In other words, as more and more states accept and legalize the use of medical Marijuana the nation moves one step closer to re-legalizing the recreational use of Marijuana.
"Reefer Madness" and Declining Public Support.
In addition to waging a personal war on opiate type drugs, Henry J. Anslinger started the first campaign against the use of Marijuana. He referred to Marijuana as the "Devil's Weed", and in less than six years was able to convince the American public that Marijuana was as evil as opiate type drugs. In 1936, the Bureau of Narcotics sponsored, and several well known church organizations financed, the filming of "Tell Your Children", a movie aimed at warning parents of the dangerous of children smoking Marijuana (Thornton, 2007). This movie, which was also known as "Doped Youth" and "Reefer Madness" showed high school students going insane and committing different criminal activities as a result of smoke Marijuana. This film had the single largest impact on the governments' anti-Marijuana campaign, and resulted in a public outcry to make the use of Marijuana illegal. One year later, the federal government passed the Marijuana Tax Law of 1937, which made the possession of Cannabis illegal, except for medical purposes.
Although the federal government and private companies recognized medical uses for Marijuana for many years, the government slowly began to criminalize the use of Marijuana, which culminated in the government passing a law through the Narcotics Control Act of 1956, which criminalized first time possession of Marijuana with a mandatory minimum of two to ten years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
Controlled Substances Act of 1970 and the Effect on Marijuana for Medical Use.
In 1970, the federal government passed the Controlled Substances Act, which defined some drugs as controlled substances. These controlled substances were divided into five schedules or drug classifications with Marijuana being classified as a Schedule I drug because the drug was determined to have a high potential for abuse, no medical value, and was unsafe even under medical supervision (Bostwick, 2012).
