuana industry is going to be extremely hindered and innocent people are going to keep going to federal prison for taking care of their health.

TL;DR: Harry J. Anslinger and Richard Nixon were power-hungry, bullying, racist dicks.Since the 1700s, cannabis was available throughout North America in a wide variety of medications and general items. In personal correspondence, it’s been revealed that former Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and James Madison, as well as Benjamin Franklin and Mary Todd Lincoln, all smoked hashish. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both used their immense personal wealth to grow vast acreages of hemp at their estates, contributing to their stature in the colonies, with Washington even referring to it as a staple crop of America.Cannabis saw a major surge in popularity after 1839 thanks to William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, whose research while in India helped its image both in Europe and the New World. It was most popular during the “snake oil” phase of medications in the late 1800s, being used as an ingredient in a wide range of tinctures and drinks used to cure and treat numerous types of ailments. Prior to the Civil War, it was used extensively to make rope, sails, clothing, paper and oil, but after being replaced by imported materials, made its way into medications. Across the pond in 1890, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the physician to Queen Victoria, wrote a summary in the The Lancet, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, touting cannabis’ medicinal benefits. The Queen herself utilized it for her menstrual cramps. In 1892, Sir William Osler authored the first textbook of Internal Medicine, and advised that cannabis was the most effective treatment for migraines.In 1909, the San Francisco Police Department reported only one case of the use of hashish in Emergency Hospitals in the last six years, and that it was accidental and a result of polydrug use. Following the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, waves of Mexican immigrants began crossing into the US, bringing with them their recreational use of a “new” substance, marijuana. Prior to 1910, the Spanish term “marijuana” was mostly unknown, and it was instead known as hashish or Indian hemp. In 1911, Hamilton Wright was promoted to the Chief Architect of the US narcotics policy. He categorized all mind-altering substances as “drug evils,” and thought that if the ban of opioids were to happen, people would only move to hashish. He specifically targeted the “very undesirable Hindoos” (referring to Sikhs and Punjabis, among other East Indian immigrants), claiming they were spreading their terrible drugs to white people. Racism soared in the area, and during the first Progressive Era wave of anti-narcotics legislation, California became the first US state to outlaw cannabis in 1913.The US’ prohibition of alcohol in 1920 played a major hand to the spreading popularity of cannabis throughout the country. Speakeasies were springing up around the country, providing an illegal hub where patrons could consume any alcohol they pleased, and providing another home for marijuana enthusiasts. Marijuana’s popularity soared as jazz musicians toured the country, reaching points where a viper (term at the time for a cannabis smoker) could roll and smoke a joint on a public road with no repercussions. Numerous companies jumped at the opportunity as well, and branded cannabis cigarettes became rather popular. Brands like Cannadonna, Cigares De Joy and Grimault all contained cannabis, specifically marketed for the treatment of asthma, but typically used recreationally. Physicians at the time agreed with cannabis’ effects as well, and in 1921 alone, over 3 million prescriptions included cannabis.In the early 1930s, the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, had mass amounts of his funding cut. To solve this issue, he realized he needed a new substance to fight in order to keep his paychecks coming in. On top of this, government records show that he was contacted by William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont company, prominent figures in the lumber and petrochemical industries, offering financial aid should he help them to demonize a new competitor on the market; hemp. This may sound like a harsh interpretation of the events, but Anslinger himself actually admitted to this version of his story later in his life, stating he was aware all along. This is evident even before he became Commissioner of the FBN, as before he had financial incentive to demonize cannabis, he is quoted as saying that “there is probably no more absurd fallacy than the claim that [marijuana] caused violent crime.”With hefty pockets and a new drug to demonize, he began the Reefer Madness campaign, backed by the US Government, which publicly blamed the Mexican and black communities for trying to poison America’s youth with this new drug; marijuana. Falsified ads and paid-off doctors made the plant out to be worse than any other drug in the nation, and Hearst’s own newspaper was more than happy to print stories of teenagers going on murderous sprees following cannabis use, despite no evidence of that every happening. Harry J. Anslinger gave a statement before Congress that “Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality and death!” He would go on to say, in this same statement to Congress, that “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women seek sexual relationships with