Location: Cannabis and the Law / Articles
Cannabis - Legal History
from Wikipedia
Everything you wanted to know about the Man and his fight against our freedom: how the drug war started, the lies and the manipulations, in the USA and the the rest of the world.
Cannabis was criminalized across most of the world in the early parts of the 20th century. The reasons for criminalization vary from country to country, but the most substantial factor in global terms has been the influence of United States federal administrations and drug policies, as embodied in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), founded in 1930, and its successor, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), formed in 1973. Since 1930, The U.S. government intensively lobbied both nationally and internationally for the criminalization of cannabis and its use, and the campaign was largely successful.
At a 1925 conference to amend the International Opium Convention (the first international drug control treaty from 1912), Egypt and other nations complained of abuse problems with hashish and proposed to prohibit non-medical, non-scientific use. India and others, citing traditional uses of the drug and its prevalence as a wild-growing plant, successfully limited the provision to only ban export of cannabis to countries where it is illegal.
The Marijuana Tax Act (1937)
In the United States, the use of cannabis and other drugs became closely watched after the formation of the FBN in 1930, headed by crusading Prohibitionist Harry J. Anslinger. The significant legislation was the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, a federal culmination of many separate state laws. Some claim that the U.S. laws may have been in response to lobbying by makers of synthetic fibers that competed with hemp, which was easier to target than cotton or wool. Critics have also mentioned that the criminalisation of marijuana may have been racially supported, since its use was popular in the Black and Latino communities. The prohibition was strongly resisted in some quarters, with New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia becoming one of the new law's most outspoken critics.
Reefer Madness
As part of the government's push to outlaw all drugs including alcohol, the FBN encouraged efforts to "educate" the public about drugs, and this produced a number of sensationalised propaganda films which demonised cannabis. The most famous is Reefer Madness (1936). It was originally produced as an educational film by a church group and released under the title "Tell Your Children". It might have been forgotten, but it was obtained and radically re-edited by the notorious 'exploitation' film-maker Dwain Esper, who intercut the footage with highly sensational inserts, depicting cannabis smoking as the cause of every form of sin - corruption, immorality and even murder. Whether these films were effective at the time is debatable - Reefer Madness and similar works disappeared after their initial screenings. But in 1971, the pro-cannabis lobby group NORML began screening a restored print at pro-pot festivals as a parody, and it became a major cult hit when distributed on American college campuses.
International
The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (the international treaty against drug manufacture and trafficking) finally prohibited all non-medical, non-scientific cannabis use. However, tincture of cannabis remained available in the UK as a prescription only drug (POM) until it was banned in 1971 under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The international restrictions on cannabis were strengthened by the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
Laws usually govern distribution, cultivation, and possession for personal use. Enforcement of the law varies from country to country. Large-scale marijuana growing operations are frequently targeted by police in raids to attack the supply side and discourage the spread and marketing of the drug, though the great majority of those in prison for cannabis are either there for simple possession or small scale dealing.
Rate:
Rank now!
Rank now!
Add Feedback