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.
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