Turns out when Harry Anslinger (our nation’s first “Drug Czar”) commissioned a committee to make suggestions regarding marijuana policy, he hired whomever agreed with marijuana prohibition as the official expert on the subject. Two experts spoke out at the committee.
Dr. William Woodward, who was very familiar with the subject, opposed the very idea of prohibition and saw no harm whatsoever in the usage of marijuana.
However, it was Professor James Munch that was eventually appointed the official expert on marijuana policy because he simply agreed with the Drug Czar that cannabis should be prohibited outright, with no scientific data to back it up.
from Dr. David Berman’s blog:
William Woodward was a medical doctor, a lawyer, and chief counsel and long-time lobbyist for the American Medical Association (AMA). He is chiefly known for his role in the controversy surrounding passage of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, federal legislation that seriously discouraged marijuana use, although it did not outlaw it entirely.
The Marijuana Tax Act was proposed either to cripple hemp as a competitor to wood pulp and petrochemical products and/or due to the activities of the federal Bureau of Narcotics under the leadership of Henry J. Anslinger. The Bureau and the Hearst newspapers had waged a sensationalist campaign in the press, detailing horrible physical, psychological, and social effects of marijuana use. However, the Bureau had not consulted with the AMA’s medical experts or even informed the Association that anti-marijuana legislation was being drafted. At the last minute the AMA realized that the marijuana in the acts title was actually cannabis and the AMA called upon Woodward to testify before Congress.
Woodward was an experienced hand. He had served as the Health Commission for The District of Columbia for 23 years and had been a lobbyist for the AMA since the early 20th century. In that capacity, he had helped draft the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Tax Act and the Uniform Narcotics Code of 1926—anti-drug laws dealing with heavy narcotics such as heroin.
Woodward testified for the AMA at the Marijuana Tax Act hearings in 1937 that “The AMA knows of no evidence that marijuana is a dangerous drug.” The AMA felt there was no medical justification for this Marijuana Tax and opposed its passage. Dr. Woodward accused Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics of distorting earlier AMA statements which had nothing to do with marijuana to make them appear to be an endorsement of Anslinger’s view.
Woodward questioned the factual basis of the hearings, pointing out that no data had been obtained for Anslinger’s allegations about the serious effects of marijuana on crime, children, or health from the Bureau of Prisons, the Children’s Bureau, the Office of Education, or the Division of Mental Health of the U.S. Public Health Service.
William Woodward died in Washington, D.C. in 1949.
another source: marijuana prohibition video
It is a clear early spring evening, and Jack is walking along the perimeter of his south Madison property, pointing out where he grows marijuana. “You really have to look to see it,” says Jack, a pseudonym.
Jack is middle-aged, with trimmed, spiky gray-white hair and fluid, animated gestures; there is something slightly Steve Martin-adorable about him. A playful golden retriever nuzzles his hand, trying to get his attention. He lives in a beige, vinyl-sided house near a golf course, next door to a house that boasts a Prosser lawn sign, from the recent Supreme Court race.
“We cancel out each other’s votes,” he jokes, nodding in the direction of his neighbor’s house. Jack thinks some of his neighbors “may have a clue” that he grows pot in his backyard, but doesn’t seem too worried. He tells a story of a time when the neighbor’s new puppy was romping around his 10-by-10-foot garden plot, but no one said anything about the pot stalks mixed in with other plants.
“I trim them,” Jack explains, “It just looks like another tomato plant.”
Jack is one of an undetermined number of Madison-area residents who grow marijuana at their residence. The police aren’t willing to hazard a guess, but one active grower estimates there are at least 300 home-growers in Dane County — on a par with the number of area dentists.
MADISON: The Madison Wisconsin version of a global set of cannabis freedom rallies and marches that spans hundreds of cities around the world has been rescheduled to Saturday April 30.
The Global Cannabis March will now be held on Saturday April 30, which is the same day of the Mifflin Street Block Party, the traditional end point of the cannabis march.
A Facebook page created by the event organizers, Madison NORML, says attendees should gather at the Capitol between 11am and 12am. After a rally, the march will head down State St. around 1pm. The exact gathering spot at the Capitol is TBA as of this writing.
As in the last several years, marchers will proceed down State St. and campus area streets to another Madison spring tradition, the Mifflin St. Block Party, where they will disperse after marching through the crowds.
The idea for these coordinated global marches came fromDana Beal of the New York City based Cures Not Warsmedical cannabis advocacy group. Beal will likely be in Wisconsin on April 30, but will not be attending the march as he has been sitting in the Iowa County jail for several months awaiting trial after a January 2011 traffic stop found him and a driver in a car with a quantity of what Beal says was medical cannabis intended for compassion clubs in Michigan and New York City.
Beal’s link to Wisconsin dates back to the early 1970s. As reported here last year, the first Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival was a protest rally for Beal, who was then in jail in Wisconsin for cannabis.
Organizers say that is why they will be marching – that cannabis prohibition is not just counterproductive and illogical, but an outdated relic that now curtails everyone’s freedom, whether they use cannabis or not.
MADISON: Recall efforts against an array of Wisconsin State Senators are now in full swing, with the 60-day clock already ticking on a number of seats. A total of eight Republicans are eligible for recalls and the subject of efforts including Senators Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) and Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).
In the 2009-2010 session, Lazich and Darling served together on the Senate Committee on Health, Health Insurance, Privacy, Property Tax Relief, and Revenue. Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Waunakee) chaired the committee. Today, Lazich and Darling are backing an extreme budget plan put forth by Republican WI Gov. Scott Walker. Sen. Erpenbach, now in the minority, is in Illinois with his now 14 Democratic Senate colleagues, the only way the 14 could stop action on the budget bill.
When a combined hearing on last session’s Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act (JRMMA) was held on Dec. 15, 2009, two of the most vocal Senate opponents were Senators Mary Lazich and Alberta Darling. Sen. Erpenbach, on the other hand, was the lead Senate sponsor.
Two other members of the “Fab 14″ Democratic senators also cosponsored the medical cannabis bill, Sen. Mark Miller (D-Monona) and Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) and have been prominent in leading the Fab 14 to stand firm against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget attacks.
Darling and Lazich, along with six other Republican state senators, are the subjects of a recall over their support of Gov. Scott Walker’s radical “budget repair” and budget bills. The signature collecting for Sen. Darling is reported to be going well. Darling narrowly prevailed over former-Rep. Sheldon Wassermann in her last election, is viewed as very vulnerable.
Another prominent state legislature medical cannabis opponent, State Sen. Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa) demonized medical cannabis patients at the aforementioned combined hearing while still in the Assembly. Protesters angry over Gov. Walker’s budget and her support of it flooded a joint town hall meeting she was holding in a suburban Milwaukee area public library with Wisconsin’s anti-medical cannabis zealot in Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner.Sensenbrenner angrily gaveled the meeting to a close after barely 30 minutes rather than take questions from constituents (see video).
If three Republican senators are recalled, the Senate majority would swing back to Democratic control. While Gov. Walker and Senator Vukmir cannot be recalled until they have served a year in office, these recalls could also remove key medical cannabis opponents and perhaps map a future route to passage of the JRMMA in Wisconsin.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Senators who opposed medical marijuana target of recalls over budget – Madison norml | Examiner.com
