Why is marijuana illegal?

Many people wrongly assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical and government hearings; meaning it was made illegal to protect society from its harmful effects. However, the truth is far from it.

First of all, marijuana has been legal for most of the time since it was discovered; in fact its been illegal for less than 1% of the time that its been in use, which goes back to 7,000 BC!

Secondly, the marijuana plant, hemp, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest forms of fabric was made out of it, not to mention it being used as food, incense, rope etc.

Then why is it that marijuana was banned in the US ages after it was introduced? The answer has nothing to do with society and its wellbeing. The answer lies mainly between two men; Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst.

Anslinger was in the Bureau of Narcotics – a new government agency. He realized that opiates and cocaine weren’t enough of a target to build his agency so he latched on to marijuana. He drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create.

Anslinger also got help from Hearst, who was the owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst was known to be a racist and had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain, and didn’t want to see development of hemp paper in competition.  

Anslinger plotted and planned for another two years before appearing before congress, where he presented his case. He was met with opposition from several medical boards who clearly blamed Anslinger of misconstruing facts.

However, after a lot of bantering, misconstrued facts and lies, on August 2 1937 marijuana became illegal at the federal level in the US. 

Waleed Akbar