Editor's note: On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 23, Colorado Springs City Council voted 5-4 to ban recreational marijuana sales in the city. For a full report on the decision, see this Colorado Springs marijuana update.
It would be simple to say that the marijuana you know today has essentially been on the losing end of a public-relations campaign started 80 years ago by people who feared its effect on their industries. Unfortunately, the reality is far more complex, because we're not talking about a plant with a track record from the last century. We're talking about a bundle of greenery whose roots in public life reach back at least five millennia, when Chinese Emperor Fu Hsi described what he called ma as a plant possessing both Yin and Yang.
And despite so much of what you'll read in the following about efforts to fight the plant, even the presidency of the United States has fallen to the foliage, instead of the other way around. "We are now on our third straight (so to speak) President who, the evidence more than suggests, have personally flouted the laws against having possession of marijuana," wrote the New Yorker on May 6. "But the incumbent is the first who has an irrefutable history as an 'enthusiastic' (his characterization, not mine) stoner."
It's certainly not lost on many advocates that had Barack Obama been arrested for possession and distribution, he would have possibly been undone by the very laws he presses on many medical users across the country.
Anyway, now the debate comes to recreational marijuana, and what role it will have in Coloradans' lives. On Tuesday afternoon, after the Independent's deadline, Colorado Springs City Council was scheduled to rule on recreational marijuana sales in the city. Its decision was almost sure to be either to enact a moratorium on sales, or ban them entirely; Councilors hadn't even asked the city attorney's office to draft an ordinance for straight regulation and allowance.
In what follows, we take a shot at putting yesterday's Colorado Springs retail pot ban in greater American context.
1611 Cannabis is planted in Jamestown, Va., alongside tobacco. Domestic production of the plant is encouraged until after the Civil War, when other materials begin to compete with hemp.
1765 In his diaries, George Washington describes the planting of cannabis at Mount Vernon. Apparently, the first president "began to separate the male from the female hemp ... rather too late."
1874 The New York Times publishes an article called "The Use of Tobacco: Increase in the Consumption of Narcotic Stimulants" where the writer tells of a medical treatment common to certain Mexican soldiers. "On one occasion when he was suffering intensely with the toothache, an old sergeant suggested that if he would smoke a hemp cigarette it would put him to sleep and relieve his pain."
1906 The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, considered the beginning of the Food and Drug Administration, requires accurate labeling for certain comestibles, as well as for legal substances like alcohol, heroin, cocaine and cannabis.
1911 Massachusetts becomes the first state to outlaw cannabis, not because of general concern, but to discourage future use of "hypnotic drugs."
1915 President Woodrow Wilson signs the Harrison Act, which mandates that all prescriptions of opiates or cocaine be registered with the federal government. This bill will provide the framework for marijuana laws to come.
1916 The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues Bulletin No. 404, titled "Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material," which finds: "After several trials, under conditions of treatment and manufacture which are regarded as favorable in comparison with those used with pulp wood, paper was produced which received very favorable comment both from investigators and from the trade and which according to official tests would be classed as a No. 1 machine-finish printing paper."
1920s The popularity of cannabis increases due to Prohibition. It is not yet considered a social threat.
1931 The Great Depression causes American mistrust of Mexican immigrants, provoking hastily conducted research to connect violent behavior with marijuana. By the end of the year, 29 states have outlawed the substance.
1933 William Randolph Hearst launches propaganda campaign against marijuana. Some speculate that as an investor in the paper business, and prominent newspaper baron, Hearst merely wants to eliminate competition from hemp farmers. Andrew Mellon