Hacker News Reader

Comment by eropple | Hacker News Reader

Marijuana didn't exactly become illegal in the United States because of its effects. It became illegal because of who was using it.

It's hard to make sweeping generalizations about its historical use but it's safe to say that the psychoactive contents of ancient strains of cannabis was much lower than today's and its use was, while not exclusively so, often restricted to rituals and people for whom the psychoactive effects were socially important (shamans etc.).

More recently, up through the 19th century, cannabis was recreationally used by plenty of people with no legal preventatives and it certainly doesn't seem like everyone were "potheads". But many of them weren't white, which, to the legal minds of the time, was just about as bad.

View on HN

> Marijuana didn't exactly become illegal in the United States because of its effects. It became illegal because of who was using it.

Is it really the case? I know it comes up in every discussion about cannabis but I'm wondering if it is really the case. Cannabis (and most psychoactive drugs with the exception of alcohol) are banned in most countries in the world and it has nothing to do with harassing minorities.

Cannabis was banned throughout the world, because American corporations wanted it banned, and after the US put it on the Schedule I list, efforts were made far and wide for the rest of the world to follow suit.

And yes, cannabis was banned because of who was using it - as well as how USEFUL it was in disrupting other industries (such as paper) - not because of its effects. There are countless documentaries which discuss this - a simple Youtube search will yield results.

Agreed that the US govt (read companies) put pressure on the govts. of other countries to get it banned.

There is a claim by a former member of the Nixon administration that drug laws where used to target blacks and hippies to disrupt anti-war protests etc.

The same administration that pushed hard to get Cannabis classified as schedule 1 in the UN convention on drugs, as claimed by Canadian archive documents.

I share your skepticism, generally. But I think other countries face sanctions if their local laws disagree with our drug laws, no? This would explain a lot of the agreement.

The few countries that banned it early on, usually did so because of its vague association with opium, which was seen (rightly so!) as a serious problem.

For those that banned it later, it's usually because they signed one of the global drug control treaties:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Opium_Convention

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...

Both have been heavily pushed by US (indeed, it effectively organized the first one), and in both cases US was the one that targeted cannabis specifically. In the Single Convention, US was the one that demanded it to be placed on the most restrictive Schedule available.

Here's a good read about all this: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-rise-and-decline-of-c...

Didn't the US start targeting cannabis in the 1930's so the Alcohol Prohibition workers could keep their jobs by doing something else?

It actually started targeting it domestically on state level in 1920s, because of association with low-wage Mexican immigrants. Late 30s is when it went into high gear, with high-profile federal investigations and reports (including Anslinger's famous "marijuana smoking by white women makes them want to seek sexual relations with Negroes"), and bans on state level pretty much country wide.

Under Napoleon in France, marijuana was banned because it reduced the soldiers' initiative to fight. Alcohol use was tolerated.

>Under Napoleon in France, marijuana was banned because it reduced the soldiers' initiative to fight.

Not really-really.

https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/the-real-his...

Because Harry Jacob Anslinger wouldn't have anything to do once alcohol was legalized, so he started a campaign against marijuana[1].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger#The_campaig...

Yeah, used for rituals etc. I think most of the world too. It's also used in medicines. Ayurveda has always used it. And of course, modern medicine uses its contents.

But I wonder what made weed illegal in most countries? I assume it happened not so long ago. Perhaps a century.

I can't speak to most countries, but the United States did so largely due to concerted efforts to tar it as a drug of "negroes" and "Mexicans" and to attach to it mostly-untrue stories. "Reefer Madness" is an awful movie, but it's an awful movie that exists to push a policy position.

Understood. Here's a little overview of what happened in India: https://www.quora.com/When-and-why-was-marijuana-made-illega...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com