Let's take a look at the real reason the cannabis ban took place. All over the world, there are so many people who still don't have a clue as to why there was a cannabis ban in the first place. The idea that people are still being imprisoned for smoking or selling marijuana is beyond imagination. There are so many people assuming that the cause of the cannabis ban is due to some scientific proof that it is bad for us. This is not true.
So, why didn't they do it for cigarettes and alcohol, if that was the case, even though the latter products are harmful to the body? Some people also think that the cannabis ban took place in the 1930s during the War on Drugs, but that is not the case. That is absolutely not true.
Harry Anslinger
Harry Anslinger was a man who was designated and assigned to run the Washington Department of Prohibition in 1929. He was in charge of alcohol prohibition initially and that was a definite disaster. Gangs had dominated the communities and controlled the alcohol processing. Soon, even teenagers were consuming alcohol. But instead of tightening up on its use, it became easy to obtain and then, there was no longer a prohibition on alcohol.
Harry Anslinger became scared that he had no other drug to work with, he thought that he would implement a cannabis ban to keep himself busy in running a large government agency. Before this happened, Anslinger had no qualms about cannabis use.
Concocted Stories
During that phase of his agency, he started to concoct stories about how cannabis could make the user violent, which had never been proven before. He now said that his mind was changed and he orchestrated a cannabis ban. He insisted that the consumption of weed makes a man turn into a wild animal. In fact, he became so obsessed with this theory that he spread word that marijuana could make someone hack his parents to death.
This stoked fear into many Americans at the time. Anslinger sought the advice of thirty reputable scientists and twenty nine of them did not agree with him. One of them did agree with him and that is the one he picked out to give him a reason for the cannabis ban.
The media became obsessed with this new trend and supported him. It created a panic across the United States and subsequently resulted in the cannabis ban.
The Other Countries
In so doing, the United States forced other countries to do the same thing. Some countries did not agree and put up a refusal while other countries went along with it. In Mexico, the government made a decision for their drug policy to be administered by doctors.
And those doctors concluded that cannabis did not result in the problems that Anslinger was describing. Of course, Anslinger and the U.S. government did not like it and were furious about Mexico's decision.
So he put out an order for the country's government to fall in line with his conclusion, but Mexico refused and held out until the United States cut off supplies of painkillers to Mexico's legal marketplace.
As a result, patients were in terrible pain in hospitals across the country. It was then that Mexico decided to fire the doctors and launched a drug war of its own. That was enough for Anslinger and the U.S. government. But just so you know, there are about 40,000 people killed by alcohol each year and cannabis has never been proven to kill anyone.
Conclusion
Years after, many doctors approached Anslinger asking for approval to do research on cannabis and he turned them away; describing it as being evil. He wanted to maintain the cannabis ban for his own reason, which we have yet to know the real one. This is the real reason the cannabis ban took place.
