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eventually the federal government took over his newspapers. Ironically, had Hearst invested into research for developing hemp into paper for newsprint, his empire may not have crumbled. He lost so much money because tree-based paper manufacturing became more expensive. As for Andrew Mellon, the guy was stacked. He had his fingers dipped into nearly every profitable industry and not just in the United States, but the world.
No, the Tax Act never banned hemp Don’t believe me? Look it up. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is a public document anyone can access at any time. It never banned hemp. It imposed a $1 annual tax for small farmers growing and selling hemp ($24 for large-scale operations). Just how much was $1 back then, though?
they made from the decline of hemp. As for William Randolph Hearst, well, financially, he went in the other direction. Through the 1930s, his newspaper empire began crumbling. These losses were attributed to the Great Depression, as most people couldn’t afford luxuries like a newspaper. In fact, things got so bad for Hearst that he began shifting his publications’ biases to the left of the political spectrum so he could reach a wider audience. It didn’t work, and
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I checked this out by going to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website and put that $1 value into their inflation calculator. One dollar back then translates into about $16 today. True, that was a significant amount for the average farmer during the Great Depression, but was it enough to destroy the industry? Maybe. Believe it or not, the Tax Act didn’t ban Cannabis sativa, either. Harry Anslinger, the first US commissioner for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics thought an outright ban would be unconstitutional, so he decided to levy a $1 excise tax per ounce of Cannabis sold. Now that is definitely a hefty fee for trading a harmless flower, but if someone had the money and the gumption, it wasn’t out of reach. Hemp was still grown and processed in the United States all the way up until the 1960s.
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