The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, , was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Act that placed a tax on the sale of

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...

. The H.R. 6385 act was drafted by

Harry Anslinger Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...

and introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, on April 14, 1937. The

Seventy-fifth United States Congress The 75th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1937 ...

held hearings on April 27, 28, 29th, 30th, and May 4, 1937. Upon the congressional hearings confirmation, the H.R. 6385 act was redrafted as H.R. 6906 and introduced with House Report 792. The Act is now commonly referred to, using the modern spelling, as the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. This act was overturned in 1969 in '' Leary v. United States'', and was repealed by Congress the next year.

Background

Regulations and restrictions on the sale of

Cannabis sativa ''Cannabis sativa'' is an annual Herbaceous plant, herbaceous flowering plant indigenous to East Asia, Eastern Asia, but now of cosmopolitan distribution due to widespread cultivation. It has been cultivated throughout recorded history, used as ...

as a drug began as early as 1906 (see

Legal history of cannabis in the United States In the United States, increased restrictions and labeling of cannabis (legal term ''marijuana'' or ''marihuana'') as a poison began in many states from 1906 onward, and outright prohibitions began in the 1920s. By the mid-1930s cannabis was regu ...

). The head of the

Federal Bureau of Narcotics The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, established in the Department of the Treasury by an act of June 14, 1930, consolidating the functions of the Federal Narcotics Control Board a ...

(FBN),

Harry J. Anslinger Harry Jacob Anslinger (May 20, 1892 – November 14, 1975) was a United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics during the presidencies of Herbert Hoover, ...

, alleged, in the 1930s, the FBN had an increase of reports of people using marijuana.Harry J. Anslinger, U. S. Commissioner of Narcotics and Will Oursler : The Murderers, the story of the narcotic gangs, Pages: 541-554, 1961
/ref> He had also, in 1935, support from president

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

for adoption of the

Uniform State Narcotic Act The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws developed the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act in 1934 due to the lack of restrictions in the Harrison Act of 1914. The Harrison Act was a revenue-producing act and, while it provided ...

, state laws included regulations of cannabis. The total production of

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...

fiber in the United States in 1933 decreased to around 500 tons per year. Cultivation of hemp began to increase in 1934 and 1935, but production remained low compared with other fibers. Hanfstengel

Interested parties note the aim of the Act was to reduce the hemp industry through excessive taxation largely as an effort of businessmen

Andrew Mellon Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), sometimes A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. From the wealthy Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva ...

Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyan ...

, and the

Du Pont family The du Pont family () or Du Pont family is a prominent American family descended from Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739–1817). It has been one of the richest families in the United States since the mid-19th century, when it founded its fo ...

. The same parties argue that with the invention of the

decorticator A decorticator (from Latin: ''cortex'', bark) is a machine for stripping the skin, Bark (botany), bark, or rind off nuts, wood, plant stalks, grain, etc., in preparation for further processing. History In 1933, a farmer named Bernagozzi from Bo ...

, hemp was an economical replacement for

paper pulp Pulp is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibers from wood, fiber crops, waste paper, or rags. Mixed with water and other chemical or plant-based additives, pulp is the major raw mate ...

in the newspaper industry. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst realized cheap, sustainable, and easily-grown hemp threatened his extensive timber holdings. Mellon,

Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

and the wealthiest man in the US, invested heavily in the Du Pont family's new synthetic fiber,

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from petro ...

, to compete with hemp. 1916,

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, ...

(USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewey created a paper, USDA Bulletin No. 404 "Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material", in which they concluded this paper from the woody inner portion of the hemp stem broken into pieces, the 'hemp hurds', was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood". Dewey and Merrill believed hemp hurds were a sustainable source for paper production. The concentration of cellulose in hemp hurds is generally around 35%. Manufacture of paper -- on equipment designed to use wood-pulp -- with hemp as a raw material shows hemp lacks the qualities needed to become a major competitor to the traditional paper industry. 2003, 95% of the hemp hurds in the EU were used for animal bedding, almost 5% were used as building material. Spokespersons from DuPont and many fiber manufacturers dispute a link between their promotion of nylon over hemp. They explain that the purpose of developing nylon was to produce a fiber competitive with

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the coc ...

and

rayon Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber, made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has the same molecular structure as cellulose. It is also called viscose. Many types and grades of viscose f ...

. The

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...

