Prohibition: How Cannabis Became Illegal

Cannabis did not become illegal in the United States in 1937. It became illegal one state at a time, starting with Massachusetts in 1911, and by 1937 at least 46 states had a cannabis law, according to the AMA’s counsel. The federal Marihuana Tax Act came last. On paper it did not ban the plant. It taxed and registered everyone who handled it, and in practice that worked as a ban. Two popular stories do not survive the record: that one newspaper tycoon planned it all, and that one law switched cannabis off overnight.

This chapter follows the paper trail from 1906 to 1961. It names who acted, what each law said, and where historians still disagree. Where they disagree, we say so.

Did anyone ban cannabis before 1937?

Yes, but the first law was only a label. On June 30, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Food and Drugs Act. A medicine had to state on its label how much of certain drugs it held. The list named “cannabis indica” beside alcohol, opium, cocaine and heroin. Sale stayed legal. Shoppers learned what was in the bottle. The FDA’s own history says the law rested on labelling rather than pre-market approval.

June 30, 1906 · , Washington, DC

The Food and Drugs Act puts cannabis on the label list

Congress required medicines to state on the label how much of certain drugs they held, with cannabis indica on the list. Sale stayed legal. The FDA says the law rested on labelling, not pre-market approval.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Food and Drugs Act, 34 Stat. 768 (June 30, 1906), section 8, govinfo
• FDA, Part I: The 1906 Food and Drugs Act and Its Enforcement

The real bans came from the states, and they came quietly. The law professor George Fisher read the statutes and local newspapers of the period. He found that Massachusetts passed the nation’s first anticannabis law in 1911. A moral-reform group, the New England Watch and Ward Society, sponsored and apparently drafted it. The law barred possession without a doctor’s prescription. Fisher found only a handful of Massachusetts news stories about marijuana before it passed. He found no sign that lawmakers feared Mexican smokers.

1911 · , Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts passes the first state anticannabis law

A bill sponsored and apparently drafted by the New England Watch and Ward Society barred possession of cannabis without a doctor's prescription. Fisher found few local news stories about marijuana and no sign of fear of Mexican smokers.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Fisher 2021, Racial Myths of the Cannabis War, Boston University Law Review 101:933 (citing 1911 Mass. Acts ch. 372)
• Gieringer, The Origins of California's 1913 Cannabis Law (lists Massachusetts, 1911)

California followed on August 10, 1913, with a law that has a famous typo. State pharmacy officials wanted cannabis added to the poison rules. The amendment landed in the wrong section. It banned possession of “extracts, tinctures, or other narcotic preparations of hemp, or loco-weed”. The historian Dale Gieringer says the press never noticed. The legislature passed the bill with no public debate. In 1915 California patched the error, and the possession ban stayed on the books until 1937.

August 10, 1913 · , Sacramento, California

California bans possession of hemp extracts and loco-weed

A misplaced poison-law amendment barred possession of extracts, tinctures and other narcotic preparations of hemp or loco-weed. It passed without public debate. A 1915 amendment added cannabis to the prescription rules.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Gieringer, The Origins of California's 1913 Cannabis Law (summary of Contemporary Drug Problems 26(2), 1999)
• Fisher 2021, Boston University Law Review 101:933 (citing Act of Aug. 10, 1913, ch. 342)

Other states joined, bill by bill. Indiana, Maine and Wyoming acted in 1913. Utah and Vermont acted in 1915. Colorado and Nevada acted in 1917. The map below shows only the dates we could confirm from a statute citation or a peer-reviewed history. Most made cannabis prescription-only. Massachusetts, California and Utah also banned possession without a prescription. Indiana and Wyoming passed general narcotics laws in 1913, and their marijuana-specific acts came in 1929.

Year

1911

1 state with a verified ban by 1911.

