
In 2014, police in the United states of America arrested charged people with possession of marijuana charges every 51 seconds, totaling over seven hundred thousand arrests. In 2014 there was also zero deaths cause from marijuana, as there is every year, while tobacco and alcohol still kill hundreds of thousands routinely every year and remain completely legal without question. Ever since 1937 when marijuana was made illegal, it has remained as the drug with the most arrests year after year, with the total number continuing to grow rapidly. And while the arrests have continued to increase, so has the research on marijuana and it seems that everyone has been coming to the same conclusion, why is it a crime to smoke marijuana? What makes the drug so bad that The United States government feels that it is completely suffice to spend billions of dollars’ year after year to throw harmless people in jail for smoking what is a generally harmless substance? It’s not because of health threats, it’s not because of addiction, it’s because the government needed a substance that they could use scare white Americas of minorities by demonizing an innocent plant. Marijuana needs to become decriminalized in the United States of America because it was only made criminal to benefit the agenda of racist liars who were too much of fools to see the potential greatness that can stem from the plant.

While marijuana in generally a completely safe drug without offering any general harm, like all other drugs, there are negatives to it. Through all the present-day research, doctors have been able to conclude that marijuana is seemingly harmless when used by an adult with a fully-grown brain. However, the same can’t be said when it comes to the growing brains in children. A brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25, so with new government data coming out saying, “almost 40 percent of U.S. high school students have tried marijuana, about 20 percent are current users and close to 10 percent first tried it before age 13” (Associated Press, 1). These are the numbers that are scaring parents who are on the fence of decriminalization, as it should.  Children who smoke marijuana constantly before the brain has fully developed can affect their memory or their ability to organize. It has also been linked to lower test scores in some situation of heavy users at a young age (Associated Press, 1). And decriminalizing marijuana isn’t going to help this problem, because as marijuana becomes more and more accepted in society and looked at as harmless, then the more likely parents won’t recognize the risk that comes with smoking marijuana as a child. Parents don’t recognize that while marijuana might be safe for them, its still very harmful for their children and not be taken lightly. There’s been hundreds of incidents since marijuana legalization in specific states where children accidently tale their parent’s marijuana edibles and wind up in the emergency room. These are the very real risks that are associated with marijuana, however, when the drug was made illegal in 1937 it wasn’t because of this reasoning, but rather based off the dozens of lies and racist agenda made up by Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. 

In 1930, The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was invented by the US Treasury Department to crack down on all illegal substances being sold in the United States. This was very important at the time because the trade of drugs was considered lost revenue because since they substances were illegal, the obviously couldn’t be taxed, which meant the government was losing out on thousands of dollars. Harry J. Anslinger was appointed its head right from the start, and would continue to been charge for another 32 years. He would become one of, if not the most prominent figure in the war on drugs in the United states. As Martin Booth describes him so eloquently, “The most important player in the history of both American and international anti-narcotics law enforcement and legislation” (Booth, 179).   

In the year 1930 prohibition was beginning to crumble, so naturally that’s where the governments focus needed to be. Marijuana wasn’t even close to Anslingers radar at the time, in fact, when he was originally asked about the drug, he didn’t seem to have any concern with it at all, even calling the idea that is was able to make people act violent an “absurd allacy” (Adams, P.1) However, it didn’t take long for Anslinger to take a very different stance on the drug. Anslinger, even though being an extreme bigot, was a very smart man and knew from the second he accepted the job that he needed to come out strong and bold, and a simple war on narcotics that were already placed as illegal would suffice. Too few may people were taking narcotics at the time to start a full-time war against it. So Anslinger made a choice to start his own war against a new drug, and that drug is marijuana.  

Anslinger knew to make an impact, what he first had to do was demonize marijuana and show the public how dangerous it is. He would make up outrageous lies about the drug, such as it made young people… “slaves to this narcotic, continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, turn to violent crime and murder” (Adams, 1). He would find old newspaper stories from the twenties with even the slightest mention of marijuana and violence, and spin it them to look like marijuana was the main cause while completely ignoring fact. Anslinger had no problem lying because he knew there was no other way to do it since marijuana, was and still is, generally harmless. When he asked 30 scientists about the dangers of the drug, 29 out of 30 told him it would practically harmless, but of course the public never heard that, all they heard was the theory of one scientist who was dead wrong, and the press had a field day (Adams, 1). Anslinger continued to pump fear into the hearts of the American people for years with quotes in court such as “"If the hideous monster Frankenstein came to face to face with the monster marihuana, he would drop dead of fright” (Booth, 177). And it was once Anslinger had the American public in his hands, he was able to conduct what would be the true evil behind his plan, turning his drug war into a race war. 

Now, still being in the early twentieth century, most of America was still very racist and had not accepted African Americans and Latinos as equals. So, when Anslinger created this evil image for marijuana, and pinned it directly to blacks and Latinos, he had essentially created the perfect storm. Anslinger ate at publics fear of drug and would connect it to Latino and black culture in any way he would. One of his most famous and outrageously racist quotes shows nothing more than that, 

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others. (Reiman,3)

Its quotes like this that truly show the evil and filth behind Anslingers motives to make the drug illegal in America. And the public without hesitation ate it right up because at the time, the research on marijuana was so little, that there was no stand-alone figure who could disprove Anslinger. Johan Harri, author of Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, said it best, “He was able to do so because he was tapping into very deep anxieties in the culture that were not to do with drugs — and attaching them to this drug,” (Harri, Chasing)  Anslinger did it, he was able to create a smear campaign against a completely harmless drug, and turn it into a race war, and what would all lead to Anslingers final goal, The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, effectively prohibits all sales and use of marijuana in America. But, it didn’t stop there, as 33 years later another act would be passed by another equally racist liar in American politics, Richard Nixon and The Controlled Substances Act of 1970. 

