In the United States, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, Pub. 238, 75th Congress, 50 Stat. 551 (Aug. 2, 1937), was a significant bill on the path that led to the criminalization of cannabis. It was introduced to U.S. Congress by “Drug Czar” Harry Anslinger, then Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

The act did not itself criminalize the possession or usage of hemp, marijuana or cannabis, but levied a tax equaling roughly one dollar on anyone who dealt commercially in cannabis, hemp or marijuana. It did, however, include penalty provisions and a complex Regulation 1 codifying the elaborate rules of enforcement marijuana cannabis or hemp handlers were subject to. Violation of these procedures could result in a fine of up to $2000 and five years’ imprisonment. The net effect was to make it too risky for anyone to deal in the substance until World War II required the United States Department of Agriculture to make its 1942 movie “Hemp for Victory”. The film encouraged and taught farmers to grow variants of hemp suitable as raw material for hawsers used by U.S Marines; the hemp was used as a substitute for other raw materials that were blocked by Japan.

The bill was passed on the grounds of different reports[1] and hearings [2]. Anslinger also referred to the International Opium Convention that from 1928 included cannabis as a drug, and that all states had some kind of laws against improper use of cannabis. Some testimonies included that cannabis caused “murder, insanity and death”. Today, it is generally accepted that the hearings included incorrect, excessive or unfounded arguments. By 1951, however, new justifications had emerged, and a bill that superseded the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed.

The background also included a report about the commercialized hemp reporting that from 1880 to 1933 the hemp grown in the United States had declined from 15,000 acres (61 km2), to 1,200 acres (5 km2), and that the price of line hemp had dropped from $12.50 per pound in 1914 to $9.00 per pound in 1933.[3]

In 1967, President Johnson’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of justice opined, “The Act raises an insignificant amount of revenue and exposes an insignificant number of marijuana transactions to public view, since only a handful of people are registered under the Act. It has become, in effect, solely- a criminal law, imposing sanctions upon persons who sell, acquire, or possess marijuana.”[4]

In 1969 in Leary v. United States, this act was found to be unconstitutional since it violated the Fifth Amendment, since a person seeking the tax stamp would have to incriminate him/herself.[5] In response the Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970[6]. The 1937 Act was repealed by the 1970 Act.

Although modern America uses the spelling “marijuana”, in keeping with the most common spelling, the correct spelling for the Marihuana Tax Act is “Marihuana”. “Marihuana” was the spelling most commonly used in Federal Government documents at the time. To stay consistent with prior law, it is still spelled “Marihuana” in some congressional bills such as HR 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005.