English: A 4000-plant breeding nursery in the first year. Thinopyrum intermedium is being domesticated as a perennial grain crop. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Fred Gardner | CounterPunch | AlterNet | October 20, 2013
Harry Anslinger, the longtime Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, is widely considered the prime mover behind marijuana prohibition. But during the Congressional debate on prohibition in the spring of 1937, Anslinger was just one witness in a strange show trial. He testified that marijuana induces homicidal mania and so forth, but it was not Anslinger who designed the complicated prohibitive-tax strategy. That maneuver was thought up by the Treasury Department’s top lawyer, Herman Oliphant. Nor was Anslinger called back to refute Dr. William Woodward of the American Medical Association, who made many telling points in opposition to the prohibitive-tax bill.
It was Congressman Fred Vinson of Kentucky who dealt with Woodward, subjecting him to a snide, relentless grilling. In the transcript of the hearing, which I recently published to get the hang of ebook production (thinking it would be a simple, finite project), Vinson comes across as an effective prosecutor committed to getting the prohibitive-tax bill enacted, while Anslinger seems like a carnival pitch man —yowza, yowza, yowza. Both men were carrying water for the Treasury Department, which had drafted the prohibition bill and was asking Congress to impose it on the nation.
When the final curtain fell in my imaginary drama, the actual villain seemed to be Vinson, not Anslinger. As I was mulling over the implications, Dave West referred me to his eye-opening essay, “ Low, Dishonest Decade,” published in 1999. West, who has a PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics, spent most of his career as a geneticist/breeder of “corporate maize” (his term). He pioneered the application of molecular markers in crop breeding. He’s a very good writer and an insightful political analyst. Pot partisans ready to escape the single-issue trap should check out his website, www.newheadnews.com.
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