The criminalization of marijuana in the US started in the 19-teens. It was absolutely based on racism. It became defacto enemy number 1 when Henry J Anslinger became the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930. Anslinger was a white supremacist and he hated the new "negro music, jazz". He firmly believed that weed and jazz could, would and did lead white women to climb on and under black men. This was a huge fear of white men. Anslinger constantly lied to congress about marijuana, and since weed was the drug of choice for Mexicans and black folk at the time, he had to make it more frightening than heroin, the white man's first drug of choice. In a Ways and Means Committee hearing he claimed, "Here we have a drug(weed) that is not like opiom. Opiom has all of the good of Dr Jeckyll and all of the evils of Mr Hyde. This drug(weed) is entirely Mr Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured. " In 1933 Anslinger again lied to congress when he used the case of Victor Licata. Victor was a teenager and used an ax to murder his entire family. Police found weed on him when they arrested him and Anslinger took that fact and ran with it, claiming that weed had caused this young white boy to murder. The kid, locked up until his suicide in 1950, was diagnosed as suffering from Dementiia Praecox with homicidal tendencies. Anslinger was a driving force in getting the movie Reefer Madness made in 1936. Prior to being made illegal all over the US, marijuana was a large part (as was alcohol prohibition) of what was making black and Italian mobsters (not considered white in the 20's and 30's) rich and powerful in cities like Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans and New York. Making marijuana illegal was a convenient way to keep arresting black people, Mexicans and Italians after prohibition ended in 1933. One cannot study the history of Jazz, as I have extensively done, and at the same time, not study the history of the war on drugs in this country. Because Jazz is black art, and the war on drugs is deeply rooted in white supremacy and the oppression of anything coming out of the black experience in this country.