I have been searching for various sources telling me about whether or not the paper industry really did have an effect on the Marijuana tax act. Some saying yes, some saying no, can someone clarify or point me in the right direction for further information. Did the paper industry really cause the illegalization of Cannabis?
Paper interests may have benefited from the outlaw of hemp, but I've never seen their (possible?) role in banning hemp conflated with outright prohibition of marijuana.
Association with deviant groups is to blame for marijuana's criminalization in 1937 with the Marijuana Tax Act. Race mattered: for cocaine it had been fears of "cocainized negroes," while for marijuana it was an influx of Mexican immigrants (a silent "j" replaced the "h" in "marihuana" to play up its foreignness). It was also reported that marijuana could induce otherwise law-abiding young folks to rob, rape, or kill others.
Literal "reefer madness" may seem like a ridiculous claim given the prevailing "stoner" archetype of postwar America, but it had real credibility at the time. Norman Zinberg shows in Drug, Set, and Setting that our preconceived notions about drugs inform our experience while on them. So an ignorant white kid from Butte, Montana, trying weed for the first time in 1930, might get fidgety or irritable rather than lethargic. For some specific examples check out this blog post on early-twentieth-century marijuana use by PhD candidate Bob Beach: https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/the-value-of-propaganda-as-historical-evidence-anslingers-gore-file-as-source-material/
There are a lot of claims, but none of them offer any real proof, because it's mostly a conspiracy theory.
The problem with this theory is hemp doesn't actually compete with trees for paper crops. Here's a great debunking of the claim.
Hemp is currently a major crop in many places around the world, including China, and yet it has not replaced their traditional paper industry. Why? Because hemp is not the magical panacea some want it to be. Hemp is a very valuable fiber for some purposes, but it simply doesn't compete with trees for pulp production.
The notion that it does is built on fundamental misunderstandings of how paper pulp is produced form a tree plantation. Tree plantations are harvested in succession over several decades. Instead of having to harvest and plant a crop every year (hemp), this is actually easier, as tree plantations are harvested in successions over decades and replanted. People seem to think virgin old growth forests are harvested for trees, making hemp 'more sustainable', it's simply not true.
Hemp has great value, but there is no credible evidence to show it would have harmed Heart's newspaper operations whatsoever.
Side question: Is there any evidence whether the paper or timber industry was in fact ever harmed by competition with hemp in the countries where hemp was not banned?