For anyone that doesn't know, Harry Anslinger is the man responsible for marajuna being illegal in the United States _________________________ It is universally agreed upon, except for some extremist groups, that Hitler was an evil man. he was responsible for the brutal killing of over 6,000,000 jews during World War II. This was so unbelivable evil and cruel. What were his reasons for doing this though? Hitler wanted a better Germany. He wanted more, more, and more for himself. He could care less for the "degenerate". To him, the Jews and other degenerates meant nothing because the needs of the primary "Aryan" German citizens were all that was realley needed or cared for. Where does Harry Anslinger come into this picture you might ask? Well back in the 1930's an offshoot of the treasury department was created, named the Bureau of Naroctics that would change America's history forever. It's task was to regulate narcotics in the United States. It's director was Harry Anslinger. Upon reading articles about Harry Anslinger, I began to make the Hitler connection. Even though no one could predict this yet, he would be inadvardently responsible for the ruining of lives, incarcenartion, and death on a scale greater than Hitler's holocaust. All of the madness started in the same way Hitler's holocaust started. Ignorance, racisim, and failure to use logic and reasoning in order to solve problems. Harry Anslinger personified this perfectly with his most useful tool, called lying. He spread demeaning lies all around Congress about this "devil weed" called "marijuana". Some of his quotes are actually quite humurous if we look at them today, but they were taken as evidence back then. Some of his "brilliant" quotes are: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.” another quote is “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing” and you can't forget the oh-so-truthful “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” Theese quotes were actually used quite brilliaintly, because analizing them in hindsite, they were probaly some of the most effective things that could have been said. The 1930's were widly afflected at that time with racisim and communistic fear. Harry knew this and created lies based off of theese fears and emotions about a drug that most people knew nothing about back then. The saying "money is the root of all evil" holds true even in this argument. Harry managed to get help to spread his lies from William Randolf Hearst. Hearst had invested lots of money in timber, and didn't want to see marijuana and hemp (which are much more efficient and cost effective) ruin his investment. So what does he do, get out of the timber business maybe? Nah, he decides to "shed some light" on this "devil's" weed by writing in newspapers: “By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….” He was also responsbile for many other writing such as : " “Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days — Hashish goads users to bloodlust.” With new found help from these media outlets, Harry Anslinger decided decided to take his crazy ideas to congress. Using more lies and playing upon the basic psychology of racism and fear, he got the Marajuna tax act of 1937 signed. This act is based on the "fact" that marijuana is a deadly, "degenerate" race empowering, and highly addictive substance. It had not a single real basis in fact. Assuming a law such as this could pass at a Federal level, you can only imagine how much of a hay day they had making it more and more strict through the years through smaller additions to the law. Eventually you got to the point of life sentences for certain marajuna offenses. We may not have many life sentences today, but any jail time is absolutely ridiculous for a non-violent "crime" that harms no partys involved, including the "drug abuser". How many lives have been ruined as a result of Harry Anslinger's lies? How many people have been killed as a result of Harry Anslinger's lies? How many innocent children have been put in foster homes because of Harry Anslinger's lies? How much more in taxes have the American people been forced to pay as a result of Harry Anslinger's lies as a result of imprisonment, loss of tax on marajuna, and lost economic growth as a result of prison time? How many people have been forced to rot in a jail cell just so this man from the 1930's could have a good job? Can you see how he has affected the world on a scale similar to Hitler? If you realley think about it, Harry Anslinger's main ambition was staying in control of a fairly well paying high up, government job. Just to do this, he produced some of the most influential lies in history that have stood the test of time agasint common sense, reasoning, and logic. Finally, our government still basis it's laws that put people in jail and prison off of this lunatic. Politicians still argue all the loony bullshit this freak argued, except for racism of course. There is simply no factual evidence against marijuana. Tell your close friends about this article, or anyone you know that smokes. Tell them how you feel and why this is wrong. There is no current basis for the illegality of cannabis in the United States. It was based off a single man's lies, and nothing more. The government needs to focus on much more serious drugs with education programs for repeat offenders of heroin, meth, and crack cocaine. These are the real drugs we need to worry about, not a non-harmful medicinal herb. People are being killed daily for this bullshit. If I didn't live in the United States, I would probably laugh at their stupidity, but wait I do. Please let's show the world we have some common sense, and legalize (TAX) it so I won't have to pay as much money in taxes!!!!! I'll pay loads of money when it's first made legal, I don't really care... let's just get the ball rolling. Sources: www.norml.org http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/ ________________________________________________________________________ I'd just like to add that believing in the criminalization of marijuana after being presented with all the facts and with ought any motivation to do so for monetary gain, being motivated so with only your moral beliefs; is pretty much the same as being a 30 year old man that believes in Santa clause and still puts cookies on the fireplace on Christmas eve. It defies human logic and explanation. This kind of thinking is on par with people that posses mental deficits such as retardation.(not trying to dis santa here jus saying)
Thanks for the read. Well, bringing this shit up to congress alone should cause cannabis to be legalized. It makes me ill that lies and racism brought forth such torment of man. Somewhere in hell, Harry Anslinger is getting joints put out in his eyes.