Negroes,” “Makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” “Makes Mexicans thirst for white blood,” and is “the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”Anslinger’s use of the term marijuana was calculated and intended, as it was generally unknown to physicians attending the original Congressional Hearings, and as such, they were unaware of the actual substance being attacked, therefore unwilling to defend it. They weren’t aware of what was being lost until it was too late, and the physicians that did dispute his claims were met with literal threats from Anslinger himself. His speech spread throughout the nation, and within days, his false propaganda was being reported as complete truth. His statement that “Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana” was followed by entire police departments supporting the claims by stating that cannabis is the cause for the majority of murders and “sex outrages,” mostly from minorities. A propagandic movie was even made in 1936 called Reefer Madness, whose plot revolves around a group of teenagers who smoke marijuana and proceed to murder someone with their car, commit suicide, attempt to rape people, hallucinate and descend into madness. In this same year, the first automated machine for harvesting and processing hemp was invented, and Anslinger saw increased pressure from his financial backer William Randolph Hearst to put an end to their rivals.The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed the next year, effectively banning all marijuana in the country. Joints were specifically targeted, with newspapers and even school textbooks stating that “harmless” tobacco cigarettes were being spiked with marijuana, sometimes clarifying that it’s specifically being done by Mexicans or black people, to drive white children insane.Technically, the new law didn’t outright ban cannabis as a plant. Instead, one was now required to purchase a Treasury Department tax stamp before they could legally cultivate, possess, use, sell or give away cannabis. However, attaining this stamp included a nightmarish maze of affidavits, sworn statements, depositions and thorough investigations by the Treasury Department police. Any physician wishing to prescribe cannabis had to provide all information on their client to the government, and if at any point the prescription was rejected, the physician faced up to $2,000 in fines ($36,000 in today’s money) and up to 5 years’ imprisonment. You can see how it was suddenly preferable to not take the risk. An estimated 45% of patent medicines at the time had some form of marijuana in it before the ban; over 99% of them were removed from prescription circulation in the following years.In the following year, 1938, Anslinger convened a meeting of 23 individuals to discuss the implementation of this prohibition, and included an information session to learn more about cannabis. The experts Anslinger had at the hearing were clearly planted and only there to further his own views and goals. Psychologist James C. Munch, regarded as an expert on cannabis’ effects on the brain, claimed that THC shrunk the brains in rat and dog models, but was conveniently unable to provide the study data. Munch would later testify at a murder trial in which the defendant was claiming marijuana-induced insanity, stating he had tried two puffs of marijuana before and it caused him to transform into a bat, fly around the room and down into a deep inkwell. The hemp experts claimed issues with the flowers of their plants vanishing from their hemp farms, as the neighbors seemed to enjoy them. Fearful of the flowers being psychologically active, researchers performed a Beam test on the flowers, an outdated measurement test from 1911, and turned up trace evidence of CBD. With no further evidence or research, they decided CBD was what gave the “high” associated with smoking marijuana, and included hemp in their overarching cannabis ban.One of the worst parts of this ordeal is that the US Government was fully aware that Harry J. Anslinger’s claims had no evidence to back them up. Wishing to better understand how cannabis works on a molecular level, Roger Adams, a renowned American organic chemist, discovered THC in 1940. He would go on to isolate CBN and CBD from cannabis as well, successfully synthesize them and even develop THC acetate. Unaffiliated scientists, baffled by the claims made by Anslinger and now capable of testing the molecules themselves, showed through numerous studies in the early 1940s that marijuana had no connection to violence, infidelity, insanity, addiction or many of the other negative claims Anslinger had been making. Despite these findings, the US government went ahead and removed cannabis from the United States Pharmacopeia in 1942.Roger Adams would go on to give a lecture at the National Academy of Sciences detailing his work, and casually remarked that marijuana had “pleasant effects.” This statement caused an uproar, with one reporter stating Anslinger himself visibly snarled. