The social construction of the criminalization of marijuanaOn August 2, 1937, the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, signed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 into law. law was passed just 83 days after it was introduced in the House of Representatives as Resolution 6906. This law sought to impose prohibitive regulations requiring medical professionals to obtain a one-dollar tax stamp in order to continue to prescribe cannabis sativa as medicine. However, doctors who wanted to purchase the tax stamp were also required to disclose an abnormal amount of detail regarding the patient, the condition being treated, the quantity prescribed, and the date of the prescription. Failure to follow these strict rules when prescribing marijuana resulted in heavy penalties for both the healthcare professional and the patient. According to the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, "Any person found guilty of violating any provision of this Act shall be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than five years. or both, at the discretion of the court. » Before a federal law regarding marijuana was proposed, some states took it upon themselves to regulate the possession, distribution, and use of marijuana based on racial bias against Chinese immigrants. Referring to the law passed by the State of California in 1913, one physician observed that: “The 1913 law received no attention from the press or the public. Instead, it was enacted as an obscure amendment to the state's poison law by the California Board of Pharmacy, which was then pioneering one of the world's oldest and most successful anti-narcotics campaigns. aggressive in the country. Inspired by anti-Chinese sentiment, California was a nationally recognized leader in ...... middle of paper ...... affiliated with DuPont, he would certainly have been advantaged to fill two roles at once , that of a public defender, and that of the defender of one's own interests as well. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Narcotics, The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, 1937. Retrieved from: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htmGieringer, Dale H. PhD, The Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California, Contemporary Drug Problems, Volume 26 #2, Summer 1999. Retrieved from: http://www.canorml.org/background/caloriginsmjproh.pdfCommittee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, Transcripts of House Hearings on the Marijuana Tax Act, 1937. Retrieved from: http://webstation19.8k.com/archives/37HEAR.HTMLe Herb Museum, Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 Stamp, 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.herbmuseum.ca/content/marijuana - tax law stamp-1937