Studies about medicinal use for Marijuana have been going on for hundreds of years now. Journal articles printed as early as 1839 report findings of the therapeutic uses of THC, however, because of opiates and their medicinal uses which far outweighed the milder use of THC, studies in this area began to decline. Up until 1937 pharmaceutical companies were still selling drugs that contained Cannabis as an ingredient. The only reason that the drug was dropped from company usage was because of laws passed in 1937 that regulated the use of Cannabis in drugs. A Tax was imposed as well as strict record keeping on the drug, making it very difficult for drug companies to import the drug and use it in medicine. Because there were suddenly so many restrictions causing headaches for most pharmaceutical companies THC was eliminated from the order forms.

While the American Medical Association did try to fight the Tax Act as well as many research scientists – claiming that the potential use of this drug far outweighed the possible dangers (because at the time no dangers were empirically evident, despite the Federal Government claiming that Marijuana was a strong intoxicant that had huge medical dangers to the consumer) – because the Tax was passed on the federal level, and the government was giving it its full support the American Medical Association was given no choice except to back off, and support the Act. They were also forced to support statements of Marijuana’s danger to the American public.