International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 137

International Journal on Criminology
harsher laws to be put in place. The Boggs Act imposed minimum sentences for
possession without specifying the quantity, and states decided to add their own sentences.
In Missouri, a second conviction for possession meant life imprisonment. 44
During the same period, Anslinger established links between Communist
China and the availability of drugs. In a filmed interview, Anslinger highlighted
how the government of Nationalist China executed a thousand people per year in
its fight against drugs while the Chinese Communists executed none. 45 Anslinger
did not provide proof of this link, but he contributed to the hysterical atmosphere
of the Cold War, taking part in the official position of anti-Communism to remain
in his post. Anslinger would use this line of argument about the links between the
availability of heroin and the Chinese Communist regime, or simply that about the
link between drugs and Communists, almost his entire life, because it guaranteed
him visibility and political weight.
On November 27, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower set up the Interdepartmental
Committee on Narcotics. This provided considerable political reinforcement,
because the state, treasury, defense, justice, and health secretaries were
involved in it. 46 The body was coordinated directly by the U.S. president. The concept
of a “war on drugs” was strengthened, and it took on a dimension that would
continually grow.
On July 18, 1956, the Narcotic Control Act was signed by Eisenhower, further
strengthening the repression of cannabis, because in addition to its taking a
harder stance on possession, the act criminalized transportation of the substance.
Prohibition as an idea peculiar to the United States had abandoned alcohol to concentrate
on narcotics and psychotropics. 47
On January 24, 1961, in New York, the United Nations was making preparations
to adopt the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Anslinger was of course
a member of the delegation of the United States, the main proponent of this new
international convention on drug control. 48 Anslinger had already taken part in
meetings of this type practically since the beginning of his career as “antidrug czar,”
and he had been in Geneva in 1936. The year 1961 likely represents the apogee of
his career, since Anslinger managed to impose upon or convince the 73 countries
present at this assembly that consuming cannabis was the first step toward experimenting
with a range of other substances, including heroin and cocaine. At the
geopolitical level, even if the United States was not able to impose its prohibitionist
44 Grass, directed by Ron Mann, Canada, 1999, documentary film.
45 Grass, directed by Ron Mann, Canada, 1999, documentary film.
46 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-heads-departments-constituting-the-interdepartmental-committee-narcotics.
47 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-70-Pg567.pdf.
48 https://www.sencanada.ca/content/sen/commtee/371/ille/library/history-f.htm#A. The Single Convention
on Narcotic Drugs of 1961.
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