Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eyes, step on white men’s shadows and look at white women twice.” ~ Harry J. Anslinger
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) still venerates Harry J. Anslinger.
In commemoration of Anslinger’s war on the disenfranchised and one of nature’s most important plants, the DEA tweeted a shout-out to America’s first marijuana prohibitionist on #ThrowbackThursday.
Anslinger, as the head of the FBN, was driven by angst and revulsion over cultural diversity and America’s cannabis use in the 1930s. An early and ardent crusader for increased drug penalties, Harry is considered the Godfather of prohibition. Credited with criminalizing marijuana via the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the FBN was later consolidated with The Bureau of Drug Abuse Control to create The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs – which was the prototype for our current Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
A propagandist obsessed with his anti-marijuana campaign, Anslinger demonized marijuana as an insidious drug and pandered to the racial prejudice of white Americans by fanning the flames of fear over marijuana use in the early 20th century.
Bigoted, intolerant, and obviously biased, Anslinger was responsible for establishing the disastrous course for our nation’s drug policy, and some rather ludicrous statements.
- There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.
- Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.
- Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.
Nearly 90 years after Harry J. Anslinger’s campaign of prohibition, bigotry, and ignorance took root in the U.S., the DEA saw fit to thank Harry for the purity of his madness.