States and ban dates, as a list

• Massachusetts: 1911. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• California: 1913. Source: https://www.canorml.org/the-origins-of-californias-1913-cannabis-law/
• Indiana: 1913. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Maine: 1913. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Wyoming: 1913. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Vermont: 1915. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Utah: 1915. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Colorado: 1917. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Nevada: 1917. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• Rhode Island: 1918. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf
• New Mexico: 1923. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i244192
• Ohio: 1927. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i244192
• New York: 1927. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i244192
• Montana: 1927. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i244192
• Michigan: 1929. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i244192
• Mississippi: 1930. Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf

Myth check False

The claim: “Only 27 states and territories had criminalized unprescribed cannabis sales by 1930, so cannabis was barely restricted before the 1937 federal law.”

Fisher counts 27 states and territories that barred unprescribed sales by late 1930. The count kept rising. Woodward told the House in 1937 that at least 46 states had cannabis laws, and Bonnie and Whitebread count 35 states with the Uniform Act. The number depends on the date and on what counts as a ban.

Sources (3)

• Fisher 2021, Boston University Law Review 101:933
• Bonnie and Whitebread 1970, Virginia Law Review 56:971
• Taxation of Marihuana, House hearing, May 4, 1937 (Woodward)

Why did “marihuana” become a scare word?

The word came north with the Mexican Revolution. Mexican immigration to the United States rose sharply in these years. Bonnie and Whitebread record the entry of 590,765 Mexicans from 1915 to 1930. The historian Isaac Campos found that U.S. tabloids republished sensational stories about marijuana and violence that first ran in English-language papers in Mexico in the early 1910s. Mexico had its own panic. Its health department banned marijuana cultivation and trade on March 15, 1920.

El Paso is the best-known example. On January 1, 1913, a man in Juárez killed a police officer. The police said he had smoked marijuana all day, and the El Paso Times printed that claim. A city ordinance took effect on June 14, 1915. The paper called El Paso “the first city in the country to take a stand against the traffic in marihuana”. That claim has a catch. In 1914 New York City’s Board of Health had already put cannabis indica on its prohibited list, according to Bonnie and Whitebread. Campos says El Paso’s officials were the first to act on the Mexican beliefs about marijuana.

June 14, 1915 · , El Paso, Texas

El Paso passes a city marijuana ordinance

The ordinance took effect June 14, 1915, after a 1913 Juárez killing the police blamed on marijuana. The El Paso Times called it the first city action. New York City had listed cannabis indica in July 1914.

Evidence Press report Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• El Paso Times (Nov. 14, 2019), reprinting 1913 and 1915 Times articles
• Hall and Yeates 2025, review of Campos, Home Grown, Addiction 120(10):2147

Racism runs through this story. Historians still argue about how much it drove the first laws. Here is the evidence on each side.

The case that prejudice drove the western laws. In 1970 Richard Bonnie and Charles Whitebread read the newspapers and legislative records. They found three major influences, and the most prominent was racial prejudice. In Montana, which added marijuana to its narcotics law in 1927 and expanded it in 1929, a Mineral County doctor told a House committee that a “beet field peon” who tried marijuana would imagine he had been elected president of Mexico. The Montana Standard reported, “Everybody laughed”, and the committee recommended the bill.

The case that it did not. Fisher found that three of the first six states to act were in New England. Those three had about 33 Mexican residents among them in the 1910 census. Their laws banned “cannabis indica”, the old medical name, and did not use the word “marijuana”. Fisher concludes that early lawmakers mainly wanted to keep drugs from white youth. Campos argues that the key import from Mexico was a set of beliefs about madness and violence. Adam Rathge calls prohibition “not a swift or sudden byproduct of racism and xenophobia toward Mexican immigrants”, as a 2025 review quotes him.

What is not in dispute. Anslinger’s own papers show racial contempt, and the laws were enforced unequally. A 2024 National Academies report on cannabis policy says it directly: “it is undeniable that racism played a role in the unequal enforcement and implementation of prohibition once it became enacted.”

How did Geneva put Indian hemp in a treaty?

At the Second Opium Conference in Geneva in 1924 and 1925, delegates drafted a treaty on opium and coca. Then the Egyptian delegate, El Guindy, rose at the sixteenth meeting. He gave a long, carefully prepared speech on hashish and asked the powers to act. South Africa had raised the question with the League of Nations in 1923. Mr. Porter of the American delegation backed Egypt. Willoughby records British, Indian and French delegates saying they lacked information or instructions. India pointed to wild-growing plants and to religious and social customs. W. W. Willoughby, an adviser to the Chinese delegation, recorded the debate in 1925.

