Well, folks, it's been 60 years since the end of the Federal Cannabis ban, and
many Hemp Day celebrations are under way all across the country....and
personally, I myself have been stoned all day and enjoying it, too.
One thing got me thinking, though. As some of us may already know, the
regulation, and even restriction, of drug consumption, wasn't exactly a new
thing in the 20th Century. (Indeed, some concerns go back to the mid-19th;
in fact, the first known law regarding drug consumption was signed in Calif.
in 1875, to stop the proliferation of opium dens in San Francisco.)
However, though, it wasn't until the turn of the century that some real
discussion began of actually outright banning some drugs.....and cannabis,
perhaps the most benign of all the plant drugs, was to become a primary target.
Just after WWI, a huge fearmongering campaign had begun to surface, from the
dark recesses of the twisted minds of men like W.R. Hearst, and certain others;
They told tales of "Reefer Madness", where teenagers engaged in wild partying,
or Mexican farm workers butchered their fellows over trivial incidents, or even,
*gasp*, black men having intercourse with white women!
They also warned of
"corruption of the youth", and "chaos in the streets", unless the "menace" of
marijuana was brought under control, and even went as far as to condemn those
who disagreed with them as "traitors to society", and "Agents of Perdition".
And this was all supported, and even encouraged, by some of the more crooked
individuals in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and timber industries, as well
as several wealthy tobacco barons, most of whom claimed that cannabis was making
serious cuts into their profits(which actually was true
to a degree, TBH), and was endangering their business. (One notable exception,
however, was Philip Morris, whose company actually sold cannabis cigarettes
alongside tobacco for a little while; surprisingly, they actually made a small
profit off of these, particularly selling to customers in New England and out
West.).
It's interesting to note that before 1914, no state had actually banned
cannabis entirely; Georgia and Texas were the first to do so, in that very year
(Mass. had passed a regulatory law in 1911 but it offered no criminal penalties
and was repealed in 1915. Calif. almost passed a law in 1913, but it was tabled at the last minute.). But unfortunately, the tipping point had passed;
Ohio followed in 1915, then Miss. and Alabama in 1916,
Virginia in 1917, S. Carolina in 1919, N. Carolina in 1920, Indiana in 1921,
Nebraska, Wyoming, and Wisconsin in 1922, Kentucky in 1924, Maryland, Pa.,
Idaho, Mo., Ill., and Oklahoma in 1926, Kansas and Colorado in 1928, and
Mass., N.H. and Conn. in 1929.
And then in September, the Federal Narcotics Control Act 1929, co-written
by Miss. Senator Ted Bilbo, and New York Congressman Francis B. Harrison,
and sponsored by James K. Vardaman(D-MS), amongst others, was forced
right thru Congress with little warning and almost no review.
For the next 24 years, even thru World War II, we had to deal with organized
crime, the likes of which we'd never seen before; you thought guys like Al
Capone and John Dillinger were rough during the days of booze prohibition in
some states? Well, once the F.N.C. Act got passed, their profits went sky-high,
while countless people were having their lives ruined, not just in a few states
like with the banning of booze, but all over the nation. ALL OVER.
Only when Henry A. Wallace started his term in 1953, did nationwide cannabis prohibition finally come to an end, though it does remain totally banned in
9 states:
Idaho
Utah
Wyoming
S. Carolina
Georgia
Alabama
Mississippi
Arkansas
Ohio
And county-by-county, and other individual bans do still exist in the following
states:
Tennessee
Texas
Louisiana
N. Carolina
Virginia
Kentucky
Missouri
Indiana
Pennsylvania
Nebraska
Florida
Kansas
Oklahoma
New Hampshire
And here's the states in which cannabis IS totally legal, regardless of
possession:
Vermont
Delaware
Alaska
Hawaii
Minnesota
Iowa
N. Dakota
S. Dakota
Montana
Washington
Oregon
New Mexico
Colorado
West Virginia
Nevada
Now, after the windy introduction, here's the question I'd like to ask: What if,
instead of, or perhaps along with, cannabis, alcohol had been banned in such a
manner
as well? Yes, I know, it may seem strange, as the Temperance movement never
really got around to supporting that kind of thing(in fact, many Progressives,
including a good number of those who had been fervent Temperists,
had instead begun to devote their resources to fighting the banning of cannabis,
which by the mid '20s, they had come to see not only as a tool of oppression but
also a rather crooked attempt by the elites of certain industries to pool their
wealth at others' expense), but what if they had been more successful? Would
cannabis still have been banned? Or would it have remained legal on a federal
level?
OOC: POD's in 1912. I haven't decided if Wilson still wins, though.