This one is right out of Old Hippie’s infamous stash of little-known facts.

In the process of doing some historical research, I found some interesting tidbits. Today is, at least according to one source, exactly 75 years since the U.S. House of Representatives passed the dangerous and illegal Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, based largely on out-and-out racism, lies, and perjury right on the floor of Congress.

I call it “dangerous and illegal” to deliberately counter that same phrase, used by government propagandists ever since then, to characterize cannabis: a plant that has not only never killed anyone but has helped millions of people medically, as well as saved many others from real addiction to real dangerous drugs like opiates and alcohol.

Dangerous it was, because it brought in the beginning of the War On (some) Drugs, which has killed literally thousands of people. And illegal it was too, because — thanks to the great Timothy Leary for fighting it all the way up to the Supreme Court — it was declared unconstitutional on May 19, 1969.

And that brings us to the surprising fact that for almost a year and a half, at the very height of the Sixties (when I was going to Woodstock and smoking my head off and such), there was no valid Federal law against marijuana! Because Nixon’s “Drug War” law (boo, hiss) — the one that came up with the Federal “drug schedules” that harm Americans to this day — didn’t take effect until the end of October 1970.

Hey, we got along just fine for that 18 months…what do you say we try it again?