Harry J. Anslinger

Harry Jacob Anslinger , born on May 20th, 1892 in Altoona in Pennsylvania, dead on November 14th, 1975 with Hollidaysburg, was a Politicien and Journaliste of the the United States, primarily known like the “McCarthy of drug”. He was initially an auxiliary police chief of prohibition, before being appointed first police chief of the federal office of the department of the treasure to opiates (FBN), on August 12th, 1930. He occupied these functions during 32 years, record of duration on the matter. He was then during two years representing of the USA at the Commission of opiates of the the United Nations.

The heritage of Anslinger as regards fight against the Marijuana, resting over decades of misinformation, is called today into question. Some affirm that Harry J. Anslinger was only one puppet with the service of a carrying political current.

The responsibilities held by Harry J. Anslinger are from now on mainly under the jurisdiction of U.S. Office off National Drug Control Policy . Taking into account his important role in the evolution of the federal policy of drug in the United States, one can be astonished that it appears neither on the Web site of the Drug Enforcement Administration , nor on that of the Office off national drug control policy .

Anslinger died at the 83 years age of a cardiac arrest in Hollidaysburg in Pennsylvania.

Youth, marriage

The father of Harry Jacob, Robert J. Anslinger, born with Bern in Switzerland, accepted a training of hairdresser and exerted this trade with the country. The mother of Harry, from her name of young person-girl Rosa Christiana Fladt, was born with Baden-Baden in Germany. In 1881, Robert and Christiana unloaded with Ellis Island. Robert worked as hairdresser during two years in New York, then installed his family with Altoona in Pennsylvania. In 1892, Robert entered the railroad company of Pennsylvania, and on May 20th of the same year, Harry Jacob Anslinger was born, eighth of the nine children of Robert and Christiana.

Anslinger reported to have been at age the 12 years witness of an event which was to change the course of its life: he would have heard the howls of a morphine addict, hardly attenuated by the return of a boy of his age, returning of pharmacy to restock the Toxicomane. This episode made him become aware of the power of drug and the facility for the children to get some.

Although left the college without diploma, Harry J. Anslinger was registered at the university of businesses of Altoona in 1909, at the 17 years age. Then as his father it entered to the service of the railroad of Pennsylvania. The 21 years age, in 1913, he asked and obtained a leave to follow a two years formation to the university of State of Pennsylvania, in technology and management of company.

In 1917, 25 years old, he married Martha Kind Denniston (September 1886 - Oct. 10, 1961), according to the census of 1930. The year of the census, 38 years old, it rented an apartment of the street " 16th & R Street" with Washington, for approximately 90 $ per month, alive with its Martha wife and her son Joseph L. Anslinger (May 24th, 1911 - Nov. 1982), respectively old of 44 and 18 years. Martha Denniston was the niece of Andrew W. Melon, the secretary of the treasure of the USA which would name Anslinger police chief of the FBN, functions which it would occupy during 32 years.

Accession with the high positions

Anslinger started to early acquire notoriety in its career. 23 years old, investigator for the railroad of Pennsylvania, it succeeds in proving the fraudulent character of the complaint of a widower in a railway accident. That saved its company the outlay of 50 000 $ of the time (921&thinsp equivalent; 126 $ of 2005) and to him been worth its promotion as captain of the police force of the railroad.

From 1917 to 1928, Anslinger collaborated near various military and police organizations. Its attributions brought it to much travelling, of Germany to the Venezuela while passing by the Japan. Its mission was to put a term at the international traffic of narcotics, and it largely influenced not only the domestic policies and external of the United States as regards drug, but also those of other countries, in particular where these questions had not been discussed.

In 1929, Anslinger returned from its international professional round as an auxiliary police chief to the office of the prohibition of the United States. At that time, corruption and the scandal splashed the agencies with prohibition and opiates. The upheavals and the reorganizations which followed were the occasion for Anslinger, considered honest and incorruptible, to go up in rank and to acquire a political stature.

In 1930, Anslinger was named with the FBN (federal office of opiates) lately created as a first police chief. The FBN, just like the office of prohibition, depended directly on the department of treasure of the USA, and had the role of making apply the federal laws to the narcotics. At this time the trade of the alcohol and drugs was regarded as a shortfall because the illegal character of the substances concerned withdrew them from the imposition. Anslinger was named at this station by the secretary of the Treasury, Andrew W. Melon, and received a budget of 100 000 $ (1 080 470 $ of 2005).

Countryside against the marijuana

During the Twenties is born a lobby joining together from the members of Parliament, the yellow journalists, and of the citizens interested by the question to push Washington to adopt a federal legislation against the marijuana. An article of the Montana Standard appeared on January 27th, 1929 reports the advance of the debates to amend the law on opiates:

There was recreation within the Committee of health of the Room representatives during the week when the private bill on the marijuana was presented. The marijuana is Mexican opium, a plant consumed by Mexicains and cultivated for the sale by the Indians. “When any Peon in its beet fields takes a little this substance”, explained Dr. Fred Fulsher of Mineral County , “he thinks that he has just been elected president of Mexico, and starts at once to carry out all his political enemies” Everyone laughed and the private bill was approved.

