Harry J. Anslinger

The family emigrated to the United States in 1881.

Robert Anslinger worked in New York for two years, then moved to Altoona, a town founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Harry Jacob Anslinger (May 20, 1892 – November 14, 1975) was an American government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics during the presidencies of Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy.

He was a supporter of Prohibition, and of the criminalization of all drugs, and spearheaded anti-drug policy campaigns.

Anslinger has been characterized as an early proponent of the war on drugs, as he zealously advocated for and pursued harsh drug penalties, in particular regarding marijuana.

As a propagandist for the war on drugs, he focused on demonizing racial and immigrant groups.

He targeted jazz musicians, including singer Billie Holiday.

Anslinger was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1892.

His father, of Swiss German origin, was Robert J. Anslinger, a barber by trade, who was born in Bern, Switzerland.

His mother, Rosa Christiana Fladt, was born in the Grand Duchy of Baden (today a part of Germany).

In 1892, the year Harry was born, Robert Anslinger went to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad, seeking more stable employment.

Harry Anslinger followed his father in going to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

After completing the eighth grade, he began to work with his father at the railroad, while starting with his freshman year.

Aged 14, he continued to attend morning sessions in the local high school, working afternoons and evenings for the railroad.

The federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 regulated the labeling of patent medicines that contained "cannabis indica".

Failing to receive a high school diploma, in 1909, Harry enrolled at Altoona Business College at the age of 17, and for the next two years received additional tutoring.

That was followed by local laws in many other states, and by state laws in the 1910s and 1920s.

In 1912, he was granted a furlough permitting him to enroll at Pennsylvania State College, where he studied in a two-year associate degree program in business and engineering, while working during weekends and vacation periods.

Anslinger gained notoriety early in his career.

At the age of 23 (in 1915), while working as an investigator for the Pennsylvania Railroad, he performed a detailed investigation that found the $50,000 claim of a widower in a railroad accident to be fraudulent.

He saved the company the payout and was promoted to captain of railroad police.

From 1917 to 1928, Anslinger worked for various military and police organizations on stopping international drug trafficking.

His duties took him all over the world, from Germany to Venezuela to Japan.

He is widely credited with shaping not only America's domestic and international drug policies but influencing drug policies of other nations, particularly those that had not debated the issues internally.

In 1925, in the International Opium Convention, the United States supported regulation of "Indian hemp" in its use as a drug.

Recommendations from the International Opium Convention inspired the work with the Uniform State Narcotic Act between 1925 and 1932.

By 1929, Anslinger returned from his international tour to work as an assistant commissioner in the United States' Treasury Department's Bureau of Prohibition.

At that time, corruption and scandal gripped prohibition and narcotics agencies.

The ensuing shake-ups and re-organizations set the stage for Anslinger, perceived as an honest and incorruptible figure, to advance not only in rank but in political stature.

In 1930, at age 38, Anslinger was appointed the founding commissioner of the Treasury's Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

The illegal trade in alcohol (then still under Prohibition) and illicit drugs was targeted by the Treasury, not primarily as social evils that fell under other government purview, but as losses of untaxed revenue.

Appointed by department Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, who was his wife's uncle, Anslinger was given a budget of $100,000 and wide scope.

Anslinger had not been active in that process until approximately 1930.

Anslinger collected stories of marijuana causing crime and violence, and ignored evidence that allowed for other interpretations.

Doctor Walter Bromberg pointed out that substance abuse and crime are heavily confounded and that none of a group of 2,216 criminal convictions he had examined was clearly connected to marijuana's influence.

He also ignored a discussion forwarded to him by the American Medical Association, in which 29 of 30 pharmacists and drug industry representatives objected to his proposals to ban marijuana.

Restrictions on cannabis (cannabis sativa, often called "Indian Hemp" in documents before the 1940s) as a drug started in local laws in New York in 1860.

Anslinger held office as commissioner for an unprecedented 32 years, until 1962.

He then held office for two years as U.S. Representative to the United Nations Narcotics Commission.

The responsibilities once held by Anslinger are now largely under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy and the agency he ran was a predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).