Hemp Marijuana Facts

How the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act came into play

Is it really possible that the government couldn’t come up with a better law that would allow hemp to be grown commercially while still banning marijuana? Well, yes, but here is why. Dupont Chemicals created chemical pulping during this same time period, which became a portion of a deal worth many millions of dollars between the chain of newspapers that William Randolph Hearst owned and a timber holding company, providing Hearst super-cheap paper. This gave him a distinct advantage over anyone else in the newspaper industry. The problem is if paper was able to be made with hemp, he would lose this advantage, so he was bound and determined to stop this from happening. This is where the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act came into play. Drug laws were typically much more powerful than this act, but this bill went through and was approved anyway; much to the dismay of many historians. Hemp then became illegal because of how businesses were able to take advantage of both the racist climate of the time and the anti-drug campaigns. This made the 1930s one big conglomeration of a mess that brought together timber companies along with railroads, with a splash of Dupont on top. What makes the scenario even more messed up is that the Dupont deal was completely financially backed by the same family member of Aslinger who happened to be Secretary of the US Treasury, Andrew Mellon. The connections in place allowed the Marijuana Tax Act to pass, however unorthodox, but it all boils down to lack of information getting out to anyone who could potentially protest the bill.

Unfortunately, it was only two days prior to the hearings when the AMA (American Medical Association) found out what was being proposed. The AMA sent someone to object who showed up alongside a man who sold bird seed made from hemp seeds to object, but that was not enough and the bill passed. Harry J. Anslinger was predominantly responsible because of his testimony. Many Americans would have had little or no opinion on the bill even if they had been informed simply because they did not know that marijuana and hemp made from cannabis is ultimately the same product, but that was the intention of the people proposing the bill. They intentionally used a new word (marijuana) to confuse people and make it seem more dangerous than a word people were familiar with. It was much easier to make the word seem negative just like they had done with earlier tactics instead of trying to push a negative image on everyday products that people were used to, like shoelaces. The influx of synthetic fabrics also played a part in the loss of this natural product. Then you add in the confusion between hemp and other fabrics commonly mistaken as hemp, like jute, and people did not realize at the time what they were really losing. This confusion is still a problem currently. The term “hemp” was even removed from textbooks in the US in the 1970s to try and keep the entire product line away from children, and the Smithsonian has even gone so far as to remove the same term from all exhibits as a way to not confuse children or get them to ask too many questions about hemp. Hemp activist Jack Herer even was able to find a film created by the US government titled “Hemp for Victory\’, that the government has denied existed. This particular film showed how the US government grew large quantities of hemp during World War II in both California and Kentucky despite the Tax Act to encourage the war effort. (Nice job, Jack!)