COM 0193.005 2006-2008 - Laserfiche WebLink

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After the Supreme Court decision of March 29, 1937, upholding the prohibition of machine guns through taxation, Herman Olipant made his move. On April 14, 1937 he introduced the bill directly to the House Ways and Means Committee instead of to other appropriate committees such as food and drug, agriculture, textiles, commerce, etc. His reason may have been that "Ways and Means" is the only committee that can send its bills directly to the House floor without being subject to debate by other committees. Ways and Means Chairman Robert L. Doughton, a key DuPont ally, quickly rubber- stamped the secret Treasury bill and sent it sailing through Congress to the President. ' DID ANYONE CONSULT THE AMA? " However, even within his controlled Committee hearings, many expert witnesses spoke out against the passage of these unusual tax laws. Dr. William C. Woodward, for instance, who was both a physician and an attorney for the American Medical Association, testified on behalf of the AMA. He said, in effect, the entire fabric of federal testimony was tabloid sensationalism ! No real testimony had been heard ! This law, passed in ignorance, could possibly deny the world a potential medicine, especially now that the medical world was just beginning to find which ingredients in cannabis were active. Woodward told the committee that the only reason the AMA hadn't come out against the marijuana tax law sooner was that marijuana had been described in the press for 20 years as "killer weed from Mexico." The AMA had just realized "two days before" ...the plant Congress intended to outilaw was known medically as cannabis the benign substance used in America with perfect safety in scores of illnesses for over one hundred years. PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE LESSON IN THIS GREAT BOOK ATTACHED; is a copy of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -HOUSE ~ r, -House Resolution 237 -submitted late on night to an empty House.