The thick smoke’s pungent aroma relaxes many, but the plant, a common weed in many countries, continues to be the target in the U.S.’s “War on Drugs.” Marijuana dates back as far as 6000 B.C. when it was used in Chinese cuisine, and the first recorded use of medical marijuana is set in 2727 B.C. The natural plant used for food, clothing, and medicine is now deemed the oh-so-scary “gateway drug.”

During the early-nineteenth century, a variety of laws were passed to ban marijuana use in hopes of hindering the vast migration of marijuana users. Fear of marijuana spreading into white communities or its use as a replacement for opiates sparked the attention of state officials. Marijuana was first banned in the District of Columbia in 1906 followed my multiple state laws. In 1930, Harry J. Anslinger, the first Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, created a sensationalistic propaganda campaign to fight the use of marijuana.

In 1936 the film Reefer Madness was made to scare American white youth away from using cannabis. The film follows high school students who smoke weed out of peer pressure. By the end of the movie the kids experience rape, manslaughter, suicide, and a hit-and-run accident. The morality tale pushes the idea that complete madness will ensue if one indulges in the dangerous stimulant. By using mass media, the propaganda successfully intimidated Americans. The national movement spread sensationalistic articles of heinous crimes as the result of smoking pot. One article stated, “They found the youth staggering about in a human slaughterhouse. With an axe, he had killed his father, mother, two brothers, and a sister. He seemed to be in a daze…The officers knew him ordinarily as a sane, rather quiet young man; now he was pitifully crazed. They sought the reason. The boy said that he had been in the habit of smoking something which youthful friends called ‘muggles,’ a childish name for marijuana.”

Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst teamed up in hopes of scaring the nation into a weed-free society. Many skeptics believe that the campaign was economically driven—Anslinger and Hearst wanted to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor. Hearst, owner of the San Francisco Examiner, was losing money due to the expense of hemp paper and needed a stern hold on the production and use of cannabis in all forms.

In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act stated that a U.S. citizen could smoke marijuana legally but needed a stamp in order to possess the drug. The government wanted to regulate it in order to seek revenue, but the law had its faults. For any person to legally obtain weed they had to incriminate themselves in order to receive the stamp. Violations resulted in a fine up to two thousand dollars and/or five years in prison. The law was unconstitutional and only jump-started the progression of the anti-marijuana campaign. In hopes of backing his campaign, Anslinger ordered the LaGuardia Commission to do the first in-depth study of the effects of marijuana use. When the results came back, they systematically contradicted Anslinger’s claims, the study was dismissed even though it proved that there is no correlation attributed as a “gateway drug” to harsher drugs.

Today, the “War on Drugs” continues to push the gateway theory. According to CannibisStatistics.com, eighty-three million Americans have admitted to trying marijuana. Today “weed” is ten to fifteen times as strong as it was in the ‘60s—the prime decade for open marijuana consumption. Even with the never-ending anti-pot campaigns broadcasted on televisions across the country, weed is still a common American drug.

San Francisco’s Cannabis Day celebrates the plant. Suited officers pace the streets and watch hundreds of San Franciscan’s legally indulge. Medical marijuana is used for a variety of ailments, and kids are still sneaking into the backyard to pack a bowl when mom isn’t watching. If the U.S. government cannot package and price a product, it’s deemed illegal and portrayed as dangerous. With a little deeper analysis any person can dig up the nasty truths behind our system, especially in the drug world.