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Drug Policy Forum of CaliforniaDedicated to news of interest to the California drug reform community

Ending the 100-Year War
on Marijuana in California

One hundred years ago, state drug agents staged the first known “marihuana” bust in the Mexican Sonoratown neighborhood of Los Angeles (pictured left). The raid was the first in a hundred years’ war that has seen over two million Californians – many from targeted minorities – arrested for victimless marijuana crimes.

The Origins of California's 1913 Cannabis Law

Although marijuana prohibition is commonly supposed to have begun with the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, cannabis had already been outlawed by California in 1913, during the first, Progressive Era wave of anti-narcotics legislation. The 1913 law received no public notice in the press, but was passed as an obscure technical amendment by the State Board of Pharmacy, which was then leading one of the nation's earliest and most aggressive anti-narcotics campaigns. Read more.

Drug Prisoners Account for California Prison Crowding

May 24, 2011 - With California under court order to release 30,000 prisoners, it is noteworthy that the state maintained 24,959 prisoners for inherently non-violent drug offenses, according to the most recent statistics from the Department of Corrections. (Read more)

The 100 Years' Worldwide War on Drugs January 23, 2012 - Today marks the 100th birthday of the first international drug control treaty, the International Opium Convention, signed at the Hague in 1912. Read more.

The 100th Anniversary of the US Drug WarMay 7th, 2006 - Centennial of First Federal Law Criminalizing Sales of Narcotics - the DC Pharmacy & Poisons Act of 1906. Read more.

Opium Prohibition in the Philippines Begins Mar 3rd, 2005 - Centennial of Congressional Passage of Opium Prohibition in the Philippines

125th Anniversary of the Nation's First Anti-drug LawSan Francisco, Nov. 15, 1875 Read more.

 

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