International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 132

A Brief Genealogy of Cannabis Policy in the United States consumption of opium poppy extracts prevented people from working, one of the main arguments behind the organization of the International Opium Commission in Shanghai in 1909. 17 The Treasury Department had official responsibility for implementing the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. 18 On June 3, 1915, El Paso Herald published news that on the morning of that day, the city council of El Paso, Texas, had approved the first decree in U.S. history that made it illegal to sell, barter, give away, or possess cannabis, 19 a measure that became above all a way to control Mexicans, even if at the time most Americans were more concerned by opium and its derivatives of morphine and heroin, as well as by cocaine. 20 The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, 21 incorporated the multilateral treaty agreeing to the control of the production and distribution of opium that was signed in 1912 in The Hague. This was the first time that the principle of limiting the use of drugs to medical and scientific purposes was formalized under international law. The Shanghai commission, the Hague treaty, and subsequent international treaties concerning drugs were all at the root of U.S. diplomatic initiatives. 22 On October 28, 1919, the Volstead Act was approved by the U.S. Congress. It deployed, seemingly for the first time, the term “War Prohibition Act,” in the context of a new policy aimed at eradicating alcohol (this document referred to alcoholic beverages only). The concept of prohibition was therefore introduced as a new government norm, one that aimed ... to prohibit the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol across all federal territory. The Eighteenth Amendment was approved, and prohibition took hold until 1933. The culmination of almost a century of activism, the prohibition of alcohol aimed to improve the life of all Americans, to protect individuals and families, and to promote the Protestant utopia of a healthy and virtuous life for society as a whole. Paradoxically, the incorporation into the American constitution of a code inspired by religion gave the illicit consumption of alcohol a glamorous and attractive image, encouraged neighborhood gangs to become crime syndicates at 17 Eduardo Rodriguez, “À l’origine des lois d’interdiction des drogues: Le Sommet Internationale de Shanghai 1909” (Master’s thesis, Université Paris, 2010), 3. 18 https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/Early%20Years%20p%2012-29%20%281%29.pdf. 19 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88084272/1915-06-03/ed-1/seq-6/#words=marihuana. 20 Grass, directed by Ron Mann, Canada, 1999, documentary film. 21 https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Versailles-1919. 22 Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2008 (New York: United Nations, 2008), 2. 127