(AMA) opposed the taxation because the tax was imposed on physicians prescribing cannabis, retail pharmacists selling cannabis, and

medical cannabis Medical cannabis, or medical marijuana (MMJ), is cannabis and cannabinoids that are prescribed by physicians for their patients. The use of cannabis as medicine has not been rigorously tested due to production and governmental restrictions ...

cultivation/manufacturing. The AMA proposed cannabis instead be added to the

Harrison Narcotics Tax Act The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act (Ch. 1, ) was a United States federal law that regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products. The act was proposed by United States Representative, Representative Fra ...

which would have been more efficient and created less burden on doctors. Dr. William Creighton Woodward, legislative counsel for the AMA, testified on behalf of the AMA.Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, 75c 2s. HR6906. Library of Congress transcript. July 12, 1937 He stated that the claims about marijuana addiction, violence, and overdosage were not supported, and that the law should not burden further investigation into medical use. After hearings with lawyers from Du Pont Chemicals and the Hearst Newspapers Group, the taxation was passed on the grounds of 'differing' reports and hearings. Anslinger also referred to the

International Opium Convention The expression International Opium Convention refers either to the first International Opium Convention signed at The Hague in 1912, or to the second International Opium Convention signed at Geneva in 1925. First International Opium Convention ...

from 1928 included cannabis as a drug not a medicine. All state legislators approved identical 'laws' against improper use of cannabis (for ex. the

). By 1951, however, spokespeople from Du Pont, Hearst and others came up with new improved rationalizations, and the

Boggs Act Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are inst ...

superseded the Marihuana Taxation Act of 1937. In August 1954, the

Internal Revenue Code The Internal Revenue Code (IRC), formally the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, is the domestic portion of federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 ...

of 1954 was enacted, and the Marihuana Taxation Act was included in Subchapter A of Chapter 39 of the 1954 Code.

Operation of the act

Shortly after the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act went into effect on October 1, 1937, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Denver City police arrested Moses Baca for possession and Samuel Caldwell for dealing. Baca and Caldwell's arrest made them the first marijuana convictions under U.S. federal law for not paying the marijuana tax. Judge Foster Symes sentenced Baca to 18 months and Caldwell to four years in Leavenworth Penitentiary for violating the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. After the Philippines fell to Japanese forces in 1942, the Department of Agriculture and the US Army urged farmers to grow fiber

. Tax stamps for cultivation of fiber hemp began to be issued to farmers. Without any change in the Marihuana Tax Act, were cultivated with hemp between 1942 and 1945. The last commercial hemp fields were planted in Wisconsin in 1957. In 1967, President Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice opined, "The Act raises an insignificant amount of revenue and exposes an insignificant number of marijuana transactions to public view, since only a handful of people are registered under the Act. It has become, in effect, solely a criminal law, imposing sanctions upon persons who sell, acquire, or possess marijuana." In 1969 in '' Leary v. United States'', part of the Act was ruled to be unconstitutional as a violation of the Fifth Amendment, since a person seeking the tax stamp would have to incriminate him/herself. In response the Congress passed the

Controlled Substances Act The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the statute establishing federal government of the United States, federal drug policy of the United States, U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution of ...

as Title II of the

Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, , is a United States federal law that, with subsequent modifications, requires the pharmaceutical industry to maintain physical security and strict record keeping for certain typ ...

, which repealed the 1937 Act.

Etymology

Although the spelling "marijuana" is common in current use, the spelling used in the Marihuana Taxation Act is "marihuana". "Marihuana" was the spelling used in Federal documents at the time. In addition, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 legitimized the use of the term "marijuana" as a label for hemp and cannabis plants and products in the US and around the world. Prior to 1937, "marijuana" was slang; it was not included in any official dictionaries. The word ''marijuana'' is probably of Mexican origin. Mexico passed prohibition for export to the US in 1925 following the International Opium Convention. In the years leading up to the taxation act, it was in common use in the United States, "smoked like tobacco", and called "ganjah", or "ganja".

The La Guardia Committee Report

The only authoritative voice that opposed Anslinger's campaign against cannabis was that of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Mayor,

Fiorello La Guardia Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City fro ...

, who appointed in 1938 a commission of investigation, and in 1944 strongly objected to Anslinger's campaign with the

La Guardia Committee The LaGuardia Committee was the first in-depth study into the effects of smoking cannabis in the United States. An earlier study, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, was conducted by the colonial authorities in British India in 1893–94. The repor ...

.The La Guardia Committee Report
/ref>

References

External links

* ttp://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/taxact.htm Full transcripts of the congressional hearings for the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 {{DEFAULTSORT:Marihuana Tax Act Of 1937 1937 in American law 1937 in cannabis 1937 in the United States Cannabis law in the United States Cannabis law reform in the United States History of drug control United States federal controlled substances legislation United States federal taxation legislation Cannabis prohibition