History Highlight: Harry J Anslinger Part 3- The Reds, The Dragons, and the FBN

The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 dragged the United States into a war it had been desperate to avoid. Roosevelt used the horrific event to declare war on the Nazis and their allies, the Japanese. Anslinger saw the American public focus their attention on the war and the military buildup of the nation. The war effort meant rations for the public and increased funds for the military. No to be outmaneuvered by the war, Anslinger took the war as an opportunity to re-brand the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. His speeches began to speak of the evils of the Japanese and their opium smuggling. He characterized opium smuggling as another extension of the war and his agents as unsung soldiers. The result of the Japanese smuggling was, in his own words, equivalent to "multiple Pearl Harbors".

Anslinger and the media, a complex relationship.

However, the war would eventually come to an end, China (seen as an ally during the war) became a communist state, and Japan evolved into our new ally. Without missing a beat, Anslinger rewrites the narrative of the war on drugs to accommodate these changing alliances. His new message forgave and forgot about the Japanese role in opium smuggling and turned its ire toward the alleged center for opium production, China. The Red Scare would also influence the language Anslinger used as drugs became synonymous with a communist plot to overthrow the United States. With the panic over communism spreading across the nation, Anslinger offered himself and his agency as defenders of American morality, democracy, and sobriety. Throughout the rest of the Cold War, Anslinger would continue to tie the FBN's mission to foreign policy and national security. His tenure as commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics would last over 30 years and end in 1962 when he retired. The agency he had built up in strength and influence would only continue until 1968. Without its tenacious and ambitious commissioner, the FBN floundered and would be merged with the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (a branch within the Food and Drug Administration) to become the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Again, this new agency would lack permanency without Anslinger guidance and in 1973, under the orders of President Nixon, be merged once more to form the modern Drug Enforcement Agency. Nixon would enhance the power and authority of the DEA in his efforts to fight the re-imagined war on drugs. His policies (and those of subsequent presidents) would be the initiatives that Americans are familiar with today.

History Highlight: Harry J. Anslinger Part 2- Making a Bureau and Reefer Madness

By the early 1930's Anslinger now had control over his own bureau dedicated to the enforcement of the Harrison Act. However, this law was restricting in his view and only tackled a fraction of the narcotic problem in America. To give his agency permanency and broader jurisdiction, Anslinger began a nationwide publicity campaign to get the public and Congress on his side. The first move he made was towards horse racing. In the world of horse racing, it was common and not unheard of to use performance enhancing drugs to win races. Anslinger brought the trend to national attention and called for regulation and enforcement. The agency to be charged with this task, his Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Congress agreed and gave him the power to send agents to race tracks across the country to test horses and arrest drug peddlers.

However, Ansligner was not content to keep the Bureau testing horses for the rest of its existence. By early 1932, he found a cause in the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act. It would strengthen the allegedly weak language of the Harrison Act of 1914 and ensure stiffer penalties and fees against violators. Anslinger, with the help of his friend Randolph Hearst and the Hearst publishing chain, publicly advocated and encouraged its passage across the United States. At the beginning, only 9 states would pass the act. Frustrated, Anslinger began an even stronger media campaign alleging the effects of these narcotics to cause "reefer madness" and "sex craze." This image of drug use would be propagated by many family and children interest groups and even be picked up by Hollywood in a series of low budget, exploitation films that capitalized on the scandalous image of a narcotic user and its alleged consequences.

These films, in addition to propaganda films produced by the U.S government, helped create an era of misinformation about narcotics in the United States. Rumors and myths replaced any actual facts regarding the actual affects about drugs. This is most seen in an incident between Anslinger and New York Mayor La Guardia. Published in 1944, the La Guardia Committee Report described the work of medical researchers into the effects of marijuana and other narcotics on humans and their recommendation for how the government should proceed in its regulation and classification. The report, the first of its kind in the United States, surprisingly found marijuana to be relatively harmless in reasonable doses and to have less damaging long lasting effects than alcohol and opiates. More importantly, it argued against the government narrative of marijuana being addictive and crime inducing. As expected, Anslinger's first response is immediate condemnation of the report as un-scientific and a fraud. He would then make it impossible for researchers to conduct any more inquiries into the side effects of marijuana, or other narcotics, without his permission. This requirement ensured that Anslinger would have control over what results were being found. With the La Guardia Report behind him, he would continue to move forward in pushing his agency's agenda and manipulating public fears to his advantage. However, with the tragic attack on Pearl Harbor, Anslinger found a new way to bring drug enforcement to the public eye.

To be continued!

History Highlight: Harry J Anslinger Part 1- The Prohibition Bureau

Clearly the person who shot this patrol car
 didn't see the sign . 

