Since the early 1900s, marijuana has been gaining popularity in the U.S. Cannabis is the world’s most commonly used illegal drug. A MaristPoll suggest that more than 50 percent of adults in the U.S. have tried the drug at some point in their lifetime and one in eight smoke it regularly.

The war on marijuana has always been a controversial topic. With the idea of legalization of it being talked about more often, people have begun to question: What started the whole war on marijuana?

Entering the 1900s, more Mexicans began to migrate to Northern America due to the political disorder in their home country. With them, they brought the concept of smoking weed leisurely and after that, it became popularized.  

An article released by New York Times writer, Brent Staples explains that the federal prohibition of marijuana came during a period of national hysteria about the effect of the drug on Mexican immigrants and black communities. Concerns about a new, foreign drug and immigrants coming in led to a notion of xenophobia and an increase in systemic racism in the 1930s, drove law enforcement, the border patrol and eventually legislators to demand the drug’s prohibition. “Police in Texas border towns demonized the plant in racial terms as the drug of ‘immoral’ populations who were promptly labeled ‘fiends,'” said Staples.

“Cannabis: A History” written by Martin Booth goes in to details with the whole ordeal by describing that in 1937, Commissioner of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger was noticing the fact that while a mass amount of immigrants moved in, Americans were still intimidated by them; he used this to his advantage. As the government warned him of cutting funding, he testified to Congress that since immigrants coming were “insane and criminals” it had to be due to their recreational smoking. Congress took action later that year to ban the use of marijuana in the U.S. After this, the arrests for marijuana-based crimes increased, especially when it came to people of color.

Due to the fact that because the majority of the people using pot were Mexicans and African Americans, this led authorities to discriminate (more than usual) against them.  

The 21st century, although we are beginning, as a society, to look at marijuana more “light-heartedly” we still seem to have a problem with the war on drugs, weed specifically, affecting our minorities. Mandatory minimum offenses for possession of weed is half of the arrests, according to the FBI. Drug sentences for black men were 13.1 percent longer than drug sentences for white men between 2007 and 2009, according to a 2012 report from the US Sentencing Commission. The Sentencing Project explained the differences in a February 2015 report: “Myriad criminal justice policies that appear to be race-neutral collide with broader socioeconomic patterns to create a disparate racial impact… Socioeconomic inequality does lead people of color to disproportionately use and sell drugs outdoors, where they are more readily apprehended by police.”