The link between cannabis history and Black history
For Black History Month, we’re taking a deeper look at how African American history connects to the history of cannabis in the United States.
Your first thought might be of the War on Drugs — a political campaign labeling drugs like marijuana as “public enemy number one” — led by former president Richard Nixon. Let’s look back in time to see the impact Black culture has had on the story of this powerful medicinal plant.
Of the many devastating consequences of the War on Drugs were the millions of people incarcerated for drug offenses, with Black people and other minorities arrested at a far higher rate.
Enslaved African people grew most of the hemp in early America
Did you know there was a point in time when it was illegal not to grow hemp?
In 1619, Virginia was the first state to pass such a law, with Massachusetts and Connecticut quickly following suit. Even in states like Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, New England, and the Carolinas, where it wasn’t mandated to grow hemp, government grants were used to encourage farmers to grow cannabis.
If you grew up learning about the 13 Colonies that settled in America in the 18th century, you might remember being taught about the necessity of crops like tobacco, sugar, flax, and cotton. Hemp is often excluded from that list, even though most clothing was made from hemp at the time.
The ‘reefer madness’ era focused on people of color
In the 1800s, hemp fiber was still being used to make everyday things like clothes, paper, textiles, and rope. Cannabis was listed as an ingredient in many over-the-counter medicines like cough syrup — an early display of the medicinal properties of the plant. In the early 1900s, Mexican immigrants started fleeing to the United States and introduced the practice of smoking cannabis recreationally.
Anti-cannabis legislation began in 1937
A year after the release of Reefer Madness, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed, taxing cannabis sales for the first time. The man behind the law was Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of what was formerly known as the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was one of the first to “connect” supposed violent marijuana-induced crimes to African Americans and Hispanic people.
In the early 1900s, Mexican immigrants started fleeing to the United States and introduced the practice of smoking cannabis recreationally.
Racism fueled prohibition and the War on Drugs
The Marihuana Tax Act was not the end of the U.S. government’s fight against the “evils” of marijuana and targeting people of color.
In 1971, the Nixon administration was determined to end cannabis use altogether. The Marihuana Tax Act was repealed and replaced with the Controlled Substances Act, which began Nixon’s infamous War on Drugs.