(AND IT ROLE) IN THE CREATION OF THE MARIHUANA LAWS
In addition, they would also have you believe that Anslinger himself had little or nothing to do with the Reefer Madness hysteria campaign. Why the way they put it, all he wanted was for everyone (including black people) to just be happy and go around dancing in the streets. Either that or be running around a maypole or something like that. --- BUT YOU SEE, poor, poor Mr. Anslinger, despite his good intentions, he himself became a victim of evil circumstances, way beyond his control that (again according to his apologists) were occurring all around him at the time. You see he was forced, against his will, to draft/create the original M.T.A. (Marihuana Tax Act) because so many others (all around him at the time) insisted this be done. So, you see, he can’t be blamed for creating the first of the ‘Brown Skin Marijuana’ laws. --- And as proof, these apologists point to various legal/criminal factors that were occurring at the time. The main one of these being -- “that it was during this time period that Defense Attorneys began using ‘Marijuana Intoxication’ as a mitigating factor in violent-crime cases.” -- Thus implying that Anslinger was reluctantly forced to take actions he didn’t actually want to take. . . . again, or so his supporters would like us to believe. The truth, well now, that’s a different story. WHAT WAS THE MARIHUANA LEGAL DEFENSE Before we go any further, it might be a good idea to go over exactly what everyone back then was talking about. Specifically just exactly what was the ‘Marihuana Legal Defense’ ;aka, the ‘Temporarily Insanity’ or ‘Diminished Mental Capacity’ legal defense? And perhaps the best way of doing so is by giving a modern-day example. One having nothing to do with Medical Cannabis, but one which I’m sure gives the reader a general idea of what we are talking about. --- I was living in the San Francisco bay area when a disgruntled elected city council-member by the name of Dan White, walked into city hall one day and in a case of what I can only think of as being an act of cold blooded murder, shot and killed the Mayor (George Mosconi) as well as a fellow S.F. city council member. But what makes the story of interest to us is the fact that the assassin (legally) got away with it by claiming in court that he was mentally “Temporarily Incapacitated” because he had eaten so many Hostess Twinkies at the time. The “Twinkie Defense” it would come to be called. – And no, this is not a joke, I think ‘Dan White’ got a two-year prison sentence and that was it. And for years thereafter the slogan on Tee-shirts would run, “If you’re White, it’s not Murder”. But the use of “Temporary Insanity” legal defense by attorneys is nothing new and probably as old as time itself. While I’ve not been able to confirm the details, it is said that at least one young boy made the claim that had it not been for viewing the 1903 (one reel silent film) “The Great Train Robbery”, why he never would have committed whatever crime(s) he was being accused of. In addition (more to the subject at hand), I was able locate this article from 1901: LOWVILLE (N.Y. State) JOURNAL - 1901-06-20 – “A DARING LAWYER“So it appears that the “temporarily incapacitated’ due to MariaJana defense was being used even back then. However (as per our newspaper archival search) it wouldn’t be until the 1920’s that its use as a legal defense really took off. Note, these were simply taken at random, so don’t read too much into them: Washington Post – (Washington DC)And on and on the use of the Marihuana defense went. Perhaps the following article (written by a district attorney at that time) best explains just how bad it got: The AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLICE SCIENCE Vol. II-1931 p250So it appears that if you had a defense lawyer who was sharp enough, no matter what you did, in the end the most that you would get would be a few years in a sanitarium and then back out on the streets again. --- In other words the “Marihuana Legal Defense” was becoming the perfect ‘Get Out of Jail” card. The perfect legal defense to get almost anyone out of it, for just about any crime. So perfect that Even Harry Anslinger himself got up-in-arms about the matter. In an article he wrote (Mar 29) 1933, Anslinger stated: “There is probably no more absurd fallacy extant (meaning still existing) than the notion that murders are committed and robberies and holdups carried out by men stimulated by narcotic drugs to make (them) incapable of fear. This may occasionally happen, but the immediate effect of