FAREWELL TO THE CENTURY OF PROHIBITION
From California NORML Reports, Dec. 1999

Looking back at the 20th century, the prohibition of alcohol and drugs ranks among the century's great man-made disasters and failed social experiments.

When the century began, there was no such thing as an illegal drug.

Cannabis, opium, cocaine, morphine and heroin were all freely available at any drug store. Still, the nation prospered and was free of drug crime and violence.

As the century ends, a record 28% of California's prison population is incarcerated for drug offenses that didn't exist a century ago.

Meanwhile, illegal drugs plague our streets, parks and schools, and the federal anti-drug budget is twenty times the entire national budget of 1900.

Yet despite millions of arrests and hundreds of billions in spending, the drug problem is not discernibly better than in 1900; indeed, it is worse. Today, the rate of drug addiction is around 1.5%, according to Drug Czar McCaffrey. Under the free market of 1900, it was estimated at 0.5% - 1.0%. Meanwhile, crime and violence due to drug prohibition have soared; 400,000 Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses; 20 million more are de jure criminals, and victims of prohibition are being exhumed from mass graves in Mexico.

The trouble began in the early years of the century, when the nation was committed to a policy of drug prohibition by a coalition of Progressive Era reformers and Prohibitionists. In 1914, the Congress banned non-medical use of narcotics under the Harrison Act, and drug crime became a national problem.

California was a national leader in the war on narcotics, thanks to a vigorously activist State Board of Pharmacy. In 1907 the Board persuaded the legislature to prohibit sale of opiates and cocaine except by a doctor's prescription. The Board followed up with an aggressive enforcement campaign, in which it pioneered the modern techniques of drug enforcement, including undercover agents and informants, criminalization of users, anti-paraphernalia laws, and well-publicized raids on drug-dealing scofflaws.

In a little-noticed but portentous move, "Indian hemp" was added to the list of prohibited drugs in 1913. "Marihuana," the Mexican name for the drug, was at this time unheard of by most Californians.

However, Board member Henry Finger expressed concern about an influx of cannabis-using "Hindoo" immigrants. Soon after the law was passed, the Board launched the first known marihuana raids in the U.S., in the Mexican Sonoratown district of Los Angeles. Ironically, only after being outlawed did marijuana begin to become a "problem."

At first things went smoothly enough. Violations of the law were only a misdemeanor, and most pharmacists were willing enough to comply. As time passed, however, the drug market passed into the hands of professional criminals, and public attitudes hardened.

Originally, the Board had proposed that users be sent to narcotics hospitals, rather than prison.

However, funding for hospitals failed to materialize.

With the advent of alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s, things took a turn for the worse. The press and government joined forces to demonize "dope fiends." Harsher penalties were enacted: simple possession became punishable by up to 6 years in prison. Yet despite - or because of - the law, drug crime spread inexorably. By 1930, the state recorded 878 drug arrests, 25% of them for the new drug, marihuana.

Although alcohol was re-legalized in 1933, drug prohibition remained. In 1937 cannabis was finally prohibited under federal law by the Marihuana Tax Act. World War II disrupted the drug trade, leaving the false impression that the problem had gone away.

See
HOW THE NARCS CREATED CRACK by Richard C. Cowan

As we reach the end of the 20th century, the legacy of the Reagan drug war remains. California now has twenty times as many pot prisoners as twenty years ago, yet we are no closer to a "drug-free" society than when we began.

Still, the century is closing on a hopeful note. For the first time, Californians turned their back on hard-line prohibitionism by voting to re-legalize medical marijuana in 1996, an encouraging harbinger of change to come.

The year 2000 offers exciting new prospects. Californians will be voting on the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Initiative to stop imprisonment of non-violent drug users.

The Personal Use of Marijuana Initiative is circulating in Mendocino; the Kinder and Safer Streets Act is being considered in Berkeley; a statewide Three-Strikes reform initiative is also circulating. Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Campbell has injected drug reform into the debate in his race against Sen. Feinstein.
See
Marijuananews Special Bulletin:
The Hatch-Feinstein Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999
Will Censor The Internet, Make It A Federal Crime To Teach Farmers To Grow Hemp,
Or To Tell Medical Marijuana Patients How To Use or Grow Marijuana,
Or Even To Link To A Site Selling Pipes!
Analysis By Richard Cowan
and
Handling and Reporting Of Medical Marijuana Issue In Berkeley
Gives Insight Into How Marijuana Prohibition Really Works -- 4 Items

With the dawn of the new millennium, the signs are hopeful that the U.S. is finally ready to shed its obsolescent 20th century drug laws.

For the story of California's 1913 cannabis law see: http://home.igc.org/~canorml/history/ca1913.html