Narcotics Enforcement in the 1930s

Anslinger and three other delegates to the Geneva Convention signed the Geneva Limitation Convention in 1931. This placed international limits on the manufacture of heroin, morphine, and cocaine, and limited their distribution. It also required offices for national drug control in each country.

In the late 1930s, Anslinger recognized that another world war was on the horizon and recalled morphine shortages in the previous conflict. With his excellent working knowledge of the global supply of opium, Anslinger began to stockpile opium in the vaults at the U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C., which had been emptied of gold with the opening of Fort Knox. By 1940, Anslinger managed to squirrel away 300 tons – enough to satisfy the medical needs of America and its allies for four years.

The move to add marijuana to the nation’s drug control laws was marked by a certain amount of ambivalence on Anslinger’s part. He shared the concern of the medical and scientific community of the day that the drug was a serious threat to the nation, particularly its youth. Anslinger was also concerned for the ability of his understaffed and under-budgeted agency to enforce yet another drug law. By that time, 41 states had already outlawed marijuana. Nevertheless, for his role in bringing marijuana under federal control, Anslinger has become a lightning rod for today’s critics of the federal government’s regulation of marijuana.

The relationship between the agents of FBN and America’s spy agencies is a long and complex one. Anslinger began corresponding with General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, founder of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which later became the CIA. FBN Agents and even Anslinger himself provided training to OSS personnel on undercover work, surveillance techniques, and interviewing that had been gleaned from Anslinger’s World War I and State Department experiences.