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What do you know about Anslinger?

Over the weekend, I spotted a comment that he first said marijuana and its users were harmless and, of course later, he was its biggest opponent, but I never did find where and why he turned around. Do you know if there's any evidence pointing to why?

What do you know about Anslinger?

When he was appointed to the Federal Narcotics Board he opposed marijuana being classified as a narcotic. He didn't want to spend his limited funds policing pot.

This was during the depression. Prohibition had been repealed and thousands of prohibition enforcement officers were out of work. When the Roosevelt administration decided to go after hemp, which was competeing with Hearst paper and DuPont nylon, they offered to bring the revenuers back to work. Harry jumped on the bandwagon and we all know the results.

If you have the time, read the testimony of the Marijuana Tax Act hearings of 1937 and work back. You'll find it very interesting!

Harry was also the brother in law of J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI and FNB came about in the same era and both Harry and Edgar were given lifetime director positions in those new agencies. They were both corrupt.
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