People who follow this blog are aware that the federal prohibition on marijuana began in 1937 with the Marihuana Tax Act, despite opposition by the American Medical Association. All 48 states had already made marijuana illegal by 1936, starting in California in 1913.
But medical marijuana use continued. Here, from the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, is a 1941 letter from the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Narcotics to a prescription store (pharmacy) requesting information on where he could purchase cannabis indica powder.
1941 Federal letter recognizing pharmacies that deal in cannabis medicine
Unfortunately, the Marihuana Tax Act priced cannabis medicine out of the hands of most everyone but the well-to-do. Just one year later, cannabis was officially removed from the US Pharmacopeia, effective November 1, 1942. It was another 34 years before Robert Randall won the right in 1976 to receive federal-government-grown medical marijuana.
However, in those intervening 34 years, the federal government ignored or purposefully buried emerging confirmation of the medical utility in cannabis known by humanity for 5,000 years. By the 1950′s, the Boggs Act and Narcotics Control Act made mere possession of marijuana federal crimes, forcing any medical use underground and stifling any medical research. Dr. Raphael Mechoulam in Israel was able to first identify THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis in 1964. By 1975, the federal government was aware of the cancer-fighting potential of cannabinoid medicines.
How much further ahead in the development of serious cancer fighting drugs would we be without this senseless prohibition of marijuana?
Contact your elected representatives and urge them to 'Stop Arresting Marijuana Smokers'. 
This is bullshit. I was given a bad conduct discharge for using cannabis off base and off duty about a month after witnessing 9/11 first hand in Wash D.C. stationed there in southeast D.C. at Marine Barracks 8th & I………….what my point is that there was other stressers involved, including dealing with a roommate, fellow Marine who had a loaded pistol and was mentally unstabled. I also was dealing with my grandmothers death, who helped raise me. I was a normal U.S. Marine, heck I was still doing my job while I was waiting to go to the brig. It was one big joke. I just wish people understood the reason why, and that cannabis really is a miracle plant, and I also have senstive lungs, and with cannabis vaporizing I feel like I can control that effectivally. I do want to thank NORML for posting this, because if history had been different, I would have served my country and gotten out with a honorable discharge, but because somehow this miracle plant was deemed suddenly, a threat to humanity, anybody wise enough to understand its value was treated like a criminal. How insane is this world we live in??????? Semper Fi from a Marine, once a Marine, Always a Marine.
[...] Federal recognition of medical marijuana… in 1941! | The NORML Stash Blog [...]