The treaty, signed February 19, 1925, gave Indian hemp its own chapter. Article 11 told governments to stop exporting cannabis resin, such as hashish, to countries that banned it. It also required an import certificate for Indian hemp, issued by the importing government and stating that the hemp is “required exclusively for medical or scientific purposes”. The convention text records a Siamese reservation: the Siamese delegate had no instructions on Indian hemp, which “was not originally on the agenda”. The treaty entered into force on September 25, 1928.

February 19, 1925 (in force September 25, 1928) · , Geneva, Switzerland

The Geneva opium treaty gives Indian hemp its own chapter

After Egypt's delegate raised hashish, the Second Opium Convention added export and import-certificate controls for Indian hemp and its resin. Delegates from India, Britain and France said they lacked instructions. It took effect September 25, 1928.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (3)

• International Opium Convention and Final Act, Geneva, February 19, 1925 (UN Treaty Collection)
• UN Treaty Collection, International Opium Convention, Geneva 1925 (entry into force)
• Willoughby 1925, Opium as an International Problem, ch. XIX, Indian Hemp (Hashish)

Britain wrote the Geneva rules into its Dangerous Drugs Act 1925, which applied the controls on raw opium to Indian hemp and its resin. The University of Kent researcher Alex Stevens says that regulations in 1928 then added cannabis to the British drug-control system.

How did Harry Anslinger build a campaign?

In 1930 Congress created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics inside the Treasury Department. Its job was to enforce the 1914 Harrison Act on opium and coca products. Harry J. Anslinger became its first commissioner and led it until 1962. The DEA Museum’s history says the move to add marijuana to drug control “was marked by a certain amount of ambivalence on Anslinger’s part”.

June 14, 1930 · , Washington, DC

Congress creates the Federal Bureau of Narcotics

The Treasury bureau took over enforcement of the 1914 Harrison Act. Harry J. Anslinger became its first commissioner and led it until 1962. The DEA Museum says his push to add marijuana showed some ambivalence.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (3)

• DEA Museum, Narcotics Enforcement in the 1930s
• Taxation of Marihuana, House Ways and Means hearing, May 4, 1937 (Woodward citing the statute of June 14, 1930)
• Fisher 2021, Boston University Law Review 101:933 (1930 founding; 1962 retirement)

Treasury had a legal problem. The Harrison Act was a tax law on imported drugs, and cannabis grew in American back yards. Rep. Buck said so on the House floor on June 14, 1937 (Congressional Record, p. 5689): the Harrison Act “applies to drugs which are not grown in this country”, while cannabis “is grown practically throughout the United States”. So the Bureau took two paths. The first was state law. In 1932 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws sent the states a Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act with an optional cannabis section. Drug makers had asked drafters to strike it, and one cited the effect on Kentucky hemp growers. Bonnie and Whitebread’s 1970 article counts thirty-five adopting states by 1937.

The second path was publicity. In Bonnie and Whitebread’s words, the Hearst newspaper chain was among the most effective proponents of the Uniform Act. Anslinger also kept what historians call a “gore file”, a collection of lurid crime stories. His biographer John McWilliams says the offenders in it were usually “racially identifiable, either black or Hispanic”. Fisher quotes snippets from Anslinger’s papers at Penn State.

The most famous case was Victor Licata. In October 1933 in Tampa, a young man killed members of his family with an ax; the Tampa Morning Tribune headline counted five dead. Anslinger put the case before Congress and in print as a marijuana crime. Police did say Licata smoked marijuana. But psychiatrists who examined him after the killings called him criminally insane, and police had filed a lunacy petition about him a year earlier. The law professor John Kaplan later wrote that it was “obviously difficult” to say the drug caused the killings.

In July 1937 Anslinger opened a magazine article with a body on a sidewalk: “The sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk”. The article ran in The American Magazine as “Marijuana: Assassin of Youth”. Fisher counted ten homicides in six pages. He also found that Anslinger’s public writing rarely named a race. It named youth, and Fisher reads that as an appeal to parents.

