Pubdate: Thu, 31 Oct 2013
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2013 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Laura Kriho

MARIHUANA TAX ACT OF 1937 RISES FROM THE DEAD

Samuel Caldwell's mugshot in 1937. Nothing is more scary on Halloween 
than the undead. Zombies, ghouls, vampires - all were once dead, but 
were resurrected and now terrorize living society. It is both 
frightening and frustrating to think you have finally put something 
evil to rest with a silver bullet or a stake through the heart, only 
to find that it has risen from the dead and found new life.

So the fright of pro-cannabis voters was real when we saw that the 
Colorado legislature wanted to resurrect the most heinous and 
destructive thing in the history of cannabis prohibition: the 
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Timothy Leary had put this grotesque 
creature to death in 1969 when he won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court 
case. Now, a similar monster is being revived by the Colorado 
legislature as the Marijuana Tax Act of 2013, now known as Proposition AA.

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was primarily the unholy creation of 
Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 
to 1962. Anslinger had made his career enforcing alcohol prohibition, 
but when that was repealed in 1933, Anslinger needed a new illegal 
substance to secure his job.

"Marihuana" was a perfect target: It was used primarily by minorities 
who were feared by the public due to newspaper mogul William Randolph 
Hearst's nationwide "Reefer Madness" campaign to demonize cannabis 
and hemp. Hearst was a racist who used the little-known term 
"marihuana" to describe what had always been commonly known as 
cannabis or hemp. Hearst ran a very effective scare campaign to 
convince the public that "Mexicans and Negroes" were smoking a new 
drug called "marihuana" that was causing them to rape and murder white people.

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 used a unique legal theory. Since 
Congress did not have the power to ban substances directly because of 
the 10th Amendment, they needed an indirect method of prohibition. 
They were inspired by the National Firearms Act of 1934, which 
effectively outlawed machine guns through the requirement of a 
"prohibitive" tax.

The Marihuana Tax Act adopted the "prohibition through taxation" 
scheme. Rather than making marijuana possession illegal directly, the 
law required you to purchase a tax stamp in order to possess 
marijuana legally. Because the taxes were set prohibitively high, it 
discouraged compliance, creating de facto prohibition.

Congress passed the law with very little debate, despite testimony by 
farmers, who complained that the law would destroy the hemp fiber and 
seed industry, and from the medical community, who complained that 
cannabis had been in the U.S. pharmacopoeia since 1850.

The new law went into effect on Oct. 1, 1937. A few days later, 
Denver's own Samuel Caldwell became Anslinger's poster boy as the 
first prosecution under the new Marihuana Tax Act. Caldwell, a 
58-year-old Denver resident, was arrested for possessing and selling 
marihuana without being in possession of his tax stamp. Caldwell was 
arrested on Monday, Oct. 5, indicted by a federal grand jury on 
Thursday, Oct. 8, and sentenced to four years in Leavenworth Federal 
Penitentiary on Friday, Oct. 9.

Caldwell's speedy prosecution was front-page headlines throughout the 
country. Anslinger himself traveled to Denver from Washington, D.C., 
for the photo opportunity at Caldwell's sentencing.

The Marihuana Tax Act proved an effective method of prohibition, and 
the legal hemp and cannabis medicine industries soon disappeared. 
However, in 1969, Timothy Leary's conviction for possession of 
marijuana without a tax stamp was overturned by the U.S. Supreme 
Court. Since marijuana was illegal on a state level in many places, 
the Court ruled that the federal tax stamp requirement violated 
Leary's Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.

Now, in 2013, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act has been revived from the 
dead as Proposition AA, which proposes a prohibitive tax of up to 30 
percent on cannabis. This would be the highest tax on a product in 
Colorado history. For comparison, alcohol is taxed at a rate of less 
than 1 percent.

Prop. AA is a regurgitated abomination of the 1937 law, and it is 
supported by the most anti-marijuana people in the state, including 
Gov. John Hickenlooper, Attorney General John Suthers (Harry 
Anslinger's modern resurrection) and Smart Colorado (channeling 
Hearst's Reefer Madness propaganda).

The only difference this time is that, thanks to TABOR (Taxpayer's 
Bill of Rights), the voters get to decide the fate of this demon tax 
act. Will voters pump new life into this Fiscal Frankenstein, or will 
they put a stake through its heart again?

Laura Kriho works with the Colorado 420 Coalition (www.Colorado420.com).
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom