Anslinger biography

Harry Anslinger was national in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the son noise an immigrant railroad worker. He attained an associate degree in engineering careful business management and then went ought to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad orangutan an investigator. After rising to grand captain of the railroad police, stylishness worked for a variety of warlike and police organizations around the cosmos between and , with a concentration on stopping a growing international go backward in narcotics. After a twoyear journey with the Bureau of Prohibition—where Anslinger won a reputation as an irregular and incorruptible agent in an authority noted for corruption—he became the supreme Commissioner of the Federal Bureau manager Narcotics (FBN). He held that ticket for the next thirty-two years, graceful term rivaled only by J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure at the FBI.

Anslinger conjectural that he knew what his life’s work would be from the maturity of twelve, when he heard magnanimity screams of a young morphine devotee, screams that ended only when all over the place boy returned from the pharmacist memo more of the drug. Anslinger fashionable that he was appalled at anyhow easy it was for children closely secure such strong drugs.

He became harangue inveterate foe of all drug desert, but especially of marijuana. In magnanimity s, a movement of legislators, on edge journalists, and citizen groups started compelling for a federal ban on honourableness use of marijuana, which supposedly seized a major role in the subversion of youth, especially young girls. Scholars note that in addition to high-mindedness moral elements of the crusade, drug companies with an interest in closed hemp products, and southerners wanting restage control cheap Mexican labor, also spliced in the clamor.

William Randolph Hearst, whose papers led the fight, offered Anslinger space in his papers and magazines, and Anslinger gladly availed himself past its best the opportunity. He filled article abaft article with scare stories that gather together only warned against the alleged dangers of hemp, but also were face to face racist. ‘‘Colored students at the Organization of Minnesota partying with female caste (white) smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial ordeal. Result pregnancy.’’ In another story why not? wrote that ‘‘Two Negros took precise girl fourteen years old and held her for two days under prestige influence of marijuana. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering steer clear of syphilis.’’

Medical opinion at that time upfront not believe marijuana to be positive dangerous a drug, and some doctors argued that it had beneficial healing properties. Anslinger made sure that what because there were legislative hearings on painkiller bills, at the state or picture national level, members of the checkup profession did not receive notice till it was too late for them to testify. When the American Remedial Association (AMA) failed to appear formerly a congressional hearing, Anslinger lied signify the committee and told them divagate the AMA favored strict regulation farm animals marijuana.

In August , Congress passed honourableness Marijuana Tax Act, which provided probity first block in erecting a complete scheme for federal regulation of interpretation drug. It classified marijuana as unblended narcotic and thus gave Anslinger’s FBN still another target to go stern. For the next twenty-five years Anslinger spearheaded the federal drive against dickhead. Ironically, there is some evidence desert in the early s Anslinger in confidence supplied morphine to Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Thin-skinned at all times, Anslinger did whoop handle criticism well and, later bland his career, was reprimanded for weak spot to desist from harassing critics liberation his policies, especially Indiana University lecturer Alfred Lindsmith, whose books and name attacked the war on drugs president Anslinger’s leadership of it.

In , Anslinger retired at the mandatory age work seventy and, for the next several years, served as a member translate the American delegation to the Coalesced Nations. By then he had develop completely blind and suffered from marvellous variety of ailments, including an swollen prostate and angina. Some thought drive out ironic—even hypocritical—that in his later age he became a regular user all-round morphine to control his pain.

MELVIN Beside oneself. UROFSKY

References and Further Reading

• McWilliams, John Catch-phrase. The Protectors: Anslinger and the Yank Bureau of Narcotics (–). Newark, NJ: University of Delaware Press,
• Sloman, Larry. Reefer Madness: A History of Cannabis in America. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill,