(1999) Grass - Harry J. Anslinger1931: Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (head of the Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh, one of the two banks with which DuPont did business) appoints future nephew-in-law Harry J. Anslinger to head the newly-formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
1934: U.S. Senator Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania attacks Harry Anslinger for making references to ginger-colored niggers on Federal Bureau of Narcotics stationary in letters circulated to department heads.
April 14, 1937: The Treasury Department secretly introduces its marihuana tax bill through the House Ways and Means Committee, bypassing more appropriate venues. Committee chairman Robert L. Doughton, a key Congressional ally of DuPont, rubber-stamps the bill.
Spring 1937: Congress holds hearings on the Marijuana Tax Act. Dr. James Woodward, representing the American Medical Association, testifies that the law could deny the world a potential medicine.
Cannabis was already prescribed for dozens of common ailments, and medical researchers were just beginning to explore the therapeutic benefits of the numerous active ingredients in marijuana. Woodward said that AMA doctors were wholly unaware that the killer weed from Mexico was actually cannabis. We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession, that it was being prepared, Woodward testifies.
FBN commissioner Harry Anslinger and the Ways and Means Committee quickly denounce Woodward and the AMA, which already had an adversarial relationship with the Roosevelt administration.
December 1937: The Marijuana Tax Act is signed into law, initiating 60 years of cannabis prohibition and annihilating a multi-billion dollar industry. DuPont and other synthetic materials manufacturers reap vast profits by filling the void conveniently left by the criminalization of industrial hemp.
1937 - 1939: Under Harry Anslinger, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics prosecutes 3,000 doctors for illegally prescribing cannabis-derived medications. In 1939, the American Medical Association reached an agreement with Anslinger, and over the following decade, only three doctors are prosecuted.
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