Dear Doctors,
“With so much information coming out about the medical
value of marijuana, and that marijuana is not as dangerous as alcohol,
why was it made illegal in the first place?”
Sincerely,
Looking for a history lesson
Dear Looking,
That
is an excellent question. Now that many politicians and the public are
taking a more objective look at marijuana, many are asking about the
legal history of marijuana and how it ended up in the category of drugs
deemed most dangerous by the federal government (Schedule I).
To
understand how we ended up here, it is important to go back to what was
happening in the United States in the early 1900’s just after the
Mexican Revolution. At this time we saw an influx of immigration from
Mexico into states like Texas and Louisiana. Not surprising, these new
Americans brought with them their native language, culture and customs.
One of these customs was the use of cannabis as a medicine and relaxant.
Mexican
immigrants referred to this plant as “marihuana”. While Americans were
very familiar with “cannabis” because it was present in almost all
tinctures and medicines available at the time, the word “marihuana” was a
foreign term. So, when the media began to play on the fears that the
public had about these new citizens by falsely spreading claims about
the “disruptive Mexicans” with their dangerous native behaviors
including marihuana use, the rest of the nation did not know that this
“marihuana” was a plant they already had in their medicine cabinets.
The
demonization of the cannabis plant was an extension of the demonization
of the Mexican immigrants. In an effort to control and keep tabs on
these new citizens, El Paso, TX borrowed a play from San Francisco’s
playbook, which had outlawed opium decades earlier in an effort to
control Chinese immigrants. The idea was to have an excuse to search,
detain and deport Mexican immigrants.
That excuse became marijuana.
This
method of controlling people by controlling their customs was quite
successful, so much so that it became a national strategy for keeping
certain populations under the watch and control of the government.
During
hearings on marijuana law in the 1930’s, claims were made about
marijuana’s ability to cause men of color to become violent and solicit
sex from white women. This imagery became the backdrop for the Marijuana
Tax Act of 1937 which effectively banned its use and sales.
While
the Act was ruled unconstitutional years later, it was replaced with
the Controlled Substances Act in the 1970’s which established Schedules
for ranking substances according to their dangerousness and potential
for addiction. Cannabis was placed in the most restrictive category,
Schedule I, supposedly as a place holder while then President Nixon
commissioned a report to give a final recommendation.
The Schafer
Commission, as it was called, declared that marijuana should not be in
Schedule I and even doubted its designation as an illicit substance.
However, Nixon discounted the recommendations of the commission, and
marijuana remains a Schedule I substance.
In 1996, California
became the first state to approve the use of marijuana for medical
purposes, ending its 59 year reign as an illicit substance with no
medical value. Prior to 1937, cannabis had enjoyed a 5000 year
history as a therapeutic agent across many cultures. In this context,
its blip as an illicit and dangerous drug was dwarfed by its role as a
medicine.
Opponents of medical marijuana regulations claim that
there is not enough research to warrant medicinal use, but supporters of
medical marijuana point to the 5000 years of history where cannabis was
widely used as evidence for its medical efficacy.
Now that 23
states, plus Washington, DC, have passed medical marijuana laws, the
public is questioning the utility of keeping marijuana under lock and
key, especially in light of the racist and propagandized basis for
making it illegal in the first place.
In just a few weeks,
Florida, Oregon, Alaska and Washington DC voters will have the
opportunity to put an additional nail in the coffin of prohibition by
voting to legalize medical access in Florida and adult access in Oregon,
Alaska and Washington DC. Changing the marijuana laws in these states
and more to come is one of the first steps in dismantling the racially
motivated war on drugs.
Sincerely,
The Doctors
Dr. Malik Burnett is a former surgeon and physician advocate. He also served as executive director of a medical marijuana nonprofit organization. Amanda Reiman, PhD, holds a doctorate in Social Welfare and teaches classes on drug policy at the University of California-Berkeley.
Disclaimer:
the principles contained here is not designed nor meant to be a
substitute for professional medical advice, it is only achieved for
educational confidences only. You should recognize full responsibility
for the way you decide on to use this information.
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