Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: Obama: Pot users not 'top priority' [View all]RainDog
(28,784 posts)It's a great resource to read about actual rulings and events related to cannabis and other things.
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/
One part I especially love is LaGuardia's campaign against prohibition of alcohol back in the day. As mayor, he actively worked against Federal law - prohibition essentially came down to an issue of rural Protestant Democrats vs. urban Catholic Democrats during the 1930s.
The rural Protestant Democrats were also aligned with the KKK. FDR rose to the presidency with the backing of urban Catholic Democrats with the understanding that he would use his power to oppose prohibition. A week after taking office he did just that.
LaGuardia also did not believe Anslinger's lies about marijuana when Anslinger and others were trying to find a way to make themselves relevant after prohibition.
LaGuardia made sure studies that looked into Ansligner's claims were investigated - and, way back then, long before the current continuing b.s., those studies indicated the Feds were lying about marijuana - long before marijuana entered the middle-class consciousness via jazz and beat literature.
Nixon, etc. put cannabis on the drug schedule and kept it there IN SPITE OF the recommendations of the man Nixon appointed to head up a DEA investigation... that man was Frank Schaffer.
Just as with Anslinger, who argued against marijuana by claiming it made blacks think they are equal to whites and used this prejudice to convince white America, Nixon used bogus medical arguments to support criminal sanctions against mj b/c users during his time were also those who were most often on his "Enemies List."
Iow, prohibition of cannabis has ALWAYS been a political issue, not a health or criminal one.
Prohibition of cannabis, when it first occurred, and now, is used to oppress the poor, Latinos, African-Americans and the political left.