The private record is different. On December 4, 1934, Anslinger sent a memo to his district supervisors that used a racial slur to describe an informant. Robert Vann, a Black special assistant to the Attorney General, warned the president’s secretary of “an avalanche of protest”. The mainline press ignored the episode. Fisher cites the memo and the letters from the Roosevelt Library files.

1930s (memo of December 4, 1934) · , Washington, DC

Anslinger's gore file and the 1934 memo

Anslinger kept lurid crime stories in what historians call a gore file. A December 1934 memo of his used a racial slur, drew protests to the White House, and got no mainstream press coverage, according to Fisher.

Evidence Written record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (1)

• Fisher 2021, Boston University Law Review 101:933 (archival citations: Anslinger Papers, Penn State; FDR Library)

Here is how the period’s tone looked next to the facts. The headlines below are our paraphrase of that tone. They are not real clippings.

• 1913

  Quiet Law Outlaws Hemp Drugs; Nobody Notices

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  California's 1913 amendment passed with no public debate and no press notice, and it was misplaced in the wrong section of the Poison Act.

  Source: https://www.canorml.org/the-origins-of-californias-1913-cannabis-law/

  Back to the headline

• 1915

  El Paso Declares War on the Killer Weed

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  The ordinance took effect June 14, 1915. The El Paso Times wrote that marihuana was 'known to create a lust for human blood'. The 1913 killing it cited rested on police statements that the man had smoked marijuana.

  Source: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/11/14/el-paso-history-pot-possession-first-city-outlaw-weed-tbt/2579079001/

  Back to the headline

• 1925

  Powers Gather in Geneva to Bar the Hashish Menace

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  Egypt's delegate raised hashish at the Second Opium Conference. Siam's delegate said hemp was 'not originally on the agenda', British, Indian and French delegates said they lacked instructions, and Article 11 required export and import certificates.

  Source: https://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/History/e1920/willoughby.htm

  Back to the headline

• 1933

  Ax Fiend Blamed on the Weed

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  Doctors examined Victor Licata after the Tampa killings and found criminal insanity. Police had filed a lunacy petition a year earlier. Whether the drug mattered is, in John Kaplan's word, 'obviously difficult' to show.

  Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf

  Back to the headline

• 1937

  Congress Told: Weed Cigarette Is Wrecking the Nation's Schoolchildren

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  Rep. Buck told the House the drug was sold to 'our high-school students'. At the hearing, Dr. Woodward said the Children's Bureau and the Office of Education had no occasion to investigate it.

  Source: https://www.congress.gov/75/crecb/1937/06/14/GPO-CRECB-1937-pt5-v81-18-2.pdf

  Back to the headline

• 1937

  Two Men Jailed Under New Tax Law

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  Samuel Caldwell got four years and Moses Baca eighteen months at Leavenworth. The Denver Public Library reports that a researcher's review of arrest reports shows they were not arrested together.

  Source: https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/denvers-other-marijuana-first

  Back to the headline

• 1939

  Movie Warns: Is Your Child Next?

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  Tell Your Children reached theaters by July 1939. A 1944 FTC order stopped its producer from claiming the Bureau of Narcotics helped make it.

  Source: https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2021/07/FISHER.pdf

  Back to the headline

• 1944

  New York Doctors Call the Marijuana Scare Overblown

  Show the facts

  ✓The facts

  The LaGuardia Committee concluded that 'the publicity concerning the catastrophic effects of marihuana smoking in New York City is unfounded.'

  Source: https://rodneybarnett.net/PDF/Laguardia%20Report%201944.pdf

  Back to the headline

The film Tell Your Children put the same story on a screen. Many sources date it to 1936. The American Film Institute catalogs a 1938 release, and Fisher found no newspaper trace of it until July 1939. Its prologue warned of “the frightful toll of the new drug menace”. The record does not show a government production. In 1944 the Federal Trade Commission announced that the producer had agreed to stop claiming the Bureau of Narcotics cooperated. The film was later retitled Reefer Madness. Our longer story of cannabis on film picks it up from there.

1938 (AFI); in theaters by July 1939 · , Beverly Hills, California

A film warns parents: Tell Your Children

AFI catalogs the film in 1938, and newspapers show it in July 1939. It was later retitled Reefer Madness. The record shows no government production; a 1944 FTC order stopped the producer from claiming Bureau cooperation.

