Most of us assume it's because someone, somewhere sat down with the scientific evidence, and figured out that cannabis is more harmful than other drugs we use all the time -- like alcohol and cigarettes.
Somebody worked it all out, in our best interest.
But when I started to go through the official archives -- researching my book Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs -- to find out why cannabis was banned back in the 1930s, I discovered that's not what happened.
Not at all.
In 1929, a man called Harry Anslinger was put in charge of the Department of Prohibition in Washington, D.C. But alcohol prohibition had been a disaster. Gangsters had taken over whole neighborhoods. Alcohol -- controlled by criminals -- had become even more poisonous.
So alcohol prohibition finally ended -- and Harry Anslinger was afraid. He found himself in charge of a huge government department, with nothing for it to do. Up until then, he had said that cannabis was not a problem. It doesn't harm people, he explained, and "there is no more absurd fallacy" than the idea it makes people violent.
But then -- suddenly, when his department needed a new purpose -- he announced he had changed his mind. Read the rest.)
-cw