a narcotic drug is usually to soothe the abnormal impulses, and the ultimate effect is to create a state of idleness and dependency.” -- PennState U., Anslinger collection Box 8, File 4. (Peddling of Narcotic Drugs” by H. Anslinger) [1]Then again in 1953 he stated: “In one absolutely unjustifiable killing of an aged grocer and the wounding of his wife and a customer in the store during the hold-up, no mention of marihuana use or influence was made until the defendants retained counsel to defend them against the State's demand for a death penalty. Newspapermen, leaping to the bait, immediately began to write positive stories blaming the crime on marihuana, and within a few days it became an accepted fact that the root of the crime had been marihuana. Worse yet, there was even a demand from one civic group that the defendants be treated as sick people rather than criminals---that they be hospitalized rather than tried for murder. The true fact, as admitted later, was that defense counsel saw no way to avert a conviction, and hence was trying to save his clients from the death penalty by injecting the alibi that the crime had been committed while they were under the influence of marihuana and hence were not responsible for their acts. Ultimately, the alibi collapsed for want of proof and the defendants were sentenced to death. This story is not an isolated example of felons attempting to claim the use of marihuana as the escape hatch from an extreme penalty, for official files are replete with them.” --- “The Traffic in Narcotics” by H.J. Anslinger and William F. Tompkins (1953)Yet, was it not so that Anslinger himself went about claiming that Marihuana DID INSIGHT THE LUST TO KILL, etc. . . . etc, thus providing criminal types with just more . . . get out of jail free cards? The answer is simple, AS AN ASIDE As the following example (one of Harry Anslinger’s Gore File Cases) shows, NOT ALL such pleas for leniency were successful. Sandusky Star JournalBut that didn’t matter, it was the fact that the Defense was being used that was causing the problem. HARRY ANSLINGER’S ROLE: All of which now brings us back to Harry Anslinger and the role he played in all this. 
Now remember, today Anslinger’s modern day apologists are trying to make things appear as if Anslinger had little or no role whatsoever in the Reefer Madness campaign. Why he was forced into taking the actions that he took by others (police, district attorneys, etc.), who demanded that he (as Commissioner of Narcotics) do so. With one of their main arguments being the existence of the “Marijuana Intoxication Defense,” which was indeed entering widespread use at the time. In the words of Charles Lutz: [2] “In the early 1930s, marijuana was limited to itinerant Mexican * workers along the southwest border, jazz musicians ** and those of Bohemian *** lifestyle. But by the mid-1930s, there was a rapid spread of marijuana use, particularly among young people. . . And during that period, defense attorneys began using (the) marijuana intoxication as a mitigating factor in violent-crime cases. . . as part of his campaign, Anslinger dramatized newspaper accounts of the violent criminal prosecutions in which the ‘Marihuana Defense’ had been introduced. But it backfired.”So (at least according to his apologists) poor misunderstood Anslinger was in-effect pushed by circumstances into enacting Federal Marihuana Laws. Why, when Anslinger finally and very reluctantly submitted the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, had Congress asked him why it had taken so long? Thus (they would argue) put yourself in Harry’s shoes, what would you do if lawyers throughout the country were making use of the “Marihuana Defense” as a ‘get out of jail’ card. Wouldn’t you also be forced to take action? Thus (implication made) Harry was no racist but simply a man doing his job . . . . etc. A good talking point except for one very important detail; All the evidence clearly shows that Harry Anslinger was no uninterested third party. That in fact he was one of the main, if not the main, orchestrator of the Hysteria campaign itself. Need proof? In Anslinger’s own words: --- The Murderers - By Harry J. Anslinger and Will Oursler Just examining his set of ‘Gore File’ cases along shows how inflammatory his rhetoric truly was, and not even his staunchest apologists make no denial that it was Anslinger himself who ordered not only ordered its creation, but oversaw its content. --- Thus their arguments that he was simply an innocent third party to all this, technically, just simply don’t hold water. |
