"Anslingerian" Politics: The History of Anti-Marijuana Sentiment in Federal law and How Harry Anslinger's Anti-Marijuana Politics Continue to Prevent the FDA and other Medical Experts from Studying Marijuana's Medical Utility

Abstract

This paper is intended to demonstrate how the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’s propagation of negative images associating marijuana with the anti-social behavior of marginal socio-economic groups in the 1930’s still influences the federal government’s marijuana policies today. This paper traces the history of marijuana’s legal, from its legal status America’s infancy, where many colonies considered marijuana such a valuable industrial and medical resource that some actually mandated its cultivation , to its present-day status as an illicit substance that is rarely used in the industrial arena and has no officially recognized medical utility under federal law.Chapter 1 discusses the “pre-Anslinger†history of marijuana in America, examining the many industrial and medical purposes for which it was used before the onslaught of the anti-marijuana propaganda campaign waged by the Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Chapter 2 focuses more closely on the issues facing supporters of medical marijuana under federal law as it stands today. It also examines more closely the role that the Food and Drug Administration currently plays in determining the medical potential of marijuana, and the reasons that the FDA’s role is more limited with respect to marijuana than it would be with other prospective new drugs.