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) requested that Adams be labeled a security risk, and called on the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover to intervene. Hoover believed this was a massive overreaction, and decided to tell ONI that Adams was a common name and they must have gotten the wrong guy to try and save Adams' reputation. He was still placed on ONI’s list of “people to be watched” after this event.Despite the US government’s public view of cannabis, they began experiments with THC as a possible truth serum in 1943. Under the orders of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and conducted by St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington DC, THC infused cigarettes were administered to personnel within the immensely classified Manhattan Project, presumably due to their high security clearance. With no results, THC was then used on soldiers at US army bases, again yielding no results, and the program was closed with THC being classified as a “non-truth-inducing drug.”Interest in the compound didn’t yield, however, and government chemists began playing with the molecular structure of THC to try and produce different effects. Dimethylheptylpyran (DMHP) was invented in 1949 by the US Army Chemical Corps and tested by Edgewood Arsenal, a company producing chemicals for classified human subject research in Maryland. Initially contracted in 1948 until 1975, Edgewood took the public form of a vaccine and pharmaceutical laboratory, but whose actual documented purpose was psychochemical warfare for the US military involving over 7,000 human subjects. DMHP was specifically created to produce stronger effects than THC, of which it is very chemically similar to, and intended to be used as a non-lethal incapacitator for use in single-dose agents; the assumed intent was for US spies to use this substance to subdue targets quietly. DMHP was found to be over 1000 times more potent than THC, and could create a high lasting over 48 hours. In declassified trials, it produced hallucinations, severe dizziness, fainting, ataxia and muscle weakness, to the point of patients being too weak to stay standing up. Deaths occurred in many animal models, typically from hypothermia, but was preventable with supportive treatment. Edgewood concluded their tests a success, but DMHP was eventually dropped and replaced with another Edgewood chemical, 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ), which proved more effective.In the early 1950s, the CIA’s continued interest in THC and its related compounds meant more experiments. Edgewood Arsenal’s findings with DMHP, as well as other tests they conducted using LSD, piqued their interest the most. Approved and sanctioned in 1953, now declassified documents have revealed the conspiracies surrounding Project MKUltra were found to be mostly true. Tasked with creating a chemical capable of mind control, THC laced cigarettes were used in early trials on unwilling prisoners, mental patients, vagrants and sex workers, but yielded no results. MKUltra would move on to more serious compounds, like LSD, for the remainder of its testing until 1973.Although THC, CBD and CBN were first discovered by Roger Adams in 1940, many news outlets report they were discovered by Israeli researcher Raphael Mechoulam at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1964, and credit to this discovery is almost always given to him. This mistaken credit is due to Mechoulam’s researchers having the benefit of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy, something Adams did not have, but even at the time Adams was able to successfully infer the chemical structure of THC, CBD and CBN. Mechoulam’s work was more of an affirmation of what was already known.As the years pressed on, cannabis’ image in the US culture began to evolve. Millions began questioning what they had originally been taught, and following the Vietnam War, thousands of veterans were coming home with waterproof sea bags stuffed with hundreds of pounds of exotic hash oil and cannabis, fresh from Vietnam itself. In 1967, the Summer of Love, cannabis becomes an incredibly popular recreational substance among hippies, bikers, veterans and many other demographics. The government even began listening, and in 1969, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was unconstitutional and a violation of the Fifth Amendment rights.The scientific community’s insistence for marijuana’s legalization, or at least decriminalization, came at a head in 1971 when a bipartisan commission recommended President Nixon remove the Marihuana Tax Act altogether. Nixon’s response was to form the Shafer Commission and the Nixon Marijuana Commission with the public goal of researching the substance to consider this move, but with the real goal of finding any reason to continue marijuana’s ban. The Shafer Commission later presented him with the Shafer Report in 1972, which included a wealth of scientific evidence in favor of the plant being decriminalized and allowed for at least medical use by adults. Soon after, the Nixon Marijuana Commission similarly recommended legalizing recreational cannabis. Instead of listening to the report, Nixon disregarded them entirely, requested the commissions be disbanded, passed the Controlled Substances Act, and soon after formed the DEA in 1973. So began the infamous War on Drugs. Schedule I, the worst rank and new home of cannabis, is described as having no medical value and having a high chance for abuse. Hilariously enough, Marinol, which is chemically-identical synthetic THC, was placed in Schedule III.In 1994, Nixon’s aid and the White House Domestic Affairs Advisor from 1969 to 1973, John Ehrlichman, gave his reasoning behind this decision during an interview. