Propaganda and Education

Misinformation and propaganda about marijuana runs rampant to this day. In the United States specifically, misinformation about marijuana exploded in the 1930s, when Harry Anslinger, leader of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, called marijuana an “assassin of youth" and paved the way for decades of propaganda.

The film Reefer Madness (1936), embedded below, is a famous example of such marijuana propaganda because it depicted people who consume marijuana, losing their minds, commiting violent acts, and engaging in promiscuous sexual activity. Such negative stereotypes about marijuana and those who consume it persist to this day—despite compelling evidence that such propaganda is both false and has tended to target people of color and people of low socioeconomic status.

Throughout the 1930s, Anslinger's inflammatory rhetoric dominated public discourse about marijuana. The article below from Science News Letter, for example, demonstrated this shift. The title proclaimed: “Marihuana Smoking Seen as Epidemic Among the Idle: Morals Lowered by Drug Which Induces Unpremeditated Acts of Violence; Does Not Improve Playing of Swing.”

The article argued that marijuana smoking was an “ancient Oriental vice” that was “leaving a trail of murders and other crimes” across the globe. The article also attempted to undermine the theory that marijuana helped swing (i.e. jazz) musicians play better music.

At this time, jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong and others openly consumed marijuana, claiming that it improved their musical abilities. Just like the demonization of marijuana as an “Oriental” vice, propagandists siezed on the fact that jazz musicians, specifically African-American jazz musicians, used marijuana. They associated marijuana use with people of color and used racist tropes to guard against the impending marijuana “epidemic” (and its users).

By the 1950s and 1960s, the rhetorical war became more overt in its warnings. The three samples of poster and placard propaganda shown below were representative of the rhetoric around marijuana at the time.

All three repeated the idea that marijuana caused insanity, promiscuity, and violence. Each of these posters in their own way demonstrated how misinformation in the early half of the century gave way to outright propaganda, attempting to scare users away from marijuana for its allegedly madness-inducing effects.

Eventually, such propaganda brought on opposition. In some cases, governmental agencies themselves came out with rebuttals against misinformation. The pamphlet below, for example, called “Marihuana: Some Questions and Answers,” was published by the National Institute of Mental Health in 1968. Although the pamphlet did not reject all contemporary propaganda, it did push back on the theory that marijuana was a gateway drug, stating that “no direct cause-and-effect link between the use of marihuana and narcotics has been found.”

At the same time, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and other opponents of marijuana continued to produce materials criticizing the use of illegal drugs including marijuana. These materials were much less overt than the propaganda of the past, however, and often focused on youth-intervention.

For example, Katy's Coloring Book and Soozie says “Only Sick People Need Drugs!”(below) were published by the DEA in 1977 and 1978 to help children learn about the dangers of drugs. 

Throughout the coloring books, children were reminded repeatedly that “only sick people need drugs!,” and nearly every page repeated this message to readers. While the books made no specific mention of marijuana, the rhetoric was clear: there was no legitimate reason for people to use drugs like marijuana without explicit medical approval. 

More recent materials published by the DEA relied much less on the language of the past, instead focusing on the history, paraphernalia, and trafficking associated with marijuana. The brief below published by the DEA in 2004, for example, actually debunked some of the previous myths but reasserted others.

The brief stated that cannabis “is less addicting and less potent than other illegal drugs,” before quickly reiterating the point that Congress has designated marijuana to have “no medical value and therefore no legal use.” The latter point was—and is—heavily contested. As more research and studies are published, and as medical marijuana laws become more common around the country, it may become harder for opponents of marijuana to continue relying on these arguments. 

Further Reading

Booth, Martin. Cannabis: A History. MacMillan, 2005.

Chasin, Barbara. Assassin of Youth: A Kaleidoscopic History of Harry J. Anslinger's War on Drugs. University of Chicago Press, 2016.