Evidence Press report Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• AFI Catalog, Tell Your Children
• Fisher 2021, Boston University Law Review 101:933, part IX (release dating; 1944 FTC order)

Myth check Exaggerated

The claim: “William Randolph Hearst and the DuPont company conspired to outlaw hemp to protect their paper and nylon businesses.”

Hearst papers did campaign for the Uniform State Narcotic Act, and Bonnie and Whitebread call them among its most effective proponents. In the sources we checked, no document shows a Hearst or DuPont plan to destroy hemp. The 1937 law also left fibre, mature stalks and seed oil outside its definition.

Sources (2)

• Bonnie and Whitebread 1974, The Marihuana Conviction, chapter on the Bureau's campaign (reading copy)
• Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 551, section 1(b)

What did the 1937 law actually do?

Congress held hearings on H.R. 6385 from April 27 to May 4, 1937. Representative Robert Doughton chaired. Anslinger was the main government witness. The main medical witness against the bill was Dr. William C. Woodward, the American Medical Association’s legislative counsel. Woodward had helped draft the Harrison Act. He said he believed the AMA would not object to adding cannabis to that act. He objected to this bill.

On May 4 he attacked the evidence. Anslinger had told the committee that marijuana caused crime and that children used it. Woodward answered in the hearing record: “We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime. But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit.” He added that the Children’s Bureau and the Office of Education had no occasion to investigate it. He disliked the word, too. “The term ‘marihuana’ is a mongrel word that has crept into this country over the Mexican border,” he said, “and has no general meaning, except as it relates to the use of Cannabis preparations for smoking.” A prohibitive tax, he said, “loses sight of the fact that future investigation may show that there are substantial medical uses for Cannabis.”

May 4, 1937 · , Washington, DC

The AMA's counsel tells Congress the evidence is missing

Dr. William C. Woodward said no witness had shown prisoner or child marijuana use and called marihuana a mongrel word. He said his inquiry found at least 46 states with cannabis laws, and that a prohibitive tax ignored possible medical uses.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Taxation of Marihuana, House Ways and Means Committee hearing on H.R. 6385, May 4, 1937 (transcription on the Internet Archive)
• Taxation of Marihuana, Senate Finance Subcommittee hearing on H.R. 6906, July 12, 1937

Woodward also told the committee that at least 46 states already had a cannabis law, and that the states were the right place to lead enforcement. Congress went another way. Rep. Buck of California took the bill to the House floor on June 14. He said the drug was sold to “our high-school students”. A member asked whether the bill touched fibre. Buck answered, “It will not.” Another asked whether the committee had reported the bill with no opposition from any source. Buck said yes, although the hearing record held Woodward’s objections. The House passed the bill that day.

The law was signed on August 2, 1937, and took effect on October 1. It had four moving parts:

The statute defined marihuana to leave out “the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds”. So the law did not ban hemp fibre. The Congressional Research Service calls the result a de facto ban and notes that the stamps “were rarely issued”. Our deep dive on the tax act’s mechanics has the full detail.

August 2, 1937 (in force October 1, 1937) · , Washington, DC

The Marihuana Tax Act is signed

The act taxed and registered everyone who handled cannabis and set a $100-per-ounce tax on unregistered transfers. Mature stalks, fibre, seed oil and sterilized seed fell outside its definition. CRS calls the result a de facto ban.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (3)

• Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 551, ch. 553 (approved August 2, 1937), govinfo
• Congressional Record, House, June 14, 1937 (bill text incl. section 17 effective date; Buck floor statement)
• CRS R44782, The Evolution of Marijuana as a Controlled Substance and the Federal-State Policy Gap

Myth check Exaggerated

The claim: “The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act made cannabis illegal outright.”

The act was a tax and registration law. It excluded mature stalks, fibre, seed oil and sterilized seed. Registered growers, dealers and doctors could still handle cannabis. The $100-per-ounce tax on unregistered transfers made it a de facto ban, as CRS puts it, and the stamps were rarely issued.

