thingstodo

That may be true; however, I saw a documentary titled Grass narrated by Woody Harrelson Grass (1999) that went into the subject. I don't remember specifics, but there was something to do with racism and the original head of the first DEA agency. According to imde:

This film explores the history of the American government's official policy on marijuana in the 20th century. Rising with nativist xenophobia with Mexican immigration and their taste for smoking marijuana, we see the establishment of a wrong headed federal drug policy as a crime issue as oppposed to a public health approach. Fuelled by prejudice, hysterical propaganda and political opportunism undeterred by voices of reason on the subject, we follow the story of a costly and futile crusade against a substance with questionable ill effects that has damaged basic civil liberites.

Amazon.com video review: This playful documentary from Ron Mann (Comic Book Confidential) is less a social history of marijuana than a satirical portrait of the American government's systematic seven-decade campaign to demonize the devil's weed. Mann excerpts hysterical educational scare films, clips from campy overheated features like Reefer Madness and High on the Range, and a hilarious anti-drug spot by an obviously stoned Sonny Bono to contrast decades of exaggeration and blatant misinformation with two official (and subsequently ignored) government studies that find pot to be a relatively harmless drug, both less addictive and less dangerous than either alcohol or cigarettes. Narrated in an easy, conversational tone by hemp activist Woody Harrelson, it's a well-researched and smartly organized argument against the war on drugs, at least this drug. And Mann makes no pretense at balance: he's preaching to the converted with a sarcastic sermon. When the official record is missing, he even fabricates his own slyly ironic mock newsreels and newspaper clippings, which undercut the strength of the real documents but never hurts his case as a whole. This witty history lesson is a thinking man's Reefer Madness for the pro-pot movement.

And from another another review:

Grass tells the fascinating story of the REAL history of the American government's fight against marijuana use. The fight to criminalize other drugs is addressed but that theme is only tangential to the theme of this film. Grass is narrated by actor Woody Harrelson who does a great job of narrating while not interfering with your ability to view rarely seen archival footage from newsreels and public school educational films that tired so hard to discourage young people from smoking marijuana.

We quickly learn that the fight to criminalize marijuana use began in the early 1900s when Americans noticed that Mexicans coming here for work used marijuana at the end of the day to relax after hard labor. Rumors traveled that the drug made the Mexican men wild and physically dangerous and so laws against the drug were passed. We also get great archival footage of narcotics agent Anslinger fighting drugs use and even FDR signing laws into effect that criminalized marijuana with stiff legal penalties. On the other hand we also see former mayor of New York LaGuardia's own six year study to understand the true effects of marijuana on people and how Anslinger wanted so badly to destroy every copy of this report that he could get his hands on. In one particularly hard to swallow scene, we meet a young man who came home a decorated hero from Vietnam--but after his trial for possession of marijuana he was sentenced to 50 years in prison! Wow, that WAS a harsh sentence.

But the bottom line is that however pot was criminalized, it was stupid and our "War on drugs" has been a huge waste of money. There is a lot more about the movie out there. I tried to only include material relating to the subject.

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