Issue date: 4/23/02 Section: Marijuana

"Marihuana…a violent narcotic—an unspeakable scourge—The real public enemy No. 1!"
"Its first effect is sudden violent, uncontrollable laughter; then come dangerous hallucinations—space expands—time slows down, almost stands still…fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances—followed by emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions. Leading finally to acts of shocking violence…ending often in incurable insanity."
The above quote appears at the beginning of "Reefer Madness," which hit movie theaters in 1936 and was, along with other media and interest groups, part of the road to criminalize the drug marijuana (Cannabis sativa).
The road came to an end a year later when the U.S. Congress passed "The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937."
Pushed by the late Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the act required taxes, and registration, from individuals importing, producing, selling or prescribing marijuana.
The tax required a yearly fee plus a fee at each point the substance was transferred. Transfer could be made to individuals not registered with a special order form and a tax rate of $100 per ounce.
Under the law, an unregistered person caught with untaxed marijuana could be punished by up to five years in prison and a fine up to $2,000, or both.
The bill for the Marihuana Tax Act reportedly swept swiftly through the House of Representatives and Senate with little discussion and attention, drawing only three lines in the New York Times:
"President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions."
Penalties stiffened when the Boggs Act was enacted in 1951.
Brought forth by Congressman Hale Boggs, the new law called for imprisonment of two to five years for a first-time drug related offense, five to 10 years for second offense and 10 to 20 years for a third offense.
It was also in the Boggs Act that marijuana came to be classified under the theory of the "stepping stone," later called the "gateway drug."
In the mid-1960s, marijuana had a popularity explosion across college campuses all over the United States.
Feelings on the penalties of marijuana changed, as described by a commentator in the New York Times:
"Nobody cared when it was a ghetto problem. Marijuana—well, it was used by jazz musicians in the lower class, so you didn't care if they got two-to-20 years. But when a nice, middle-class girl or boy in college gets busted for the same thing, then the whole country sits up and takes notice."

Continued...

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