Editing Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 (section)

==Operation of the act==
[[File:Marihuana revenue stamp $1 1937 issue.jpg|thumb|right|230px|[[Overprint]] marijuana [[revenue stamp]]s from 1937]]
Shortly after the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act went into effect on October 1, 1937, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Denver City police arrested Moses Baca for possession and [[Samuel R. Caldwell|Samuel Caldwell]] for dealing. Baca and Caldwell's arrest made them the first marijuana convictions under U.S. federal law for not paying the marijuana tax.  Judge Foster Symes sentenced Baca to 18 months and Caldwell to four years in [[Leavenworth Penitentiary]] for violating the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.

After the Philippines fell to Japanese forces in 1942, the Department of Agriculture and the US Army urged farmers to grow fiber [[hemp]].  Tax stamps for cultivation of fiber hemp began to be issued to farmers. Without any change in the Marihuana Tax Act, {{convert|400,000|acre|km2}} were cultivated with hemp between 1942 and 1945. The last commercial hemp fields were planted in Wisconsin in 1957.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.naihc.org/hemp_information/content/hemp.mj.html |title=David P. West:Hemp and Marijuana:Myths & Realities |access-date=2010-12-07 |archive-date=2016-11-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161120132152/http://www.naihc.org/hemp_information/content/hemp.mj.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In 1967, President Johnson's [[President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice|Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice]] opined, "The Act raises an insignificant amount of revenue and exposes an insignificant number of marijuana transactions to public view, since only a handful of people are registered under the Act. It has become, in effect, solely a criminal law, imposing sanctions upon persons who sell, acquire, or possess marijuana."<ref>[http://www.druglibrary.net/special/king/dhu/dhu12.htm Balancing the Grass Account<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

In 1969 in ''[[Leary v. United States]]'', part of the Act was ruled to be unconstitutional as a violation of the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth Amendment]], since a person seeking the tax stamp would have to incriminate him/herself.<ref>[http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1960/learyvus.htm ''Timothy Leary v. United States'', 395 U.S. 6, 89 S. Ct. 1532 (1969)]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.boulderweekly.com/features/weed-between-the-lines/marihuana-tax-act-of-1937-rises-from-the-dead/|title=Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 rises from the dead - Boulder Weekly|last=Kriho|first=Laura|date=2013-10-31|language=en-US|access-date=2016-09-11}}</ref> In response the Congress passed the [[Controlled Substances Act]] as Title II of the [[Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970]],<ref>{{USStatute|91|513|84|1236|1970|10|27}}</ref> which repealed the 1937 Act.