SHOULD VOTERS LEGALIZE MARIJUANA? YES

Prohibition of Pot Has Relied on Fairy Tales of 'Devil Weed'

It was 75 years ago last summer that the war on the Devil Weed was
launched by a former railroad cop named Harry Anslinger. If Anslinger
had found some other line of work, it's quite possible that marijuana
prohibition might never have happened.

A bull-necked tough guy with a talent for organizing, Anslinger rose
through the ranks of Treasury agents fighting for a booze-free
America in the 1920s. When alcohol Prohibition was repealed in 1933,
Anslinger had already landed on his feet as commissioner of the newly
created Bureau of Narcotics. Unfortunately for the rest of us, he
fell into a crime-fighting competition with his rival J. Edgar Hoover
at the FBI.

By 1935, Anslinger had come up with a strategy to vastly increase his
turf. A handful of border state sheriffs were complaining about a
foreign plague creeping up from the south a weed the Mexicans called
"marihuana" that was driving its victims insane. A single toke, it
was said, could cause you to chop up your grandmother.

Anslinger initially ridiculed the idea of banning the plant "It grows
like dandelions" but he finally saw its value as a symbol. So he
upgraded the cannabis plant from a medicinal herb to an evil "as
hellish as heroin." And to stoke the flames, he played the race card.

"There are 100,000 total marihuana smokers in the U.S.," he warned
the Hearst papers, "and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and
entertainers. Their Satanic music jazz and swing result from
marihuana use. This marihuana can cause white women to seek sexual
relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

Most Americans had never heard of the weed, and Congress hadn't
either. But in a series of committee hearings, Anslinger managed to
horrify the lawmakers with tales of rape, murder and mayhem brought
on by the Devil Weed. The principal witness was Commissioner
Anslinger, and his evidence consisted largely of newspaper clippings
quoting himself. No scientific studies were presented. None of his
charges ever was corroborated. The hearings were, as USC law
professor Charles Whitebread observed, "near comic examples of
dereliction of legislative responsibility."

On June 14, 1937, the bill came to the House floor without debate. In
a vote that no one bothered to record, on a matter of little
interest, Congress casually passed a bill that would radically
transform society. Last year alone we arrested more than 750,000
people for simple possession. In California, we have had to stop
building universities in favor of prisons.

The overall price tag is in the hundreds of billions. Surely after
such a monumental sacrifice we must have something to show for it?

Sorry. The 100,000 tokers Anslinger warned us about have doubled and
redoubled again and again. Last year an estimated 28 million
Americans smoked the weed, nearly a hundredfold increase per capita.
Children say it's easier to buy than beer.

But now, thanks to the state that so often points us toward the
future, Californians have a chance to bring this tragic chapter to a
close. Proposition 19 will free us from the bondage of this
misbegotten policy and free our lawmen to focus on real rapists,
robbers and murderers.

The opponents of Prop. 19 use the same arguments they used in the
battle against legalizing medical use. But in the 16 years since we
passed Proposition 215, a dozen other states have followed our lead
and as everyone can plainly see, the sky has not fallen. If we're
willing to lead once again and the sky doesn't fall, others will surely follow.