fc01a49a   
   XPost: talk.politics.drugs, misc.legal, alt.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.usa   
   From: bliss@sfo.com   
      
   Transition Zone wrote:   
   > On Jan 16, 12:42 pm, VFW  wrote:   
   >> In article <7re65tFvt...@mid.individual.net>, B Sellers    
   >> wrote:   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>>    They began the drug war on cannabis with the Hemp Tax Act in   
   >>> 1937 as a result of a long period of racist propaganda by William   
   >>> Randolph Hearst's newspaper chain and the decision by Harry J Anslinger   
   >>> head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to have cannabis criminalized   
   >>> at the Federal level to replace the funding lost when the Alcohol   
   >>> Prohibition   
   >>> was repealed.  Lots of states had criminalised cannabis before the federal   
   >>> act.   
   >>> Here is some of the propaganda used.   
   >>>        "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and   
   >>>    most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their   
   >>>    Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This   
   >>>    marijuana can cause white women to seek sexual relations with   
   >>>    Negroes, entertainers and any others... The primary reason to   
   >>>    outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."   
   >>>    -Excerpt from the testimony of Harry J. Anslinger, director at   
   >>>    the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, before the U.S. Senate in   
   >>>    1937.   
   >>>    The larger part of the above quotation echoes the   
   >>> Hearst papers and the advertisement for the film reshown   
   >>> in the 1970s and onward as "Reefer Madness".   
   >>>    In case you didn't realise in the 1930s the Congress   
   >>> was controlled by racist and sexist white men.   
      
   >> I've noticed that many in the system have noticed that again prohibition   
   >> doesn't work very well.   
   >   
   > It does work well. Criminalization scares truck drivers and pilots   
   > away   
   > from being under the influence.   
      
   	Not criminalization but loss of employment scares them away   
   from use.   
      
   	And note that Anslinger claimed 100,000 users in the decade   
   of the 1930 so that Prohibition of cannabis has been an awesome   
   failure unless he intended to spread the use to communities which   
   had never heard of it.   
      
   	later   
   	bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)