THE FIRST STONED

Marijuana Prohibition Was Wrong From The Beginning

Denver police and the FBI move in to make a drug sting at a
nondescript hotel called the Lexington.They quickly arrest two men,
seizing two marijuana joints. The date was Oct. 2, 1937, and the
arrests implemented a law that had taken effect that very same day:
the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act.

Samuel R. Caldwell and Moses Baca thus became the first of millions
of Americans arrested and imprisoned because of marijuana
prohibition. Caldwell was sentenced to four years of hard labor in
Leavenworth penitentiary; Baca received 18 months. Both men served
every last day.

The Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was passed by Congress after just 90
minutes of floor debate, despite vehement opposition from the
American Medical Association. Championed by the country's first drug
czar, Harry Anslinger, the law and its proponents' characterizations
of marijuana smokers were starkly racist. (Propaganda linked
marijuana smoking to black jazz musicians and Mexican immigrants.)
Meanwhile, the "tax stamps" themselves were never for sale; the
federal legislation was fully understood to be used as a prohibition,
not a regulation.

Fast forward several decades; the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act has been
ruled unconstitutional. But in 1972, President Nixon callously
ignored a recommendation from his handpicked presidential commission
that marijuana be decriminalized; instead, he allowed marijuana's
inclusion into Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. That
updated prohibition ushered in the modern era of skyrocketing arrests
and incarcerations.

In 2006, almost 830,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana
violations. This represents 44 percent of all U.S. drug arrests. It's
more than those arrested for all violent crimes combined.

In Philadelphia alone, more than 7,000 are arrested each year, mostly
for simple possession. It takes about three hours to process each
arrest, thereby taking police officers off the street for about
21,000 hours annually. That's like having 400 cops working full time
every year just busting pot smokers.

While the government propaganda has changed little, marijuana science
and culture have deeply evolved. Tens of millions of Americans smoke
it; 94 million of us, about a third of the population has admitted
trying it, according to the Monitoring the Future National Household
Survey. Marijuana is now broadly recognized as America's largest and
most profitable agricultural product; and more exceptionally
well-cultivated, high-quality marijuana is being grown than ever
before.Most important is the exhaustive scientific and medical
research that has shown marijuana's surprising properties. A lethal
overdose is impossible (a rare property for anything considered a
drug). Individual chemical components unique to the plant, called
cannabinoids, have anti-cancer properties and offer a glimmering hope
for Alzheimer's disease and other serious brain disorders.Caldwell
and Baca's arrests remain a profoundly important turning point for
American democracy. Since then, world wars have been waged, civil
rights and greater women's equality gained, labor has dramatically
changed and more modern, defining issues have been addressed -- such
as a woman's right to choose and the empowerment of the LGBT
community. Yet the broad governmental oppression of the freedom to
choose a recreational intoxicant, or choose a natural medicine, has
not just remained in place; it has been pursued with confusing vigor.

Thus Caldwell and Baca can be considered patriots not because of
their particular life deeds, but because, like the Japanese-Americans
put into concentration camps during World War II or African-American
citizens who for centuries endured the basest forms of oppression,
they had to sacrifice their lives and personal freedoms to a criminal
government policy. Still, marijuana prohibition will end. When this
policy changes and freedom is upheld, the millions arrested, starting
with Caldwell and Baca -- should never be forgotten.