Yeah nice joke, bringing up something in congress that is against the status quo AND does not help current corporations and executive profits in some way? Why, I lol'd a little
Well obviously it's not going to happen. I wasn't trying to be 'funny'. Of course our government is crap; every single one of those squirming little faggots sitting in Congress needs to be shot.
I wonder what would happen if our government was forced to debate this topic for a simple one hour session? It could make great late night comedy fodder for weeks and weeks on end. I can already imagine all the jokes Letterman and Conan could pull out of this. "This week on capital hill a congressman in a debate on the legalization it was brought up by one congressman that "marijuana is the most violence causing drug of all time." Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul's responded: "You're a lunatic asshole."
I was just thinking that they could bring the reasoning for its illegality up in a debate. Who could think of a come back for this stuff!
Anslinger wasn't even concerned about MJ until appointment to his post. Yes he was misguided and self-serving- but comparisons to Hitler are just a little bit far fetched. I'm curious why one would want to believe that the social consequences of MJ criminalization are akin to the estimated 70 million dead during the destruction of WW2? World War II casualties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Please revisit this. Obviously a lot of work and thought was put into the OP's argument. Personally I am for the unequivocal legalization of MJ today. However this approach in logic is a dead end my friend. I propose you point your good intellect in a slightly different direction?!
What surprises, more than anything is the continual flow of lies regarding marijuana, most of them based in the propaganda war started by William Randolph Hearst and promoted in the halls of government by Harry Anslinger in the 1930's. I am thoroughly disgusted by that "Gateway Drug" piece of filth that I still hear from the right, it is one of the only "New" pieces of propaganda. Those commercials showing disconnected and disinterested tokers are incredible lies. I have been toking on a regular basis since the 1970's. My colleagues and myself represent a large demographic in the US and Canada. We are mid-50's, university educated, professionals, executives, even some senior politicians and retired law enforcement officials. One other thing, we smoke marijuana. It has never once hindered my education or my ability to earn a signifigant living. Exactly where is the government getting this from?
What Harry did certainly had unintended consequences but he was just a bureaucrat looking to solidify his employers need for his position. His position was Director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, under the Treasury Department. Harry was also the nephew-in-law of Andrew Mellon, FDR's Treasury Secretary in 1937. Mellon had been secretly working on that Tax Stamp Act for two years before he had Harry introduce it in the House Ways and Means Committee. Mellon was the banker to DuPont, one of only 2 that DuPont has ever used to borrow money. DuPont had purchased the patent for nylon in 1937 from Germany. Nylon was planned by DuPont to be a huge portion of their business. But nylon had competition from an old fiber source that had recently become cheap to produce through new machinery which could process the fiber efficiently. That old source of fiber newly cheap to produce? Hemp. Follow the money. The Government knows full well that marijuana isn't dangerous to anyone. The Congress commissioned a report in 1972 that became known as the Shafer Report. This report says just that. It says that MJ is not dangerous, a gateway to anything, was prohibited based on false information, etc. Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding - Table of Contents There's lots to this. Click the link below to learn more. I've written about it there.
I just got chewed out by someone online for comparing Harry Anslinger to Hitler. Hitler is so evil, apparently, that comparing anyone to him is "offensive". However as a Jew who lost family in the holocaust and has family in Israel I'm offended that they think I'm saying it without reason. It is a fair comparison because Harry Anslinger with his racist lies about marijuana moves dangerously close to recommending ethnic cleansing to congress. It's at least the ethnic cleansing of everyone in the country who was then smoking marijuana for fun or using it as a medicine, it's use as a medicine for epilepsy and nerve pain was devalued only because of lies and propaganda. So people using it as medicine were then unable to get it. The woman who chewed me out said, Jews couldn't simply stop smoking something to get out of Sho'ah, and this is absolutely true. But I'm not comparing Harry Anslinger to Hitler by accident. Both are men who used racism as their primary political tool. Drug laws have resulted in mass imprisonment, the Sho'ah, sadly, is so much worse because it was also mass murder. But she is ignoring the fact that if Harry Anslinger was recommending ethnic cleansing to congress--- of black people and Mexicans and all the people he hated-- then how successful was he? She is ignoring that what the holocaust and drug laws have in common is that they are both laws against your personal habits and preferences. Whether or not someone follows Judaism or not doesn't make them worthy of death, likewise whether or not someone is a drug user doesn't make them worthy of imprisonment, and singling them out and condemning them with hatred because they use drugs is discrimination and defamation of their character. Harry Anslinger was a racist. Drug laws exist because of racism. And people are in jail because of racism. I'm not about to compare what happened to the holocaust. But compare Harry Anslinger to Hitler? Absolutely.