Roosevelt signs the Marihuana Tax Act; cannabis sales now a federal matter

By the summer of 1937, Harry Anslinger — head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the most aggressive anti-cannabis voice in the federal government — had spent two years lobbying states, cultivating allies in Congress, and drafting a bill that would bring cannabis under national control for the first time. On August 2, 1937, President Roosevelt signed the Marihuana Tax Act into law, placing a $1-per-ounce levy on cannabis sales and effectively making unregistered possession a federal offense. The American Medical Association had testified against it, the word "marihuana" had not appeared in any official dictionary before that year, and the revenue the law raised would prove almost too small to measure…