Washington state legislators remove ‘marijuana’ from all state laws, citing its racist history
This post was originally published on this site
In a bold move, Washington state legislators passed a law to remove all references to the word “marijuana” in a favor of “cannabis.” Lawmakers say “marijuana” has left a trail of Black and brown bodies incarcerated across the nation with its storied racist history.
HB 1210 was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 11, 2022. In June, the word “marijuana” will be gone from every aspect of the Revised Code of Washington, and “cannabis” will replace it.
“This House Bill 1210 to change terminology from using the word ‘marijuana’ to the scientific name ‘cannabis’ is extremely important … even though it seems simple because it’s just one word,” state Rep. Melanie Morgan said in a virtual meeting in January. “But the reality is we are healing the wrongs that were committed against black and brown people around cannabis, as it was used as a racist terminology to lock up black and brown people.”
RELATED STORY: Report: 2020 marks first time guns were the leading cause of death for kids and teens
According to a 2020 report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Black Americans are “3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession despite comparable marijuana usage rates.” The report adds that even though arrest rates for cannabis are down, police “still made 6.1 million such arrests” from 2010 to 2018, and “the racial disparities in arrest rates remain in every state.”
Folks who work in the cannabis industry say the word “marijuana” comes with weighted significance.
“It had been talked about for a long time in our community about how that word demonizes the cannabis plant,” Joy Hollingsworth, owner of Hollingsworth Cannabis Company, tells KIRO-7.
Morgan, who sponsored the bill, said, “The term ‘marijuana’ itself is pejorative and racist.” She added, “As recreational marijuana use became more popular, it was negatively associated with Mexican immigrants.”
The word marijuana has its roots in xenophobia.
It began being used in the early 20th century as tens of thousands of Mexican immigrants began moving to the southwest region of the U.S. to escape the Mexican Civil War. The word was used to frighten white Americans—the “marijuana menace”—and paint a racist narrative of the new immigrants. But not just immigrants, as NPR reports.
“Sailors and West Indian immigrants brought the practice of smoking marijuana to port cities along the Gulf of Mexico,” according to Eric Schlosser’s 1994 Atlantic article, titled “Reefer Madness.”
“In New Orleans newspaper articles associated the drug with African-Americans, jazz musicians, prostitutes, and underworld whites. ‘The Marijuana Menace,’ as sketched by anti-drug campaigners, was personified by inferior races and social deviants,” Schlosser’s article adds.
But it was the first U.S. Narcotics Commissioner, Harry Anslinger, who was behind criminalizing the drug. He was able to convince Congress to pass the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, banning the sale and possession of cannabis.
In his testimony to Congress, Anslinger included statements of support for his argument against cannabis.
One statement at the time came from Dr. Frank R. Gomila, commissioner of public safety, and Miss Madeline C. Gomila, assistant city chemist, who offered a “paper” they had assembled chronicling claims about the “effects, physical and mental, of the marihuana weed.”
An example in Gomila’s “report” was the case of a high school student “now confined to an institution for the mentally diseased.” Gomila added that the student’s “experience is entirely the result of acquiring the habit of smoking marihuana cigarettes.”
The letter goes on to lay out the dangers of cannabis by citing a murder in New Orleans, blamed on the cannabis used by the assailant.
“In a downtown section a man under the influence of the weed became so frenzied and angered at his wife as to kill her out on the street in front of many witnesses.”