Quotes of Marijuana History

This is fun... I really like looking into this it lets you know how some of our misconceptions in the history of the USA. My first Quote, this is probably the most important quote I have seen in my research. 1."Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?" To which Speaker Rayburn replied, "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind." "Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?" "Their Doctor Wentworth came down here. They support this bill 100 percent." The above quotes are the only thing that was said when the bill was brought up on the floor of Congress in 1937. The amazing thing is look at the Doctors name used. Who testified for the American Medical Association? 2. This leads me to go backwards in time. There was one testimony from the American Medical Association before it was passed up to Congress. That was made by Dr. William C. Woodward, both a lawyer and a doctor and at the time was Chief Counsel to the American Medical Association. His Testimony, "The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug." Immediately one of the Congressmen said, "Doctor, if you can't say something good about what we are trying to do, why don't you go home?" The next Congressman said, "Doctor, if you haven't got something better to say than that, we are sick of hearing you." So far we now have what was debated when the bill was sent to Congress and the testimony to get the bill to Congress. I wonder why was the bill Created? Lets go a little farther into the past. 3. I want to take a step a little farther in time to see why the bill was being taken up. in the early 1900's there was a large influx of Mexican Americans coming into the western states. Around the time the Great Depression started there was a large battle between the small farms and the large farms that would hire Mexican Americans at a low cost of labor. The western states needed to decrease the amount of low cost labor for the bigger farms so the smaller farms could compete again. The only difference that could be found was the amount of marijuana use among the mexican workers. "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff... he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy." As the proponent of Montana's first marijuana law said, "Give one of these Mexican beet field workers a couple of puffs on a marijuana cigarette and he thinks he is in the bullring at Barcelona." This is how most of the states decided to fight the use of marijuana. 4. As you know the North East has never had a vast majority of Mexican American's. That was not an issue even back in the early 1900's. Therefore there had to be another reason that The north east would jump on the band-wagon for fighting Marijuana. The New York Times in an editorial in 1919 said, "No one here in New York uses this drug marijuana. We have only just heard about it from down in the Southwest, But, we had better prohibit its use before it gets here. Otherwise all the heroin and hard narcotics addicts cut off from their drug by the Harrison Act and all the alcohol drinkers cut off from their drug by 1919 alcohol Prohibition will substitute this new and unknown drug marijuana for the drugs they used to use." So as you can see Racism of the Mexican community has had a large influence on Marijuana Prohibition. If the American Medical Association of the time says things like the AMA, "knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug." Why did it become illegal and why haven't the correct studies been completed on Marijuana. Marijuana should be tested and evaluated the same way that all medications are. But then again how many times have I been taken off medication that was approved by the FDA but later found out that it was more damaging than helpful.