The Founding of Medical Marijuana Prohibition

The researchers at CQ Press refer to the beginning of federal “anti-narcotics” efforts as “patchwork” policy that “lacked consistency, unity and, at times, logic” (“Drug Abuse, 1970 legislative chronology” (1973) Congress and the nation, 1969-1972 (3) Washington: CQ Press). In fact, however, federal “anti-narcotics” efforts have “lacked…at [all] times, logic.” Then and now, the war on drugs makes no sense in the United States of America.

For example, take then: The 75th Congress criminalized medical marijuana over the objection of the American Medical Association. Why? Well, because: “The Mexican population cultivates on average two to three tons of weed annually. This the Mexicans make into cigarettes, which they sell at two for twenty-five cents, mostly to white school students” (see White, Kenneth Michael (2004) “The Beginning of Today: The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937” PublishAmerica, p. 22).

Now, take now: The Food and Drug Administration recently ruled that smoked marijuana has no currently acceptable medical benefits. If true, then this would mean that the federal government’s own scientists do not accept their own findings, which, for scientists, would be really odd absent falsification. Did the FDA present evidence why its own scientists should be ignored when it comes to medical marijuana? In a word: No.

Thus, then and now, federal “anti-narcotics” efforts lack “logic.” For there is no reason why fear for “white school students” and an allegation against “Mexicans” constitute the basis of public policy, and, similarly, there is no reason for the FDA to ignore its own science. No way around it: The war on drugs makes no sense in the United States of America.

Why? Because it is a fact of nature that people are born free, no matter what politics tries to do about it—so rather than fight the “laws of nature and nature’s God,” prudent governments instead acknowledge them (see The Declaration of Independence). Thus, the prohibition of medical marijuana is incompatible with the founding of America, because it is incompatible with natural rights. The longer prohibition continues the greater the risk that the cause of America, and therefore the cause of the world, will disappear from Earth (see Thomas Paine, Common Sense).


Kenneth Michael White is an attorney and author of “The Beginning of Today: The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937” and “Buck” (both by PublishAmerica 2004). Visit www.thebeginningoftoday.com for more information.