“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, results from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others.”

Those are the words of onetime Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, the man behind passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. That act, which undermined centuries of recognized medical benefits from marijuana use, including sales in American pharmacies, gained traction in conjunction with the influx of Mexican immigrants with their pot-smoking tradition in the early 1900s.

There should be no doubt about the racialized fears that motivated marijuana criminalization in this country.

It was then-President Richard Nixon who signed the Controlled Substances Act into law in 1970, classifying marijuana as a Schedule I drug, just like deadly heroin.

And now Gov. Mike DeWine has signed Ohio Senate Bill 56 to recriminalize marijuana, undermining its legalization for adult use by 57% of the state’s voters voting in November 2023. Marijuana arrests in Ohio fell dramatically from 7,438 that year to just 1,538 in 2024.

Despite similar usage rates between the two races, according to a 2020 ACLU report, Black people were 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession. No surprise there, huh?

There are several key recriminalizing issues in SB 56. It prohibits marijuana in public places, outlaws bringing it in from other states and requires its transport in trunks of vehicles. How many more Black citizens will be targeted for those violations?

As a white man, maybe I shouldn’t be disturbed by the racist motivation of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the likely racial consequences of SB 56 or the dastardly impact of classifying marijuana federally as a Schedule I drug. But I am.

It was during my year of duty in Vietnam that I became acutely aware that my very life depended on the brotherhood of all races. I also was introduced to the “evil weed” there, which was a welcome relief from the stress of war.

According to a 1971 Department of Defense report, 51% of the troops in Vietnam had smoked marijuana, 31% had used psychedelics and 20% had taken hard drugs.

I believe that stigma stuck to my chest with the Vietnam medals on my uniform for inspections aboard aircraft carriers during follow-up NATO deployments. I also believe that my close friendship with Black shipmates drew the evil eye of certain senior officers. And, yes, the “N-lover” slur was snarled behind my back.

In those days, many American sailors of all races enjoyed some marijuana on liberty in European ports of call.

But, upon our return to home port after a six-month face-off against Soviet submarines, battleships and bombers, it was me, the white guy with close Black friends, who was singled out for a persecuting inspection. There were no drugs in my possession or my body, but the compelled opening of my locked seabag yielded a single item of paraphernalia and subjected me to prosecution.

Dave Lange, a retired editor who holds a master’s degree in political science, is a member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame and author of the memoir “Virginity Lost in Vietnam.” He writes from Lakewood.Tony Lange

Things were much worse on that same day, Oct. 15, 1971, for Cleve, one of my pot-smoking Black friends, who died from a heroin overdose later that same day.

We all knew about the oppressive lies being spread about the terrifying hazards of marijuana. Did such lies also apply to the deadly dangers of heroin, a commensurably classified Schedule I drug? What are the racial consequences of that?

Lange is a retired editor, Vietnam War veteran and member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame. He writes from Lakewood.

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