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana, and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”That’s a real quote. The criminalization of marijuana and the War on Drugs as a whole were a method to bully his political opponents and attack minority groups, built on racism and lies. The government itself has always been aware of this as well. This is evident even inside the DEA, as Francis L. Young, the Chief Administrative Law Judge at the time, sent a report in 1988 to reclassify marijuana as one of the “safest therapeutic agents known to man,” but was turned down by his superiors.Some would like to hear that it’s gotten better, and despite numerous state’s steps to legalize it on their own terms, marijuana still carries a mandatory federal minimum. First offenses can land you in prison for 2 to 10 years in states where it’s illegal. According to the FBI, marijuana accounts for nearly half of all drug arrests. Over 659,000 US citizens were charged with marijuana law violations in 2017 alone, with 90.8% of those being possession only, despite the majority of US states having legalized medical marijuana. Despite the fact that white people are statistically more likely to consume marijuana, black people and Latinos make up 46.9% of those arrested for marijuana charges, even though they make up just 31.5% of the US population.There’s no happy ending to this. There is in some places like California, Nevada, Colorado and Washington, among others, but until the federal ban on marijuana is removed and it’s reclassified from a Schedule I substance (on par with heroin, MDMA, LSD, worse than meth, cocaine, codeine, fentanyl, Adderall, Ritalin, Demerol, OxyContin, etc.), the marijuana industry is going to be extremely hindered and innocent people are going to keep going to federal prison for taking care of their health.

In 1909, the San Francisco Police Department reported only one case of the use of hashish in Emergency Hospitals in the last six years, and that it was accidental and a result of polydrug use. Following the start of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, waves of Mexican immigrants began crossing into the US, bringing with them their recreational use of a “new” substance, marijuana. Prior to 1910, the Spanish term “marijuana” was mostly unknown, and it was instead known as hashish or Indian hemp. In 1911, Hamilton Wright was promoted to the Chief Architect of the US narcotics policy. He categorized all mind-altering substances as “drug evils,” and thought that if the ban of opioids were to happen, people would only move to hashish. He specifically targeted the “very undesirable Hindoos” (referring to Sikhs and Punjabis, among other East Indian immigrants), claiming they were spreading their terrible drugs to white people. Racism soared in the area, and during the first Progressive Era wave of anti-narcotics legislation, California became the first US state to outlaw cannabis in 1913.The US’ prohibition of alcohol in 1920 played a major hand to the spreading popularity of cannabis throughout the country. Speakeasies were springing up around the country, providing an illegal hub where patrons could consume any alcohol they pleased, and providing another home for marijuana enthusiasts. Marijuana’s popularity soared as jazz musicians toured the country, reaching points where a viper (term at the time for a cannabis smoker) could roll and smoke a joint on a public road with no repercussions. Numerous companies jumped at the opportunity as well, and branded cannabis cigarettes became rather popular. Brands like Cannadonna, Cigares De Joy and Grimault all contained cannabis, specifically marketed for the treatment of asthma, but typically used recreationally. Physicians at the time agreed with cannabis’ effects as well, and in 1921 alone, over 3 million prescriptions included cannabis.In the early 1930s, the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, had mass amounts of his funding cut. To solve this issue, he realized he needed a new substance to fight in order to keep his paychecks coming in. On top of this, government records show that he was contacted by William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont company, prominent figures in the lumber and petrochemical industries, offering financial aid should he help them to demonize a new competitor on the market; hemp. This may sound like a harsh interpretation of the events, but Anslinger himself actually admitted to this version of his story later in his life, stating he was aware all along. This is evident even before he became Commissioner of the FBN, as before he had financial incentive to demonize cannabis, he is quoted as saying that “there is probably no more absurd fallacy than the claim that [marijuana] caused violent crime.”With hefty pockets and a new drug to demonize, he began the Reefer Madness campaign, backed by the US Government, which publicly blamed the Mexican and black communities for trying to poison America’s youth with this new drug; marijuana. Falsified ads and paid-off doctors made the plant out to be worse than any other drug in the nation, and Hearst’s own newspaper was more than happy to print stories of teenagers going on murderous sprees following cannabis use, despite no evidence of that every happening. Harry J. Anslinger gave a statement before Congress that “Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality and death!” He would go on to say, in this same statement to Congress, that “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women seek sexual relationships with Negroes,” “Makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” “Makes Mexicans thirst for white blood,” and is “the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”Anslinger’s use of the term marijuana was calculated and intended, as it was generally unknown to physicians attending the original Congressional Hearings, and as such, they were unaware