Even after its criminalization, marijuana continued to be the drug of choice for most American teenagers, as it continued to be the most popular year after year. During the 1970’s, marijuana was being used as much as ever, it became a sign of joy and rebellion to the youths of the time. However, the president at the time did not fare well with that idea. When Nixon was running for president, he made it more then known that he was strongly against marijuana and it that to him it was an issue that needed to be focused on. He even went as far as to say while he was running that it was marijuana was, “Public enemy number one in the United States of America” (Johnson, 181) Nixon would then come to win the election and keep hold of his promises as during the following year, Nixon would start the infamous War on Drugs.

One of the large differences between Nixon’s dealing of drugs and Anslingers, was when Nixon began the war on drugs, people were already scared of the drug and the people taking it. During the time of Nixon’s presidency, marijuana was considered to be an “unobtrusive issue” (Johnson, 182) which simply means that the public learns about the topic from what they hear, instead of what they experience. So, when Nixon began the War on Drugs by increasing the size of federal drug control agencies,  making mandatory sentencing for marijuana arrests, and by putting marijuana in the schedule I drug (Schedule drugs are thought of as the most dangerous with examples as heroin, LSD, and MDMA) the public became more cautious and scared of the drug once more while simultaneously giving Nixon and the government more power over the public (drugpolicy.org) Nixon ruled with fear because there wasn’t enough fact to back his arguments, and when his aid wood finally spill why Nixon went after drugs so ferociously, Nixon’s actions made complete sense. 

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.” (Baum, 1)

And there it was, Nixon had created the war on drugs for the exclusive reason of being able to attack his enemies without making him look like the bad guy, but rather making his enemies look like murderous drug addicts and putting them in jail for years without any option. Nixon completely manipulated the public into believing that the war on drugs was great for America, when in reality, it was only great for Nixon. And even though Nixon would later be kicked out of office due to unrelated events, his evil racist agenda would continue and still does continue to be seen today in the modern war on drugs.

As I said in my intro, in 2014 in America there was a person arrested every 51 seconds for marijuana, however what I didn’t mention was that even though white and black people smoke the same amount generally, black people are four times more likely to be arrested and charged (Marijuana, ACLU.org). So, if white and black people are smoking the same amount, why are more black people getting more punished? It’s a very simple answer, even though the politicians might not seem as racist as they were last century, the laws remain as racist as they were with the intentions by the people who created them. The laws that are still in place set African Americans and Latinos up to fail and make it so hard for them to succeed because it puts them in an area, such as D.C., where its already assumed they are drug addicts and criminals and are punished without hesitation and are 8 times more likely to be arrested (Report, ACLU.org). The public sees this happening and are quick to make a connection between drugs and race, when in reality, “Higher arrest and incarceration rates for African Americans and Latinos are not reflective of increased prevalence of drug use…, but rather of a law enforcement focus on urban areas… and on communities of color as well as inequitable treatment by the criminal justice system” (drugpolicy.org, Race).  Aslinger's and Nixon’s focus on taking down minorities by relating them to drugs not only was successful because they connect drugs to a race, but it then made areas it easily government to focus police attention on them without disturbing white neighborhoods. Both men became so obsessed with how they could destroy marijuana while completing their individual agendas, they neither stopped to think about the harm the War on Drugs would come to bring to America. 

Currently, marijuana makes up for more than half of the drug arrests in America prions today, with an astounding 53 percent. Now, in 2015 there was 1,488,707 drug arrests which means roughly 789,014 were arrested on marijuana charges (drugwarfacts.org). When traced back, one can see that the cost of arresting someone and sending them to prison costs a lot of money, in fact, over 3.6 billion dollars was spent on enforcing marijuana laws in the USA, that’s not including the price from the state of being in a state or federal prison. (ACLU.org, Marijuana). Also, currently over half of the states are forced to spend 30 million in tax keep the prisons open since they are always full or over populated. All in total, that’d be over 4 billion dollars being spent every year by the American tax payers to send what is most likely a young adult caught with under an ounce of marijuana which is currently legal in multiple states (ACLU.org, report) That money could be used in dozens of more productive ways across the United States, for example it can go to drug education courses instead of putting a kid in jail for the color of his skin and smoking a flower. This has been happening ever since 1937, so it is almost unimaginable the amount of money America has spent to continue this war on marijuana that doesn’t need to continue anymore. That’s a lot easier said than done however, even with all the progress America has made with legalizing marijuana by state, there are still so many issues at hand with the current process which is marijuana needs to be decriminalized as a country. 

 When people considers the methods marijuana can become legalized, the main options that come to mind are recreational, and medical. Currently, there are 8 states with recreational marijuana, and 20 with medical. However, what many people forget is the very viable and more possible option of decriminalization. What this means essentially is that rather then also having to set up the thousands of laws that come along with legalization such as tax, age, quality and so on, it simply makes marijuana not an illegal substance anymore in the United States of America, removing all criminal and monetary penalties. This is a much more viable option for one simple reason, it takes the power out of big government, the ones who made marijuana illegal, and puts it in the hands of the states and their individual citizens. Also, decriminalization would be able to go into effect year before any national marijuana laws would be approve since legalizing marijuana is what one writer would call, “A mare’s nest of logistical and pragmatic questions”. Decriminalizing marijuana would be the fastest and most logistical way of paving the roads to what will hopefully become a country that no longer makes laws based of racist and cynical agendas. 
