By Steve Elliott Hemp News It’s been 100 years since California became the first states in the U.S. to ban marijuana. Weed historian and cannabis legalization advocate Dale Gieringer says the key date is August 10, 1913, when the state Board of Pharmacy was authorized to add “loco-weed” to the state’s Poison Act. “They began launching raids,” said Gieringer, state coordinator for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), reports Christina Villacorte at the Los Angeles Daily News. “Law enforcement would pose as addicts who needed a fix but didn’t have a doctor’s note, then arrest the druggist.” “The 1913 law received no public notice in the press, but was passed as an obscure technical amendment by the State Board of Pharmacy, which was then leading one of the nation’s earliest and most aggressive anti-narcotics campaigns,” Gieringer reports on CA NORML’s website. “Inspired by anti-Chinese sentiment, California was a nationally recognized pioneer in the war on drugs.” The bill passed with no public debate, according to Gieringer. It was opposed by the state’s druggists, but the Legislature passed it unanimously, and it went into effect on August 10, 1913. –

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