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The Cliff Notes version:

‘only seven articles treating marijuana or hashish appeared from 1920 to August 1937, when the [Marihuana] Tax Act was passed. With respect to medical opinion, the AMA Journal presented an article opposing the enactment of the Tax Act and arguing, as did their representative at the Tax Act hearings, that existing state laws were sufficient if properly enforced.

‘It seems the national media and medical opinion were far from hysterical at the time the Tax Act passed. There were a few local newspaper campaigns against the drug, but they tended to peak about two years before the passage of the Act and were isolated instances of public support for the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act. Moreover, these atypical state scares did not draw national attention.

‘In fact, whatever publicity the “marijuana problem” received during this period was attributable to Commissioner Anslinger and his office [the Federal Bureau of Narcotics], who conducted an active educational campaign for federal legislation. They prepared press stories on the dangers of the drug and traveled around the country disseminating propaganda. Despite these efforts, however, public knowledge of the marijuana proposals was minimal at best. The New York Times contained nine references to marijuana from January 1936 until it reported on August 3, 1937, “President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions.”

‘As in prior years, marijuana was still not a matter of public attention, and the so-called “problem” and the federal proposal to cure it went virtually unnoticed by most of the American public. At the same time, however, the “educational” campaign conducted by the Bureau to inform the Congress of the dimensions of the “problem” was highly successful. In this sense, the Bureau itself created the “felt need” for federal legislation; the Bureau - and not public hysteria which it was unable to arouse - was the major force behind the Tax Act. We assign to the Bureau the instrumental role with respect to passage of the Tax Act even though we did not do so with respect to the Uniform Act. So successful were the Commissioner’s efforts in the Congress that the hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee and the floor debate on the bill are near comic examples of dereliction of legislative responsibility.’