Sources (2)

• Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 551
• CRS R44782, The Evolution of Marijuana as a Controlled Substance and the Federal-State Policy Gap

The first prosecutions came within days. In early October 1937 Denver authorities arrested Samuel Caldwell and Moses Baca. The Denver Public Library reports that one researcher’s review of arrest reports shows the men were not arrested together. The researcher’s book is self-published. Police found Baca’s marijuana after a call about a disturbance at his home. Judge J. Foster Symes sentenced Caldwell to four years and Baca to eighteen months of hard labor at Leavenworth. The library attributes this line to Symes: “Marijuana destroys life. I have no sympathy for those who sell this weed.”

October 1937 · , Denver, Colorado

Two Denver men are the first prosecuted under the Act

Samuel Caldwell received four years and Moses Baca eighteen months of hard labor at Leavenworth. Accounts conflict. One researcher's review of arrest reports, per the Denver library, shows they were not arrested together.

Evidence Press report Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (1)

• Denver Public Library, Denver's Other Marijuana First

What came after 1937?

Jazz was part of the story. Bonnie and Whitebread say marijuana spread to larger cities by the late 1920s and was popular in some Black neighborhoods, where jazz musicians found it cheap and easy to get. Louis Armstrong recorded “Muggles”, a slang word for the drug, in 1928. The Louis Armstrong House Museum says he was arrested in California in March 1931 and spent a little over a week in jail. The clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow, who wrote the memoir Really the Blues (1946), became the principal supplier of Mexican marijuana to Harlem in the 1930s, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books. Our jazz-to-hip-hop story goes further.

March 1931 · , California

Louis Armstrong is arrested for marijuana in California

The Louis Armstrong House Museum says he spent a little over a week in jail. His 1928 recording Muggles used a slang word for the drug. Dates in popular accounts conflict, so the museum is our source.

Evidence Written record Confidence Medium (2 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Louis Armstrong House Museum, High Times of Louis Armstrong
• Louis Armstrong House Museum, scrapbook coverage of Armstrong in California, 1930-1931

New York’s mayor decided to check the Washington story. In 1939 Fiorello LaGuardia appointed a committee with the New York Academy of Medicine. Its 1944 report, The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York, concluded that “the practice of smoking marihuana does not lead to addiction in the medical sense of the word” and that “the publicity concerning the catastrophic effects of marihuana smoking in New York City is unfounded.” The study found use centered in Harlem. Federal law did not change. Emily Brooks’s 2016 article in the Journal of Policy History places the committee in the story of federal policy.

1944 (committee appointed January 1939) · , New York City

The LaGuardia Committee calls the marijuana publicity unfounded

The Mayor's Committee on Marihuana and the New York Academy of Medicine reported that smoking marihuana does not lead to addiction in the medical sense, and that the publicity about catastrophic effects was unfounded. Federal law did not change.

Evidence Scientific study Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York, Mayor's Committee on Marihuana, 1944 (reading copy)
• Brooks 2016, Marijuana in La Guardia's New York City, Journal of Policy History 28(4)

War then changed the farm story. In 1942 the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the film Hemp for Victory. Japan had cut off the Philippines, so the Navy’s rope fibre had to come from somewhere else. USDA tables show hemp fibre acreage rising from 14,500 in 1942 to 146,200 in 1943, then falling to 53,400 in 1944 and 6,900 in 1945. Farmers registered under the 1937 Act the whole time. Our longer post on Hemp for Victory has the paper trail.

1942 to 1945 · , Washington, DC

The USDA asks farmers to grow hemp for the war

Fibre hemp acreage rose from 14,500 in 1942 to 146,200 in 1943, then fell to 53,400 in 1944 and 6,900 in 1945. Growers still registered under the 1937 Act.

Evidence Written record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• USDA, Agricultural Statistics 1946, Table 391, Hemp fiber and hempseed
• TIWIH Learn, Hemp for Victory: Why the USDA Asked Farmers to Grow Hemp in WWII

After the war, penalties rose. The Boggs Act, signed November 2, 1951, set mandatory minimums for narcotic and marihuana offenses: a fine up to $2,000 and 2 to 5 years for a first offense, 5 to 10 for a second and 10 to 20 for a third. After a second or later offense, judges could not suspend the sentence or grant probation. The Narcotic Control Act of 1956 raised penalties again, marijuana included.

