Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 - Background

Background

Regulations and restrictions on the sale of cannabis sativa as a drug began as early as 1860, see Legal history of cannabis in the United States. The head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), Harry J. Anslinger, argued that (FBN) in the 1930s had noticed an increase of reports of people smoking marijuana. He had also, in 1935, received support from president Franklin D. Roosevelt for adoption of the Uniform State Narcotic Act, state laws that included regulations of cannabis.

The total production of hemp fiber in the United States had in 1933 decreased to around 500 tons/year, then cultivation of hemp began to increase 1934-1935 but still at very low volume compared with other fibers.

Some parties have argued that the aim of the Act was to reduce the size of the hemp industry largely as an effort of businessmen Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family. The same parties have argued that with the invention of the decorticator, hemp had became a very cheap substitute for the paper pulp that was used in the newspaper industry. These parties argue that Hearst felt that this was a threat to his extensive timber holdings. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury and the wealthiest man in America, had invested heavily in the Du Pont family's new synthetic fiber, nylon, a fiber that was competing with hemp. In 1916, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) chief scientists Jason L. Merrill and Lyster H. Dewey created a paper, USDA Bulletin No. 404 "Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material", in which they concluded that paper from the woody inner portion of the hemp stem broken into pieces, so called hemp hurds, was "favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood". Dewey and Merrill believed that hemp hurds were a suitable source for paper production. However, later research does not confirm this. The concentration of cellulose in hemp hurds is only between 32% and 38% (not 77%, a number often repeated by Jack Herer and others on the Internet). Manufacture of paper with hemp as a raw material has shown that hemp lacks the qualities needed to become a major competitor to the traditional paper industry. It still use wood or waste paper as raw material. In 2003 95% of the hemp hurds in EU were used for animal bedding, almost 5% were used as building material.

The American Medical Association (AMA) opposed the act because the tax was imposed on physicians prescribing cannabis, retail pharmacists selling cannabis, and medical cannabis cultivation/manufacturing; instead of enacting the Marijuana Tax Act, the AMA proposed cannabis be added to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. The bill was passed over the last-minute objections of the American Medical Association. Dr. William Woodward, legislative counsel for the AMA objected to the bill on the grounds that the bill had been prepared in secret without giving proper time to prepare their opposition to the bill. He doubted their claims about marijuana addiction, violence, and overdosage; he further asserted that because the word Marijuana was largely unknown at the time, the medical profession did not realize they were losing cannabis. "Marijuana is not the correct term... Yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of this country." Instead of enacting the Marijuana Tax Act the AMA proposed cannabis be added to the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act.

The bill was passed on the grounds of different reports and hearings. Anslinger also referred to the International Opium Convention that from 1928 included cannabis as a drug not a medicine, and that all states had some kind of laws against improper use of cannabis. Today, it is generally accepted that the hearings included incorrect, excessive or unfounded arguments. By 1951, however, new justifications had emerged, and the Boggs Act that superseded the marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed. In August 1954, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was enacted, and the Marihuana Tax Act was included in Subchapter A of Chapter 39 of the 1954 Code.