you had to check with Harry. It was as if he had been accidentally positioned at the wheel of a gate valve that could direct the flow of money. He and he alone could decide who would gain entry to the narcotics Monopoly game, and by 1936 he had admitted only eight players—Merck, Mallinckrodt, Hoffman LaRoche, New York Quinine, Parke-Davis, Sharpe & Dohme, Eli Lilly, and Squibb—almost all destined to become household names.  The arrangement was perfect for Anslinger since it was obviously easier to police a small group of large manufacturers than a large group of small ones.  It was also perfect for the insiders in this oligopoly, and their spectacular financial growth reflected it. This corporate cartel became Anslinger’s steadfast ally, and throughout his career, whenever the Commissioner needed help on Capitol Hill, the pharmaceutical industry would come running. When he was pushing legislation, they would testify in favor.  When he was under attack, they would move behind the scenes twisting arms.  This powerful lobby combined with Anslinger’s natural constituency—the frustrated drys and law-and-order conservatives—ultimately rendered him impregnable.^[23]

Contrary to pop history, Harry Anslinger did not start America’s legendary campaign against marijuana.  In fact he tried to keep the Bureau out of cannabis enforcement in the beginning because he thought eradication would be impossible. The stuff grows, he said, “like dandelions.”^[24] But after the curtain came down on Prohibition, the nation’s moral focus moved on to the next available villian, and the marijuana issue was waiting in the wings. By 1933 several States had already outlawed the Devil Weed and some officials were calling for a national ban. Anslinger realized he might be able use this issue as a weapon—a club to whip the States into line. He needed to get local law enforcement more involved in the battle against narcotics because his tiny force of 250 agents could barely keep track of the major traffickers.^[25]  For months Anslinger had been