Fbn Vs Anslinger

A year after the stock market crashed, 1930, and president Hoover is in office, America is in a state of existential crisis and people are looking for answers and distractions. The Treasury Department created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger who directed the agency until 1962 “and molded America’s drug policy” (The United States War on Drugs). Anslinger who was also a prohibitionist, who believed progress could only be achieved by controlling each individual’s impulses and thought that if enough people were put in jail that America would rid itself of drugs. Nonetheless, with these same beliefs, Anslinger, used these to fight the war on drugs. Armed with a Depression snug budget, and an uphill battle Anslinger tried and failed to get state governments involved with the war effort.
Wrestling constant failure, Anslinger turns to an outrageous media campaign to further dramatize and demonize narcotics. The FBN and Anslinger “created myths and horror stories about drugs.” they also claimed that marijuana was linked to strange cases of insanity, murder and sex crimes (The United States War on Drugs). The aftermath, of the media campaign waged by the FBN was a massive success with every state on board the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act the second time around. Thus the mindset to battle narcotics and shape the American voter’s opinion, was created by this style of