Why is weed really illegal ?
Have you ever asked yourself why is weed really illegal ? Sure you have been told all your life that weed is a gateway drug and that it will guide you into the wrong path. But if you do a little research you would find out the real reasons weed is illegal are much more different than what you 've been told.
Lets first start talking about the history of cannabis also known as weed, most people think cannabis is a new drug but “humans started growing cannabis crops over 8,000 years ago”(Gray, Alic William et al. "Origins of Agriculture." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 29 Sep. 2015. Web). So cannabis isn 't a new thing that we have just started using. Our ancestors grew these plants …show more content…
More specifically the 1930’s in America. As we all now around this time prohibition of alcohol was in full effect , but this didn 't meant that it was being a successful law. People were not very happy with the law and it was on its way of being removed. This affected the government a lot especially people in high ranks whose budgets would get cut if alcohol once again become legal. This can be shown with a man named Harry Jacob Anslinger , he was the united states government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department 's Federal Bureau of Narcotics or “FBN”. His budget was going to be severely cut now that the prohibition of alcohol was going to be lifted nation wide. This meant that he needed a new drug or chemical to demonize for the public. And the drug he chose of course was marijuana. But the reasoning he used to make marijuana look bad was horrible. He based all of his facts on racism and the public 's fears nothing he ever said about the drug was true. This can be clearly shown in his quote from his testimony to US Congress supporting Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 he said “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”(Reiman, Amanda. "75 Years of …show more content…
Anslinger fully supported. This act made marijuana illegal in all states and worst it made sure that your first time getting caught with possession of marijuana can put you in jail for 2 to 10 years. This was only the beginning of the legal problems that this act started. Because about 40 years later in the 1970’s when president nixon was in office weed was very popular in america and it was being used heavily as a recreational drug. That 's why in 1973 even though many of his assistants and advisors were telling how weed is safe and how the extremely low death count of zero nixon still declared war on drugs. The point of keeping weed illegal wasn 't about the drug anymore but of the power that it gave the government to control the communities in which it was being used. This was very clearly said by John Daniel Ehrlichman who was counsel and Assistant for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. He said "We knew we couldn 't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings.Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."(Baum, Dan. "Legalize It All." Harper 's Magazine. Harper 's Magazine Foundation, Apr. 2016. Web.). As you can see by his quote it wasn 't
Have you ever asked yourself why is weed really illegal ? Sure you have been told all your life that weed is a gateway drug and that it will guide you into the wrong path. But if you do a little research you would find out the real reasons weed is illegal are much more different than what you 've been told.
Lets first start talking about the history of cannabis also known as weed, most people think cannabis is a new drug but “humans started growing cannabis crops over 8,000 years ago”(Gray, Alic William et al. "Origins of Agriculture." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 29 Sep. 2015. Web). So cannabis isn 't a new thing that we have just started using. Our ancestors grew these plants …show more content…
More specifically the 1930’s in America. As we all now around this time prohibition of alcohol was in full effect , but this didn 't meant that it was being a successful law. People were not very happy with the law and it was on its way of being removed. This affected the government a lot especially people in high ranks whose budgets would get cut if alcohol once again become legal. This can be shown with a man named Harry Jacob Anslinger , he was the united states government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department 's Federal Bureau of Narcotics or “FBN”. His budget was going to be severely cut now that the prohibition of alcohol was going to be lifted nation wide. This meant that he needed a new drug or chemical to demonize for the public. And the drug he chose of course was marijuana. But the reasoning he used to make marijuana look bad was horrible. He based all of his facts on racism and the public 's fears nothing he ever said about the drug was true. This can be clearly shown in his quote from his testimony to US Congress supporting Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 he said “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”(Reiman, Amanda. "75 Years of …show more content…
Anslinger fully supported. This act made marijuana illegal in all states and worst it made sure that your first time getting caught with possession of marijuana can put you in jail for 2 to 10 years. This was only the beginning of the legal problems that this act started. Because about 40 years later in the 1970’s when president nixon was in office weed was very popular in america and it was being used heavily as a recreational drug. That 's why in 1973 even though many of his assistants and advisors were telling how weed is safe and how the extremely low death count of zero nixon still declared war on drugs. The point of keeping weed illegal wasn 't about the drug anymore but of the power that it gave the government to control the communities in which it was being used. This was very clearly said by John Daniel Ehrlichman who was counsel and Assistant for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon. He said "We knew we couldn 't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings.Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."(Baum, Dan. "Legalize It All." Harper 's Magazine. Harper 's Magazine Foundation, Apr. 2016. Web.). As you can see by his quote it wasn 't