Marihuana Tax Act of 1937

In the United States, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, Pub. 238, 75th Congress, 50 Stat. 551 (Aug. 2, 1937), was an important bill on the path [1] that led to the criminalization of cannabis. It was introduced to U.S. assembly by official of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger. The Act is at the present normally referred to using the modern spelling as the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

The Act did not itself criminalize the ownership or practice of hemp, marijuana, or cannabis, but levied a tax equaling approximately one dollar on anyone who dealt commercially in cannabis, hemp, or marijuana. The Act did contain punishment supplies and elaborate rules of enforcement to which marijuana, cannabis, or hemp handlers were topic. Infringement of these events could consequence in a fine of up to $2000 and five years' incarceration. The net consequence was to augment the jeopardy for anyone dealing in the substance — at least until World War II necessary the United States subdivision of Agriculture to make its 1942 movie "Hemp for Victory". The film confident and taught farmers to cultivate variants of hemp appropriate as uncooked fabric for hawsers used by the U.S. Navy and the commercial Marine, prior to the implementation of Nylon rope. The hemp was also used as a replacement for additional fibrous materials that were blocked by Japan.

The bill was approved on the foundation of dissimilar information [2] and hearings [3] . Anslinger also referred to the worldwide Opium meeting that from 1928 incorporated cannabis as a drug, and that all states had some kind of laws adjacent to unacceptable use of cannabis. Some testimonies incorporated that cannabis caused "murder, madness and death" Today; it is normally conventional that the hearings incorporated wrong, extreme or groundless point of view. [5] By 1951, however, new justifications had emerged, and a bill that outdated the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was accepted.