“not to spell cannabis with an m.” At first, I didn’t get what he was saying, but then I realized he meant he refused to utter the word “marijuana.”
The argument made by some who are opposed to the word “marijuana” is that it is a historically racialized term that has been promoted by scholars, government officials, and the media to turn public opinion against both the substance and entire groups of people. This statement is not far-fetched. Historically in the United States, words, music, products, and behaviors have been labeled in ways that explicitly or implicitly inject race into their usage. That racialization of language has affected African Americans and immigrant groups from Mexico, the rest of Latin America, Asia, Ireland, Italy, eastern Europe, and elsewhere. This book will, in part, tell that story.
Originally, “marijuana” (also spelled “marihuana”) comes from Mexican Spanish, and in the early twentieth century it was used as a colloquial or slang term to describe cannabis. However, during and especially after the Spanish-American War, American resentment toward Mexicans and Mexican immigrants exploded. Tensions, particularly along the southern border of the United States, were quite high and the response was predictable: media stories vilified entire groups of people, negative portrayals of Mexicans appeared in entertainment venues, and race-baiting language seeped into the rhetoric of politicians and government officials. Martin Lee notes in the prologue of Smoke Signals that the word “marijuana … was popularized in the United States during the 1930s by advocates of prohibition who sought to exploit prejudice against despised minority groups, especially Mexican immigrants.”10
As Mexican immigrants streamed across the border, Americans were increasingly uncomfortable with their new neighbors. It was easy to heap blame on the new immigrants for a variety of problems in society, including crime. And one stereotype was “Mexicans using marihuana.” Media outlets began reporting crimes committed by Mexican immigrants using that image. The change in language around the term “marijuana” was so stark that a National Public Radio report noted: “This disparity between ‘cannabis’ mentions pre-1900 and ‘marihuana’ references post-1900 is wildly jarring. It’s almost as though the papers are describing two different drugs.”11
This war of words was reflected not only in the public news media but also in official language. Government officials also gladly participated. Harry Anslinger was one such government official. As head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Anslinger served as the nation’s top drug cop from 1930 to 1962. His passion for drug prohibition was fundamentalist. His racism was no secret. His words were laden with fear, vilification, and xenophobia.
In speeches around the country, testimony before Congress, and articles that he published in both the popular press and more serious journals, Anslinger made it his mission to outlaw drugs, and he wholeheartedly embraced “marihuana” for its “Mexican-ness” and its ability to serve the ends he sought. In one essay, Anslinger tells readers about marijuana’s entry into American society and its effects: “Marijuana was introduced into the United States from Mexico, and swept across America with incredible speed. It began with the whispering of vendors in the Southwest that marijuana would perform miracles for those who smoked it.… They were not told that addicts may often develop delirious rage during which they are temporarily and violently insane; that this insanity may take the form of a desire for self-destruction or a persecution complex to be satisfied only by the commission of some heinous crime.”12 Anslinger goes on to list multiple brutal crimes, attributing each to the use of the scary weed from Mexico.
In addition to Anslinger, local police chiefs and district attorneys played an important role not just in pushing the word “marijuana” into common parlance but in slathering it in a coating of racial resentment. In 1931 the district attorney of Orleans Parish in Louisiana, Eugene Stanley, published an article in the American Journal of Political Science about the different groups that historically had been “marihuana” users, including Mexicans, Indians, Persians (a group called Assassins), Malays, and others.13 Stanley goes on to note, “The underworld has been quick to realize the value of this drug in subjugating the will of human derelicts to that of a master mind. Its use sweeps away all restraint, and to its influence may be attributed many of our present day crimes.… It has been indulged in by criminals so as to relieve themselves from the natural restraint which might deter them from the commission of criminal acts.”14
These efforts by government officials are clear in their intent: to link marijuana to unknown, mysterious, or feared groups from other parts of the world, and to link marijuana use to lawlessness and serious criminal offenses. In effect, marijuana—not cannabis or hemp—was a scourge on society, brought to us by all the people we fear or should fear. The race baiting is obvious, and “marijuana” became the preferred term for those spewing xenophobic rhetoric.
The advocacy community’s rejection of the term “marijuana” is based on a legitimate interpretation of the history of the term’s use. Other authors and speakers who prefer to use “cannabis” are perfectly within their right. I understand fully their position, continue to respect the concerns of those who despise the term, and know this note will do little to justify my position or convince some of the legitimacy of my choice. I have chosen to use “marijuana” in this book—even in the title—because of contemporary uses of the term. It is mainstream; it is standard; it is the term Americans use almost universally when discussing cannabis and its products. There may well be people who still use the term as a means of invoking racialized language, but most Americans do not.
Part II
THE GOVERNMENT STEPS IN
2
Early Regulation and a New (Drug) Deal
During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Progressives sought to institute reforms to empower the federal government to regulate commerce in ways that protected workers, consumers, and the public. Progressive regulation grew to touch many facets of American life, such as the temperance movement and the push for workers’ rights. It also shaped early efforts to regulate food and drugs.
The American medical system of the nineteenth century was largely unregulated and doctors were often poorly trained. Little standardization was applied to the elixirs the medical community used to treat conditions and diseases. Patient safety was threatened. The medical community and state governments began to consider ways in which the quality and delivery of medicine and medical products could be improved.
The Government Steps in as Regulator
In 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, one of the nation’s first efforts to regulate and standardize commercial drugs, food, and other products. The focus was on the branding, packaging, and adulteration of such products. The law, which empowered the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Chemistry to test and regulate substances, had a clear impact on marijuana. “Drugs” in the law are substances defined “in accordance with the standards of strength, quality, and purity” in the United States Pharmacopeia or National Formulary (USP–NF), a two-volume compendium of “public pharmacopeial standards for chemical and biological drug substances, dosage forms, compounded preparations, excipients, medical devices, and dietary supplements.”1 Published annually by the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, the USP-NF is the Holy Bible for pharmacists; until 1942, marijuana had its own chapter and verse.
The Pure Food and Drug Act did not outlaw marijuana, nor even tax it. Essentially it allowed the Agriculture Department to put standards in place to ensure its safe use. In fact, as long as the USP-NF included marijuana, the substance was legal and regulated under the act. However, the act did mark the expansion of the federal government’s regulatory power into a new arena—an expansion that would eventually be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. It put the federal government in the business of controlling drugs, a power that would only grow over time.
In fact, shortly thereafter Congress passed what came to be known
