PARALLELS BETWEEN PROHIBITION AND TODAY'S POT LAWS

After reading the Aug. 28 opinion piece on illegals coming to the
Napa Valley to grow marijuana, and as a student of American history,
I wondered if there were lessons to learn from America's prohibitions
during the last century.

It seems there is a direct parallel between the prohibition of pot
and alcohol prohibition, and it is based on a principal tenet of
capitalism: If there is a need, someone fills it.

When alcohol disappeared from shelves from 1920 to 1933, booze came
from myriad sources. People produced it in small, compact stills in
sheds, basements, attics and in the woods. It was smuggled from
Canada, Mexico and Europe. Some of the largest names in distilling
today entered the business or grew wealthy during the prohibition.

For 60 years, the prohibition of cannabis has been enforced with the
same results: closet growers across the United States produce some of
the finest illegal hydroponic bud in the world; smuggling from Canada
and Mexico continues unabated.

To help understand marijuana's prohibitions, here is a brief historical sketch.

In the early 1900s it was tough finding work in Mexico, so Mexicans
crossed the Rio Grande into Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Montana
- with them came marijuana. White landowners viewed this influx of
Mexicans in racist terms and created state laws against marijuana
based on bigotry, not science. The first laws against marijuana had
nothing to do with the weed because nobody new anything about it.

On the floor of the Texas Senate, one senator said, "All Mexicans are
crazy, and this stuff (marijuana) is what makes them crazy."

From 1915 to 1937, some 27 states passed criminal laws against the
use of marijuana. What motivated 27 states to enact criminal laws
against cannabis?

An excerpt from a 1919 editorial in the New York Times offers this
insight: "No one here in New York uses this drug, marijuana. We have
only just heard about it from down in the southwest. But, we had
better prohibit its use before it gets here. Otherwise, all the
heroin and hard narcotics addicts cut off from their drugs by the
Harrison Act, and the alcohol drinkers cut off by the prohibition of
alcohol, will substitute this new and unknown drug, marijuana, for
the drugs they used to use."

Because it might be substituted for booze or narcotics, they outlawed
it based on the theory of substitution. Twenty-six of the 27 states
criminalized the use of marijuana; Utah was the first and only state
to prohibit marijuana based on religious beliefs.

On July 15, 1930, Harry Jacob Anslinger was appointed acting
commissioner of a new bureau, the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics).

Here is an excerpt from a Hearst editorial, appearing Sept. 11, 1935:
"One thing that the indolent legislatures should be made to
understand is that the 'dope' traffic does not stand still. In recent
years, the insidious and insanity-producing marihuana has become
among the worst of the narcotic banes, invading even the school
houses of the country, and the Uniform State Narcotic Law is the only
legislation yet devised to deal effectively with this horrid menace."

In 1937 we got the Marihuana Tax Act.

Like the Harrison Act, this too had a hidden agenda; once again, this
wasn't a tax -- it was conceived to prohibit conduct -- not raise revenue.

On the House floor on June 10, 1937, Congressman Snell asked the
Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, what HR 6906 (Marijuana Tax Act) was about.

Rayburn said, "It has something to do with something that is called
marijuana. I believe it is a narcotic of some kind."

Commissioner Anslinger testified before Congress: "Mr. Speaker
(Rayburn), Congressmen, marijuana is an addictive drug which produces
in its users insanity, criminality, and death ..."

That was it -- that was the government's testimony supporting the
prohibition of marijuana.

Congressmen and senators participating in the hearings accepted the
bureau's arguments. There was no probing of government witnesses. In
fact, the government made its case in the House in one session.

In 2003, Executive Director of NORML (National Organization to Reform
Marijuana Laws) Keith Stroup wrote: "Over 724,000 Americans were
arrested on marijuana charges last year, 89 percent for simple
possession. We're needlessly destroying the lives and careers of
hundreds of thousands of genuinely good citizens each year."

Our drug laws do not reflect well upon current policies and their
defenders. It becomes obvious after you have read historical records
that bring to light the motivations and judgments of lawmakers who
encouraged and assisted with the criminal prohibition of marijuana in
the United States.

We must ask what role science, medicine and critical analysis played.

My thanks to Charles H. Whitebread, Professor of Law at The
University of Southern California Law School.

(Hilsabeck lives in Napa.)