The United States became the first nation to ban cannabis in 1913. The reasons were purely racial but became the backdrop for the Cannabis Sativa Tax Act of 1937 which effectively banned use and sales.
This followed a precedence set in San Francisco in 1875, when opium smoking in dens was banned, for the frivolity that they were where Chinese men were seducing white women.
Harry J. Anslinger, then head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (the original drug enforcement agency), and the man who led the push to illegalize Cannabis Sativa in all the states of America in the 1930s summed the official outlook thus:
“Most Cannabis Sativa smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, jazz musicians, and entertainers. Their satanic music is driven by Cannabis Sativa, and Cannabis Sativa smoking by white women makes them want to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others. Cannabis Sativa is an addictive drug, which produces in its users, insanity, criminality, and death, and makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”