What the Record Actually Shows

SOURCE 1, Popular Mechanics, February 1938: "American farmers are promised a new cash crop with an annual value of several hundred million dollars, all because a machine has been invented which solves a problem almost as old as history. Hemp is the standard fiber of the world. It has great tensile strength and durability. It is used to produce more than 5,000 textile products." SOURCE 2, Anslinger's congressional testimony, 1937: "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 use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others." SOURCE 3, AMA opposition (congressional record, 1937): "The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug." The AMA's Dr. William Woodward testified that the bill had been introduced without consultation with the medical profession and that the evidence presented was inadequate. His testimony was dismissed. SOURCE 4, Racial enforcement data (Marlan, Beyond Cannabis, 2019): "Black Americans are arrested for cannabis possession at rates approximately four times higher than white Americans, despite similar usage rates, in states across the country. This disparity has persisted across decades of enforcement." SOURCE 5, Ehrlichman on Nixon (Dan Baum, 2016): "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." The account rests on Baum's notes alone, and Ehrlichman's family and several former Nixon aides dispute it.