The War on Drugs is something most people grew up knowing of but never really understanding its meaning or consequences. It's history is generally less known by the public and most usually point to Nancy Regan's "Just Say No" campaign as the beginning of the government's anti-drug policy. The story began far early in 1914 with the passage of the Harrison Act. The law regulated and taxed the prescription, purchase, and distribution of narcotics, with an emphasis on opiates. In practice, this law would mostly affect doctors and their ability to prescribes patients opiate derived medicine for pain. This would be the first law in America to criminalize narcotic purchases. However, there was still no federal institution dedicated to persecuting narcotic use.

Prohibition agents in Jamaica inspecting confiscated goods. 

In 1918, America became a dry nation. Prohibition was the law of the land and the Prohibition Bureau was established to ensure Americans followed the law. As history would demonstrate, they did an excellent job. During its final years, a unit was added to the Prohibition Bureau that would be dedicated to narcotic law enforcement. However, its exsistance was threatened when the overturning of Prohibition made the Prohibition Bureau irrelevant. In this unit was a rising star in the federal government, a former State Department worker and Prohibition agent named Harry J. Anslinger.

Anslinger worked his way up through state and federal law enforcement agencies until he got to the Prohibition Bureau. There he transfered to Jamaica during the 1920's to stop Jamaican and American rum smuggler attempting to reach the United States. His tenure there would end and he would return to the United States where a lucky connection would bring him into the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, officially seperated from the Prohibition Bureau and founded in 1930. The Bureau's comissioner, the unfortunately named General Nutt, would be forced to step down with several months of his appointment due to some criminal activity his son had gotten involved in. Anslinger's connections and experience made him an ideal candidate was was placed as acting commissioner until he was promoted to full commissioner a month later.

With his experience in the Prohibition Bureau, Anslinger had seen the danger of having the public and the government turn against the mission of a bureau. The best way to protect any agency would be to expand its jurisdiction. To be continued!

A Historian at the Cinema: The Violent Years

Teens, Drugs, Mischief! Oh My!

A recent injury has left me less mobile than usual so perfect time to crash on the couch and review some films. This time it is a selection from the Cult Classic collection I recently got from Fry's Electronics. The collection includes a variety of drug exploitation films from the 1930's to 1950's that represent the extreme and misinformed ideas about narcotics from the time period. Written by Ed Wood, it proves to be equal parts ridiculous and surprising.

The Violent Years (1956) tells the cautionary tale of Paula Parkins, daughter of the local newspaper editor and a socialite mother. Paula has become violent and reckless with her gang of friends from high school. They have become committing a string of gas station muggings that has the community and the local media in a frenzy. However the girls have ties to a greater mob in the area who asks the girls to do a small job. They are tasked with destroying the local high school and burning the American flag (clearly the Red Scare is in full bloom by the time of this film). The girls take no motivation to destroy the high school and for some reason that is never explained, the girls bring guns to vandalize the school. In a way they make today's school times seem tame. The vandalizing trip ends, unsurprisingly, with a gun fight and two of Paula's gang dead on the ground. Paula and her one left over accomplice quickly flee the scene and make it back to the house of the woman who is their contact with the greater gang. Once again, Paula uses her clearly proven leadership skills to outwit the police and fails. In the hospital, Paula discovers she is pregnant but dies during child birth. The child is left to the courts to decide parental rights.

Paula and her gang of worst decision makers ever!

The film was quite a surprise. I am familiar with the Reefer Madness type films of the 1930's but this one stood out. The idea that these girls are so quick to resort to violence due to drugs and alcohol are typical of these morality tales from the mid-century. However, rarely do these films show women gang raping a male victim. Reread that sentence once or twice. I was shocked. There is very little denying what happens during this scene, but the films avoids using the word rape and instead terms the event a "criminal assault". The Violent Years makes it clear to the audience that these are bad and irredeemable women, a theme that is heavily prevalent during this time period. Gender roles were much more rigid during this era than in our own (not to say we have achieved full equality yet) but this film represent the full extent of what these gender roles meant for women. There is no room for women to express themselves outside of what American society deemed appropriate. Women who demonstrated an ounce of assertiveness or self determination were quickly labeled a deviant and guilty of all that is wrong with society. This is never more apparent in the film than with the case of Paula's mother. She is a socialite and active in a variety of groups that keep her out of the home and away from her motherly duties. Keep in mind, her father is even less present in the home, but clearly that is not the issue. It is all her mother's fault and when it comes time to decide parental rights over Paula's baby, the judge deems the mother, and by default her husband, too irresponsible to handle a child and gives the baby to foster parents.

Do I recommend The Violent Years? Yes, but not because of its filmmaking, acting, message or anything intended by the director. Instead, because it is a great example of the anti-drug and juvenile delinquent hysteria of the 1950's. Also it is incredibly bad and therefore funny to watch. This being an Ed Woods film, what else do you expect? Despite this, I did have fun watching this film and it might work its way into my thesis. And be honest, who doesn't enjoy really bad movies from the 1950's?