1937 Marihuana Tax Act

Henry Anslinger began creating this bill in 1935, while Anslinger and Hearst were conducting their campaign against Marihuana.



The bill and the campaign were deliberately given a name that was not associated with hemp or cannabis by the American public.




If you want to know some of the history behind this campaign and how DuPont is involved, please look at my previous post-Marihuana, Racism, Hatred and Fear.




With the campaign's success in scaring people and armed with horror stories that supported Anslinger's bias, the bill was presented to the 16 member House Ways and Means Committee by  Rep.Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina, on April 14, 1937.


Doughton besides being an ally of DuPont, was the committee's chairman.


This committee was chosen because it is the only one that can send a bill directly to the House of Representatives without debate from any other committee.

When it was presented to the House on June 14, 1937, only 4 representatives asked for an explanation of the bill. They were given an account of criminal acts that supposedly were connected to Marihuana.

The bill passed up to the Senate Committee on Finance, which was also controlled by another ally of DuPont, Prentice Brown. During this hearing, yet more horror stories were presented and that was it.

The bill was signed into effect on August 2, 1937, by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Now, you may think a simple tax wouldn't be the end of it.



However, this tax was expensive and required all doctors, veterinarians and any other person in the medical field who prescribes cannabis to report their patient's names, addresses and every single one of their prescriptions.

This was a time when minimum wage was .25 cents an hour and a good percentage of the people affected were farmers, who almost never get minimum wage.

This tax asked for a minimum of a dollar per year for every location that hemp was grown at and sold at.




Importers, manufacturers, and compounders of marihuana, were charged $24 per year.


Medical practitioners, scientists and producers were charged $1 per year.

Everyone else was charged $3 per year.

These taxes were just for being registered.

Each transaction cost $1 per ounce if the buyer was a person who was registered and if the buyer was not registered it cost $100 per ounce.


The forms required for each transaction were issued by the government and cost .2 cents per form.

The tax and the form were paid for by the person who was selling it.


Hemp was eliminated and chemically based synthetics were used to create a range of products including plastic and nylon, rubber tires, pesticides, medicine and for making paper.