The States of the South also wished a federal law against the marijuana to cheaply persecute the Mexicans who at low prices saturated the job market with their labor during the depression. Anslinger ended up giving following these increasing pressures. Although Anslinger was indeed a convinced conservative that the marijuana constituted a threat for the future of American civilization, its biographer affirms that he was especially an astute bureaucrat, tie left repression against the marijuana to rise with the highest responsibilities.

The secretary Melon, silent partner and owner of Anslinger during two years, were the principal financial support of the petrochemical company Dupont de Nemours (through the Mellon Financial Corporation ). However the firm, manufacturer of chemicals used in the production of paper pulp starting from cellulose of wood and about to patent nylon (1939), was precisely threatened by competition of fiber of hemp. The mechanization of the harvest of hemp indeed had just recorded spectacular progress with the development of the first reaping-machine-decorticators-défibreuses, which did the one of popular stores Popular Mechannics , which titrated in February 1938 “a harvest of a billion dollar”, predicting an industrial bright future with hemp. Some, like Herer Jack, estimate that the sensational press campaign against the marijuana was developed by Dupont and William Randolph Hearst (having tycoon of the written press of the interests in the paper mill) to defend their industrial interests vis-a-vis the competition of hemp. Indeed, Anslinger itself did not regard the marijuana as a serious threat for the american company until 1934, fourth year of its mandate, where the countryside aiming at alarming the public of the dangers of the cannabis abruptly became its main priority.

Using the mass media as platform (with the support of powerful William Randolph Hearst), Anslinger could give to the movement in favor of the prohibition of the marijuana a national character. Written for the American Magazine , the best examples are filed in its press kit, the Gore File , true collection of cuts drawn from the gutter press, reporting odious offenses and crimes, for the majority made without reasons, and charged to the consumption of marijuana.

An whole family was assassinated by an exaggerated young person in Florida. When the police officers arrived on the spot, they found the young person staggering in a human butchery. He had killed with the axe his father, his mother, his two brothers, and a sister. He seemed to be in a state second… He does not have any memory to have made this multiple crime. The agents hitherto held it for a reasonable and rather quiet young man; he is from now on in a pitiful state of madness. They sought why. The boy declared that it was accustomed to smoking something that his/her young friends called muggles , a childish name of the marijuana.

This press campaign was also strongly based on the popular racist topics of the time:

Students of colors at the university of Minn. feast with the coeds (white), smoke the marijuana and attract their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result, pregnancy at the end of the day

Two Négros removed girl a 14 year old and kept it during two days under the influence of the marijuana. Once restored, it proves to suffer from the Syphilis.

The same various facts are published regularly, several years of continuation, in the same newspapers.

The cinematographic means are also put at contribution. Several propaganda films are born in 1936, among which famous the Reefer madness , of Louis J. Gasnier (initially Such your children ), Wild Weed , of Sam Newfield, or Assassin off youth , of Elmer Clifton, in which Anslinger collaborates. The same ingredients are employed: simplistic messages and exaggerations, putting in scene the addictif strong potential of grass (the protagonists are hung as of the first joint), of the powerful hallucinations, the release of the passage to the act (rape and murder)…

This media countryside of diabolisation of the marijuana leads in 1937 to the vote of the Marihuana Tax Act, a federal law which imposes all the actors of the die hemp, and dissuades, in fact, as well the industrial use as the therapeutic use.

At the time of the maccarthysme, the supposed dangerosity of the marijuana will be recycled for the needs for the anticommunism: it will be shown démotiver the troops, to make the soldiers pacifist!

End of a career, old age

Later in its career, Anslinger is put on the bolster for insubordination, following its refusal to give up an attempt at blocking of the publications of professor Alfred Lindsmith of the university of Indiana. Lindsmith wrote, inter alia work, The Addict and the Law (the drug addict and the law), published in 1961. It is about a book criticizing the war with drug and in particular the role of Anslinger. This polemic is sometimes regarded as having signed the end of the career of Anslinger as police chief to opiates at the office of the department of the treasure.

In fact, Anslinger was astonished to be taken back in its functions by the president John F. Kennedy in February 1961, since the will of the new president was to reinforce the government with young civils servant. In any event, in 1962 Anslinger would be 70 years old, the obligatory age of the retirement in its position. Moreover, the previous year it had been pilot slow and painful one died of his Martha wife by cardiac arrest, and had lost part of its capacity and its ambition. It gave its resignation to president Kennedy on May 20th, 1962. Since Kennedy did not have a successor available, Anslinger remained in station with a treatment of 18 500 $ (114 241 $ of 2005) still a few month. It was replaced by Henry Giordano. Then it was during two years the representative of the United States at the Commission of opiates of the United Nations, after which it took his retirement.

In 1973, Anslinger was completely blind, had suffered from a degeneration of the hypertrophied prostate and angina. It is ironic that in spite of its position violently hostile to the treatments antidouleurs addictifs, it used itself of morphine at the end of its life. Anslinger is deceased of a cardiac arrest at the hospital of the Pity of Hollidaysburg in Pennsylvania to 13:00 on November 14th, 1975. It was 83 years old.

His/her son Joseph L. Anslinger and his sister survived to him. According to the book of John McWilliams The Protectors , his/her daughter Bea Anslinger still remained at this time in the house of Hollidaysburg.

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