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The link between cannabis history and Black history

The links between cannabis history and black history

Article written by

Ruth LemonChief of Staff

Content reviewed by

Dipak HemrajMedical Cannabis Researcher

Table of contents

  1. Enslaved African people grew most of the hemp in early America
  2. The ‘reefer madness’ era focused on people of color
  3. Racism fueled prohibition and the War on Drugs
  4. The fight for freedom and change continues
  5. Frequently asked questions
  6. Resources

For Black History Month, we’re taking a deeper look at how African American history connects to the history of cannabis in the United States.

Your first thought might be of the War on Drugs — a political campaign labeling drugs like marijuana as “public enemy number one” — led by former president Richard Nixon.

Of the many devastating consequences of the War on Drugs were the millions of people incarcerated for drug offenses, with Black people and other minorities arrested at a far higher rate.

That said, the story actually starts hundreds of years before cannabis was criminalized in the 1930s, when the United States was still fighting for freedom from the British Empire.

Let’s look back in time to see the impact Black culture has had on the story of this powerful medicinal plant.

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Enslaved African people grew most of the hemp in early America

Did you know there was a point in time when it was illegal not to grow hemp?

In 1619, Virginia was the first state to pass such a law, with Massachusetts and Connecticut quickly following suit. Even in states like Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, New England, and the Carolinas, where it wasn’t mandated to grow hemp, government grants were used to encourage farmers to grow cannabis.

If you grew up learning about the 13 Colonies that settled in America in the 18th century, you might remember being taught about the necessity of crops like tobacco, sugar, flax, and cotton. Hemp is often excluded from that list, even though most clothing was made from hemp at the time.

Hemp is a type of cannabis plant that doesn’t have the same psychoactive properties as marijuana, as it contains no more than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main intoxicant in cannabis.

Along with clothes, hemp was used to make canvas sails at a time when the country relied on ships to transport goods.

Of course, people were needed to cultivate hemp. Enslaved African people were the ones who worked in fields, growing crops for white European colonists. As history shows, slavery continued long past the times of mandated hemp cultivation, and racism would continue to find its way into the story of cannabis again and again.

The ‘reefer madness’ era focused on people of color

In the 1800s, hemp fiber was still being used to make everyday things like clothes, paper, textiles, and rope. Cannabis was listed as an ingredient in many over-the-counter medicines like cough syrup — an early display of the medicinal properties of the plant.

In the early 1900s, Mexican immigrants started fleeing to the United States and introduced the practice of smoking cannabis recreationally.

However, the release of a film called Reefer Madness in 1936 created a wave of panic across America. It showcased inaccurate depictions of first-time marijuana users haunted by hallucinations and being triggered to commit violent acts like rape and murder.

Anti-cannabis legislation began in 1937

A year after the release of Reefer Madness, the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed, taxing cannabis sales for the first time. The man behind the law was Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of what was formerly known as the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was one of the first to “connect” supposed violent marijuana-induced crimes to African Americans and Hispanic people.

Shortly after Anslinger was appointed in 1930, he began a public anti-cannabis campaign rooted in prejudice, making statements like, “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others.”

This move was a farce fueled by racism, and unfortunately, it helped cement racist ideals around cannabis use and people of color that still persist to this day.

Racism fueled prohibition and the War on Drugs

The Marihuana Tax Act was not the end of the U.S. government’s fight against the “evils” of marijuana and targeting people of color.

In 1971, the Nixon administration was determined to end cannabis use altogether. The Marihuana Tax Act was repealed and replaced with the Controlled Substances Act, which began Nixon’s infamous War on Drugs.

John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s chief domestic advisor at the time, said in 1994, “The Nixon campaign had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. Do you understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”

The years that followed shifted views on marijuana from a dangerous drug that inspired violence to a different stereotype. Parents and police warned that cannabis use would make you lazy and unmotivated, and was popularly called a “gateway drug,” inaccurately tying it to further drug use.

This negative image of cannabis and those who used it, even for medicinal purposes, was something that stuck. To this day, the War on Drugs is one of the longest-standing battles in U.S. history – and one that continues to disproportionately affect Black Americans.

Cannabis-related legal injustices persist 

In the decades since cannabis prohibition and its classification as a Schedule 1 drug, arrests and imprisonments (incarcerations) have swept the nation.

Studies have found that even though medical and recreational marijuana is legal in much of the country, Black people are still arrested for marijuana-related offenses at almost three times the rate of white people.

The U.S. had — and continues to have — a major problem with mass incarceration (the widespread imprisonment of a targeted group) and systemic racism within the criminal justice system.

In 2022, there were over 227,000 marijuana arrests, the majority of them minorities and young adults, accounting for 30% of all drug arrests made that year.

If you use cannabis, one of the best ways to protect yourself legally and ensure you’re complying with state laws is to always carry your medical marijuana card.

The fight for freedom and change continues

Cannabis is now legal in most of the U.S. for medicinal purposes and is available for recreational use in a number of states.

Still, it’s important to reflect on the connection between Black history and cannabis in the U.S. to see how far we’ve come and how far we still need to go, as well as to celebrate entrepreneurs and Black-owned businesses finding success in the cannabis industry.

Black history and cannabis history have been intertwined for centuries. While the fight for freedom, change, and equality isn’t over yet, Black communities are coming together to find common growth and pave the way for a better future.

Frequently asked questions

Here are some of the more commonly asked questions about the relationship between cannabis and Black history in the United States.

Did slaves grow weed?

Yes, according to historical reports. African American slaves grew many crops for white slave-owners, including cannabis.

What’s the racial disparity in marijuana arrests?

When it comes to marijuana arrests by race, Black people are up to three times as likely to be arrested for cannabis possession across the country, regardless of marijuana’s legal status where they live.

Resources

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