of the actual substance being attacked, therefore unwilling to defend it. They weren’t aware of what was being lost until it was too late, and the physicians that did dispute his claims were met with literal threats from Anslinger himself. His speech spread throughout the nation, and within days, his false propaganda was being reported as complete truth. His statement that “Mexicans, Greeks, Turks, Filipinos, Spaniards, Latin Americans, and Negroes may be traced to the use of marihuana” was followed by entire police departments supporting the claims by stating that cannabis is the cause for the majority of murders and “sex outrages,” mostly from minorities. A propagandic movie was even made in 1936 called Reefer Madness, whose plot revolves around a group of teenagers who smoke marijuana and proceed to murder someone with their car, commit suicide, attempt to rape people, hallucinate and descend into madness. In this same year, the first automated machine for harvesting and processing hemp was invented, and Anslinger saw increased pressure from his financial backer William Randolph Hearst to put an end to their rivals.The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed the next year, effectively banning all marijuana in the country. Joints were specifically targeted, with newspapers and even school textbooks stating that “harmless” tobacco cigarettes were being spiked with marijuana, sometimes clarifying that it’s specifically being done by Mexicans or black people, to drive white children insane.Technically, the new law didn’t outright ban cannabis as a plant. Instead, one was now required to purchase a Treasury Department tax stamp before they could legally cultivate, possess, use, sell or give away cannabis. However, attaining this stamp included a nightmarish maze of affidavits, sworn statements, depositions and thorough investigations by the Treasury Department police. Any physician wishing to prescribe cannabis had to provide all information on their clients to the government, and if at any point the prescription was rejected, the physician faced up to $2,000 in fines ($36,000 in today’s money) and up to 5 years’ imprisonment. You can see how it was suddenly preferable to not take the risk. An estimated 45% of patent medicines at the time had some form of marijuana in it before the ban; over 99% of them were removed from prescription circulation in the following years.In the following year, 1938, Anslinger convened a meeting of 23 individuals to discuss the implementation of this prohibition, and included an information session to learn more about cannabis. The experts Anslinger had at the hearing were clearly planted and only there to further his own views and goals. Psychologist James C. Munch, regarded as an expert on cannabis’ effects on the brain, claimed that THC shrunk the brains in rat and dog models, but was conveniently unable to provide the study data. Munch would later testify at a murder trial in which the defendant was claiming marijuana-induced insanity, defending these claims by saying he had tried two puffs of marijuana before and it caused him to transform into a bat, fly around the room and down into a deep inkwell. The gathered hemp experts claimed issues with the flowers of their plants vanishing from their hemp farms, as the neighbors seemed to enjoy them. Fearful of the flowers being psychologically active, researchers performed a Beam test on the flowers, an outdated measurement test from 1911, and turned up trace evidence of CBD. With no further evidence or research, they decided CBD was what gave the “high” associated with smoking marijuana, and included hemp in their overarching cannabis ban.One of the worst parts of this ordeal is that the US Government was fully aware that Harry J. Anslinger’s claims had no evidence to back them up. Wishing to better understand how cannabis works on a molecular level, Roger Adams, a renowned American organic chemist, discovered THC in 1940. He would go on to isolate CBN and CBD from cannabis as well, successfully synthesize them and even develop THC acetate. Unaffiliated scientists, baffled by the claims made by Anslinger and now capable of testing the molecules themselves, showed through numerous studies in the early 1940s that marijuana had no connection to violence, infidelity, insanity, addiction or many of the other negative claims Anslinger had been making. Despite these findings, the US government went ahead and removed cannabis from the United States Pharmacopeia in 1942.Roger Adams would go on to give a lecture at the National Academy of Sciences detailing his work, and casually remarked that marijuana had “pleasant effects.” This statement caused an uproar, with one reporter stating Anslinger himself visibly snarled. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) requested that Adams be labeled a security risk, and called on the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover to intervene. Hoover believed this was a massive overreaction, and decided to tell ONI that Adams was a common name and they must have gotten the wrong guy to try and save Adams' reputation. He was still placed on ONI’s list of “people to be watched” after this event.Despite the US government’s public view of cannabis, they began experiments with THC as a possible truth serum in 1943. Under the orders of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and conducted by St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington DC, THC infused cigarettes were administered to personnel within the immensely classified Manhattan Project, presumably due to their high security clearance. With no results, THC was then used on soldiers at US army bases, again yielding no results, and the program was closed with THC being classified as a “non-truth-inducing drug.”Interest in the compound didn’t yield, however, and government chemists began playing with the molecular structure of THC to try and produce different effects. Dimethylheptylpyran (DMHP) was invented in 1949 by the US Army Chemical Corps and tested by Edgewood Arsenal, a company producing chemicals for classified human subject research in Maryland. Initially contracted in 1948 until 1975, Edgewood took the public form of a vaccine and pharmaceutical laboratory, but whose actual documented purpose was psychochemical warfare for the US military involving over 7,000 human subjects. DMHP was specifically created to produce stronger effects than THC, of which it is very chemically similar to, and intended to be used as a non-lethal incapacitator for use in single-dose agents; the assumed intent was for US spies to use this substance to subdue targets quietly. DMHP was found to be over 1000 times more potent than THC, and could create a high lasting over 48 hours. In declassified trials, it produced hallucinations, severe dizziness, fainting, ataxia and muscle weakness, to the point of patients being too weak to stay standing up. Deaths occurred in many animal models, typically from hypothermia, but was preventable with supportive treatment. Edgewood concluded their tests a success, but DMHP was eventually dropped and replaced with another Edgewood chemical, 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ), which proved more effective.In the early 1950s, the CIA’s continued interest in THC and its related compounds meant more experiments. Edgewood Arsenal’s findings with DMHP, as well as other tests they conducted using LSD, piqued their interest the most. Approved and sanctioned in 1953, now declassified documents have revealed the conspiracies surrounding Project MKUltra were found to be mostly true. Tasked with creating a chemical capable of mind control, THC laced cigarettes were used in early trials on unwilling prisoners, mental patients, vagrants and sex workers, but yielded no results. MKUltra would move on to more serious compounds, like LSD, for the remainder of its testing until 1973.Although THC, CBD and CBN were first discovered by Roger Adams in 1940, many news outlets report they were discovered by Israeli researcher Raphael Mechoulam at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1964, and credit to this discovery is almost always given to him. This mistaken credit is due to Mechoulam’s researchers having the benefit of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy, something Adams did not have, but even at the time Adams was able to successfully infer the chemical structure of THC, CBD and CBN. Mechoulam’s work was more of an affirmation of what was already known.As the years pressed on, cannabis’ image in the US culture began to evolve. Millions began questioning what they had originally been taught, and following the Vietnam War, thousands of veterans were coming home with waterproof sea bags stuffed with hundreds of pounds of exotic hash oil and cannabis, fresh from Vietnam itself. In 1967, the Summer of Love, cannabis becomes an incredibly popular recreational substance among hippies, bikers, veterans and many other demographics. The government even began listening, and in 1969, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was unconstitutional and a violation of the Fifth Amendment rights.The scientific community’s insistence for marijuana’s legalization, or at least decriminalization, came at a head in 1971 when a bipartisan commission recommended President Nixon remove the Marihuana Tax Act altogether. Nixon’s response was to form the Shafer Commission and the Nixon Marijuana Commission with the public goal of researching the substance to consider this move, but with the real goal of finding any reason to continue marijuana’s ban. The Shafer Commission later presented him with the Shafer Report in 1972, which included a wealth of scientific evidence in favor of the plant being decriminalized and allowed for at least medical use by adults. Soon after, the Nixon Marijuana Commission similarly recommended legalizing recreational cannabis. Instead of listening to the report, Nixon disregarded them entirely, requested the commissions be disbanded, passed the Controlled Substances Act, and soon after formed the DEA in 1973. So began the infamous War on Drugs. Schedule I, the worst rank and new home of cannabis, is described as having no medical value and having a high chance for abuse. Hilariously enough, Marinol, which is chemically-identical synthetic THC, was placed in Schedule III.In 1994, Nixon’s aid and the White House Domestic Affairs Advisor from 1969 to 1973, John Ehrlichman, gave his reasoning behind this decision during an interview. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana, and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”That’s a real quote. The criminalization of marijuana and the War on Drugs as a whole were a method to bully his political opponents and attack minority groups, built on racism and lies. The government itself has always been aware of this as well. This is evident even inside the DEA, as Francis L. Young, the Chief Administrative Law Judge at the time, sent a report in 1988 to reclassify marijuana as one of the “safest therapeutic agents known to man,” but was turned down by his superiors.