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use. In his book Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market , Eric Schlosser noted that marijuana intoxication in Mexicans was frequently (and erroneously) associated with violent crime. Additionally, U.S. citizens began to negatively associate marijuana with West Indian immigrants, African-American jazz musicians, and criminal whites. In 1930, Harry J. Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and Henry J. Finger, a member of the California State Board of Pharmacy, agreed that the United States government should prohibit cannabis (Mexico had prohibited it a decade earlier). In 1936, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics officially recommended federal control of marijuana. Meanwhile, new pain medications such as aspirin and morphine were replacing marijuana. The Marihuana Tax Act, which was based on the Harrison Act, was passed in 1937. Cannabis farmers were required to register with the government and pay high taxes on their crops. The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act caused a decline in cannabis prescriptions in the U.S. and ultimately its prohibition Meanwhile, states continued to ban cannabis under the name of “marihuana.”

This anti-drug film from the 1950s details the dangers of cannabis and heroin.

Cannabis Prohibition in the 20th Century Following the implementation of the Marihuana Tax Act, cannabis use declined in the U.S., except during the “Hemp for Victory” campaign during World War II, when farmers were asked to grow hemp for the war effort. The Boggs Act (1952) and the

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