The absurd history of cannabis prohibition​

We go together to Geneva, Switzerland, in the year 1925. The second opium conference is taking place here at this time.
This conference served to fill in the gaps of the first conference.
Here, the useful plant hemp was now also included in the international agreement.
Egypt and nine other countries voted for the inclusion of hemp in the opium law.
The Egyptian king wanted to make his population more striving and work-motivated and saw the relaxing effect of cannabis as a thorn in the flesh.
The German Reich voted in favour of the law because Egypt, in return, did not ban the import of the pharmaceutical products “heroin” (Bayer) and “cocaine” (Merck).
Whether heroin and cocaine make workers more ambitious and motivated than cannabis consumption is a question I will leave unanswered.
So the Geneva Opium Conference decides to ban not only opium and heroin but also cannabis.
Indian hemp, as marijuana was called at the time, was incorporated into the German penal code in 1929.
To put it briefly, here cannabis had to make way for heroin, cocaine and the pharmaceutical industry. 20,21

To understand the whole thing a little better, we go to Washington DC in the same year (1929).
In that year, Harry Anslinger took over the Department of Prohibition in Washington. This was also called the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, to compare with today’s DEA.
The department was founded in 1930 and existed until 1968.
Prohibition of alcohol, imposed in 1920, was a fiasco and was repealed in 1933.
For Harry Anslinger this was a problem, because now he was suddenly standing in for a large ministry that had nothing to do.
 After all, his ministry had previously been responsible for overseeing the implementation of alcohol prohibition.
Until then, he was of the opinion that cannabis was not a social problem. But this changed when his ministry needed a new sense of purpose.

So he began a battle against the useful plant, which was about much more than just the health of the population.
Anslinger used the help of William Randolph Hearst, one of the richest Americans and founder of one of the oldest media corporations, to spread his anti-marijuana propaganda throughout the country.
It would be one thing to just claim that cannabis was evil, however Anslinger and Randolph Hearst’s campaign against the crop was also heavily tinged with racism. 22
Who knows how far we would be today in the fight against racism if he had not been so supportive again in those years?

On the blog Cannaconnection, I have found the most isane quotes about cannabis that have been put out into the world by the two gentlemen (Anslinger and Hearst).
I have listed my absolute favourites (irony) here:

“Because of marijuana cigarettes, coloured people think they are as good as white men.”

“There are a total of 100,000 marijuana smokers in the US and most of them are [blacks]23, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing, are a direct result of marijuana use. This marijuana makes white women have sexual relations with [blacks], entertainers and others.”

“You smoke a joint and you’ll probably kill your brother.”

“The main reason to ban marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

“The use of cannabis, whether you smoke it or ingest it in other forms, undoubtedly leads to a form of addiction that has serious social consequences (abandonment of work, theft and crime, the disappearance of reproductive capacity).” 24

I really wonder at this point whether we have upheld a law that was enacted by white, racist men at the beginning of the 20th century and gained its validity through racist propaganda, or whether we have sacrificed the useful plant hemp for the import of heroin and cocaine?

Not quite, because hemp was also considered a raw material competitor for large industrial companies in the early 20th century.
DuPont, one of the largest industrial companies in the USA, found that oil could be used to produce new materials such as plastics, rubber and polymers.
These are used to make fabrics, clothing and cloth.
I told you earlier about William Randolph Hearst.
This successful newspaper publisher used paper in large quantities. Of course, he had a newspaper.

To make paper, chemicals and bleaches were used, these were supplied by the giant industrial company DuPont. Even though hemp paper is “much more resistant to tearing, pulling and wetting and can therefore be recycled 25 much more easily and often”, Hearst was not interested in using the raw material because it could easily be grown in southern countries like Mexico.

Collaboration with what he called “[Blacks] 26, Hispanics and Filipinos” 27 was out of the question for a man who despised immigrants.
Hearst used his reporting to incite against migrants, Mexicans and dark-skinned people, all with the help of twisted facts and in an unobjective way, as you can imagine.

He did it to maximise the income of his newspaper, because this kind of journalism unfortunately still works really well today.
He played with the feelings and fears of the citizens and put a clear enemy image in their heads.
In order to give the population an even worse image of the immigrants he disregarded, he pursued a strict anti-cannabis policy.
At that time, the news coverage consisted almost exclusively of demonising cannabis and of alleged crimes committed by migrants under the influence of cannabis.
Again, to summarise: William Randolph Hearst and Harry Anslinger managed to demonise cannabis in the USA with the help of the lying press and right-wing world views.  28,29

If you believed that marijuana was banned because of scientific studies showing that it is more dangerous than other substances, you are as wrong as I am.

A small illustrative example of this is that no person has ever died from pure cannabis consumption. Alcohol, which in Germany can be officially sold to young people from the age of 16 and is advertised in TV commercials, costs an estimated 74,000 lives a year, according to the Federal Ministry of Health. 30

To get back to the history of cannabis prohibition, let’s go back to 1931, we travel to Geneva.
The heads of the individual countries met here to complete the 1925 agreement. From then on, the production of narcotics was only released for medical and scientific purposes. 31

Five years later, “the Convention to Prevent Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs was formulated”. 32
The policy sought to punish any action related to illegal substances, including the use of cannabis, with a prison sentence.
Countries were thus encouraged to use criminal law means against violations.

In the USA, the propaganda against the useful plant hemp continued and culminated in 1937 with the “Marihuana Tax Act” through propaganda films and posters. 33

In 1970, the laws on drugs, especially marijuana, were further tightened as a backlash against the hippie movement in the 60s. People began to criticise social developments. Musicians like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones shaped the times and people’s attitude to life as never before.
The use of cannabis was widespread during this time. This was a thorn in the side of people like former President Richard Nixon.
In 1970, the Marijuana Tax Act was replaced by the Controlled Substances Act, which was signed by Nixon.
With this law, marijuana was put on an equal footing with drugs like MDMA (ecstasy) and heroin and finally banned. 34,35

In 1971, the Opium Act in Germany was replaced by the Narcotics Act (BtMG).

You are probably asking yourself, what have over 100 years of drug prohibition brought us?
Good question, to sum it up, nothing.
Since the market has so far been run by criminal organisations, they not only determine the price, but also the quality.
Controls or regulations have completely disappeared and there are no concrete figures on how many people have a drug problem.
I very much hope that this will change in the next legislative period. The new coalition agreement gives us hope. It already states that cannabis will be legalised under the new government.