Harry J. Anslinger Quotes
I drove across the bridge over the Potomac River and got out of the car. There were marijuana plants growing as far as the eye could see. And they wanted me to eliminate it.
Harry J. Anslinger, 1892-1975, U. S. Commissioner of Narcotics, 1937
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was the first Chinese official to make opium illegal. However, British many merchants were involved in a complicated trade scheme whereby they brought opium to Canton. They paid not attention to the new laws against opium the same as their Chinese customers. Lin Zexu, perceiving Queen Victoria to have powers equivalent to the Chinese Emperor who could do anything in China, He assumed that the Queen could and would control the merchant’s behavior, and before punishing the British merchants, he was putting the Queen on notice. There is no record of what Victoria did, if anything. When Lin Zexu tried to enforce his ban on opium, the British Merchants resisted and the First Opium War broke out between China and Britainin which the Chinese were humiliated and resent to this day. A bronze statue of Lin Zexu was erected in his honor in Chatham Square (Kimlau Square) of New York City's Chinatown.
Defending the concept of military or police drug interdiction action in foreign countries:
Owner of one of the only 2 Mexican Television Networks. Mexico is constantly criticized by the American government and media for not cracking down on Mexican drug kingpins who operate very visibly in Mexico. Salinas points out that while the American drug kingpins are not as ostentatious and open as in Mexico, the U. S. did not have the will or the skill to prosecute the American drug kingpins.
President Barack Obama had the week before, made a speech observing the fact that marijuana was less dangerous then alcohol.
He was also a paid lobbyist for the beer industry.
Harry Jacob Anslinger was a United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics during the presidencies of Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He was a supporter of Prohibition, and of the criminalization of drugs, and spearheaded anti-drug policy campaigns. 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.
