Newland Notes Racist History of Opposition to Marijuana

The powers that be of South Dakota’s one-party regime would never talk to longtime marijuana advocate and practical satirist Bob Newland. Heck, South Dakota’s powers that be once forbade Bob Newland to talk to anyone about important public policy matters.

But Newland imagines—imagines! i.e., makes up! Onionizes! muses satirically!—what Governor Kristi Noem, her Highway Patrol chief Rick Miller, Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom, and Attorney General Jason Ravsnborg might say if he had the chance to ask them about the state’s effort to annul the voters’ legalization of marijuana in South Dakota.

[Again, if I haven’t made it clear enough, this interview is fiction. However, Harry J. Anslinger was a real dude, who appears to have said exactly the things Newland attributes to him in this fictional interview. And Jason Ravnsborg really did tell 911 dispatch and the public that he thought the man he distractedly killed with his car was a deer.]

Fall River Reliable Press; Hot Springs SD, 3 December 2020 (staff report by Bob Newland):

This reporter obtained an exclusive interview with the principle instigators, and their sycophants, of a challenge to an amendment to the Constitution of South Dakota approved by 54% of those who voted on the issue last month, by way of a common interwebbial “face-time” conversation system where you can see what people are doing and saying, like, a thousand miles away.

This reporter interviewed Kristi Noem, Governor of SoDak; Jason Ravnsborg, Attorney General of SoDak; Lt.Col. Rick Miller, Superintendent of SoDak HiPos; and Kevin Thom, Pennington County, SoDak, Sheriff.

On screen, each can be seen holding a copy of “The Life and Wisdom of Harry Anslinger.” Anslinger was the first Director of the Bureau of Narcotics, soon to be the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, eventually to be the Drug Enforcement Agency. Anslinger established that there was a thing, “Reefer Madness.” He also led the way in proving that “reefer madness” afflicted mainly politicians and cops.

FRRP (Fall River Reliable Press): “Good afternoon. Thank you so much for being here today. I’ll begin by asking Sheriff Thom and Superintendent Miller to explain why they decided to obsequiously file a lawsuit challenging a majority of South Dakotans’ judgment. Sheriff Thom, please go first.”

Thom (thumbing through Anslinger’s book): “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”

FRRP: “There are at least 100,000 marijuana smokers in SoDak alone. Although I doubt that there are 100,000 Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers in all of SoDak. Col. Miller, what say you?”

Miller (thumbs through Anslinger’s book: “In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs’ ‘hashashin’ that we have the English word ‘assassin.’”

FRRP: “Yeeessss,…and…?

Miller (glancing at Anslinger’s book): “You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

FRRP: “Governor Noem, while your name doesn’t appear on the lawsuit, your fingerprints are all over it. Why did you ask these two honorable public servants to take a bullet for you?”

Gov. Noem (runs finger down a page of Anslinger’s book): “How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured…. No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer….”

FRRP: “I hear you, governor. Attorney General Ravnsborg, would you like to weigh in?”

AG Ravnsborg (flips pages): “Colored students at the University of Minnesota partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy.”

FRRP: “Was that a statement of something?”

AG Ravnsborg: “F— you. I thought it was a deer.”

FRRP: “Would each of you like to close out with your favorite Harry Anslinger aphorism?”

Gov. Noem: “Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”

AG Ravnsborg: “I really thought it was a deer.”

HiPoSupt. Miller: “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing.”

Sheriff Thom: “Marijuana is taken by musicians. And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type….”

FRRP: “AG Ravnsborg, would you say that the statements made here fairly represent the position of the State of South Dakota against a majority of those who voted on this issue?”

AG Ravnsborg: “F— you. It WAS a deer.”

[Bob Newland, satire, posted to FB, 2020.12.03]

Related Reading:

“At first, Anslinger didn’t think marijuana was particularly dangerous,” [former High Times editor Chris] Simunek explains. “But he changed his tune when his funding was threatened.” A veteran Prohibition agent, Anslinger employed the same tactics that had failed to temper alcohol consumption and then upped the ante with a heavy dose of racially charged fearmongering. In contrast to booze, which was the intoxicant of choice among Whites, marijuana was considered a drug used disproportionately by Blacks and Latinos [Seth Ferranti, “When the Government Said Marijuana Made You Crazy,” Ozy, 2018.11.12].