November 2, 1951 · , Washington, DC

The Boggs Act sets mandatory minimum sentences

A fine up to $2,000 and 2 to 5 years for a first offense, 5 to 10 for a second, 10 to 20 for a third. Later offenders got no suspended sentence or probation. The 1956 Narcotic Control Act raised penalties again.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (2)

• Public Law 255, 82nd Congress, 65 Stat. 767 (November 2, 1951)
• CRS R44782, The Evolution of Marijuana as a Controlled Substance and the Federal-State Policy Gap

The story went global one more time. On March 30, 1961, delegates in New York signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It listed cannabis and cannabis resin in Schedule I and in Schedule IV, its most restrictive list. Article 49 let countries keep non-medical use for a while, but said it “must be discontinued as soon as possible but in any case within twenty-five years” of the treaty taking effect. The treaty came into force on December 13, 1964. It left fibre and seed farming alone: “This Convention shall not apply to the cultivation of the cannabis plant exclusively for industrial purposes (fibre and seed) or horticultural purposes.” In 2020 the UN’s drug commission voted to remove cannabis from Schedule IV and keep it in Schedule I.

March 30, 1961 (in force December 13, 1964) · , New York City

The Single Convention lists cannabis in its strictest schedules

Cannabis and cannabis resin went into Schedules I and IV. Article 49 gave countries 25 years to end non-medical use. The treaty exempts fibre and seed farming. In 2020 cannabis left Schedule IV.

Evidence Law or court record Confidence High (3 of 3)

Sources (3)

• Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (UNODC text)
• UN Treaty Collection, Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (entry into force)
• CRS R44782 (December 2020 vote on Schedule IV)

Check your understanding

3 questions. Pick an answer in your head, then open the question to check it.

1 What did the 1906 Food and Drugs Act require for cannabis?

1. AIt banned every sale of cannabis medicines
2. BIt required a label stating how much cannabis indica a medicine held
3. CIt taxed each ounce of cannabis sold

Answer: B. It required a label stating how much cannabis indica a medicine held

The 1906 law was a labelling act. It named cannabis indica among listed drugs and left sale legal.

2 According to George Fisher's reading of the statutes, which state passed the first anticannabis law?

1. ACalifornia, in 1913
2. BUtah, in 1915
3. CMassachusetts, in 1911
4. DTexas, in 1919

Answer: C. Massachusetts, in 1911

Fisher traces the first law to Massachusetts in 1911, drafted with the New England Watch and Ward Society. California followed in 1913.

3 Which statement about the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act is accurate?

1. AIt banned hemp fibre by name
2. BIt taxed and registered cannabis handling but left mature stalks and fibre outside its definition
3. CIt set mandatory minimum prison terms for a first offense
4. DIt made cannabis legal for everyone who paid a $1 stamp

Answer: B. It taxed and registered cannabis handling but left mature stalks and fibre outside its definition

The act was a tax-and-registration scheme that excluded stalks and fibre. Mandatory minimums came with the Boggs Act in 1951.

1. 1What did the 1906 Food and Drugs Act require for cannabis?

   AIt banned every sale of cannabis medicinesBIt required a label stating how much cannabis indica a medicine heldCIt taxed each ounce of cannabis sold
2. 2According to George Fisher's reading of the statutes, which state passed the first anticannabis law?

   ACalifornia, in 1913BUtah, in 1915CMassachusetts, in 1911DTexas, in 1919
3. 3Which statement about the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act is accurate?

   AIt banned hemp fibre by nameBIt taxed and registered cannabis handling but left mature stalks and fibre outside its definitionCIt set mandatory minimum prison terms for a first offenseDIt made cannabis legal for everyone who paid a $1 stamp

0 of 3 answered

By 1961, cannabis was tightly controlled in law, in treaty and in the public mind. Yet the 1960s were about to test every one of those rules. Chapter 7 follows the people who tested them: scientists who isolated THC in a Jerusalem lab, a counterculture that lit up in San Francisco, and a federal government that answered with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.