Edward M. Brecher, Licit and Illicit Drugs (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972)

Cites: Becker and Lindesmith via Solomon’s book, The Marijuana Papers

Primary published sources utilized:

MTA House Hearings

FBN Annual Reports, 1931, 1932, 1935

“Federal Regulation of the Medicinal Use of Marihuana,” J.A.M.A., 108 (May 1, 1937) 1543

E.H. Cary, “Report of the Committee on Legislative Activities,” J.A.M.A., 108 (June 26, 1937), 2214.

Archival sources utilized:

none

A writer on medical and scientific topics, Brecher produced this book for Consumers Union.

- Brecher entitled his chapter 56 “Marijuana is Outlawed,” which does not comport with the law’s provisions nor his own analysis at page 418.

- Brecher provided a very brief account of the development of the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act. (p. 413)

- Brecher gave no explanation as to why, after all but two states had enacted marijuana control laws by 1937, “Commissioner Anslinger’s next campaign was for a federal marijuana law.” (pp. 413-414)

- Brecher followed closely Becker’s unpersuasive argument that the handful of articles discovered in the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, somehow either reflected or impacted national public opinion. (p. 414)

- Brecher correctly asserted—contravening the title of his own chapter—that the MTA did not prohibit marijuana. Rather, “It fully recognized the medicinal usefulness of the substance…Only the nonmedical, untaxed possession or sale of marijuana was outlawed.” (p. 415-416, emphasis in the original). Brecher’s account said nothing about the distinction in the law between what portions of the plant did and did not constitute “marihuana,” and mentioned only in passing the MTA’s allowances to continue industrial usages of cannabis sativa (p. 418).

- In keeping with his remit for Consumer Reports, Brecher focused on the medicinal aspects of the law’s passage, noting that no medical experts spoke in favor of the bill, and that the principal opposition came from the AMA. (pp. 416-418)

- Confusingly given what he wrote on pages 415-416, Brecher then described “Commissioner Anslinger’s campaign against medicinal use of marijuana.” He cited a statistic from 34 years later—that only 38 American physicians paid the tax in 1970—as evidence the campaign “was almost wholly successful.” (p. 419). That figure is hardly relevant to the situation in 1937.