• 1619 – England’s King James I signs royal decree requiring Virginia colonists to farm hemp.
• 1850s – Cannabis is recognized as a “fashionable narcotic” in the New York Times.
• 1880s – Hashish parlors become popular in most large east coast cities.
• 1906 – Congress passes the Pure Food & Drugs Act, requiring drugs like cannabis to be labeled for sale.
• 1910s – Most US states pass laws banning cannabis to one degree or another.
• 1925 – United States signs on to the International Opium Convention, which also bans the exportation of psychoactive cannabis to countries that have prohibited it.
• 1930 – Federal Bureau of Narcotics is formed, the first federal bureaucracy to exclusively enforce drug prohibition.
• 1937 – Congress passes the Marihuana Tax Act, which bans possession of cannabis that had not been taxed, effectively instituting marijuana prohibition.
• 1942 – In spite of the Marihuana Tax Act, US government institutes Hemp for Victory program to encourage US farmers to grow much-needed hemp for the military in WWII.
• 1952 & 1956 – The Boggs Act and the Narcotics Control Act establish mandatory minimum federal sentences of two-to-ten years for first time cannabis possession.
• 1961 – The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed to make cannabis a controlled substance internationally.
• 1969 – US Supreme Court decides that being forced to show authorities one’s untaxed cannabis in order to get a tax stamp was a violation of the 5th Amendment’s protections against self-incrimination, and thus declared the Marihuana Tax Act unconstitutional.
• 1970 – Congress re-prohibits cannabis by passing the Controlled Substances Act, declaring cannabis to be a Schedule I substance with no accepted medical use, no safe margin of use under doctor’s supervision, and highly likely to be abused.
• 1972 – California is the first state to place a legalization initiative on the ballot, backed by the legalization group Amorphia, which fails with just 33.5% support.
• 1973 – Oregon becomes the first of eleven states in the 1970s to end criminal arrests for personal possession of marijuana.
• 1975 – Alaska’s Supreme Court declares the state’s privacy protections extend to personal use and possession of up to 4 ounces of marijuana and 25 cannabis plants.
• 1977 – President Carter calls on Congress to decriminalize one ounce of marijuana, declaring that the penalties for the use of a drug should not be more harmful than the drug itself.
• 1978 – The Compassionate Investigative New Drug Program begins supplying federal medical marijuana to selected patients.
• 1980 – California Gov. Ronald Reagan is elected president after declaring “Marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States.”
• 1982 – First Lady Nancy Reagan, in the second year of her crusade against youth drug abuse, answers “Just Say No” to a schoolchild in Oakland who asked how to respond to drug offers, launching a catchphrase campaign that would last throughout the decade.
• 1984 – Congress passes the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, establishing mandatory minimum sentencing.
• 1986 – Congress passes the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, establishing mandatory minimum “three-strikes” sentencing and the death penalty for so-called “drug kingpins”.
• 1988 – The Office of National Drug Control Policy (the “drug czar”) is created.
• 1990 – Alaskans vote to re-criminalize marijuana statewide.
• 1991 – President George HW Bush closes the Compassionate Investigative New Drug Program once it is flooded with applications from AIDS victims.
• 1996 – California passes Prop 215, becoming the first state to legalize medical marijuana.
• 2000 – Alaska defeats a legalization initiative for persons 18 and older.
• 2002 – Nevada defeats a legalization initiative for persons 21 and older.
• 2004 – Alaska defeats a legalization initiative for persons 21 and older.
• 2006 – Nevada and Colorado defeat legalization initiatives.
• 2010 – California defeats a legalization initiative.
• 2012 – Colorado and Washington approve legalization initiatives.
• 2014 – Oregon, Alaska, and Washington DC approve legalization initiatives.
