The Boggs Act of 1951 strengthened the enforcement of the Marijuana Tax Act and the Narcotics Drug Import and Export Act. It placed harsh uniform penalties on those convicted of drug violations. Under the Boggs Act, those charged with a first offense involving cocaine, marijuana, or opiates were given two to five years in prison. Second-time offenders were given five to ten years, and third-time offenders were given ten to twenty years. Many opposed to the sentences in the act cited that the second- and third-time offenders were denied parole when even murderers and rapists could be eligible for parole. The Narcotics Control Act of 1956 also strengthened the laws against drugs.
The Boggs Act got its name from Thomas Boggs, Sr., a congressman from Louisiana who sponsored the bill because he thought the drug laws were too lenient. Drug laws were most severe in the South, where the laws were passed using arguments with racist connotation. For instance, those charged with a second marijuana offense in Georgia could receive the death penalty.
In 1956 the Narcotic Control Act was ratified and increased minimum sentences for those convicted of marijuana charges to ten years for a first offense, twenty years for a second, thirty years for a third, and forty years for a fourth. They were the same for cocaine and heroin. To help fight the crime, Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents were given guns.
During the Kennedy administration there was some talk that the personal use of marijuana would be legalized. In 1962 Kennedy’s administration had organized a panel to study drug use. This resulted in the proceedings of the White House Conference on Narcotic and Drug Abuse of September 27-28, 1962. The 500-person panel published its conclusions in The Prettyman Report, named after chief author E. Barrett Prettyman, a judge retired from the U.S. Supreme Court of Appeals. The study said, “It is the opinion of the panel that the hazards of marijuana per se have been exaggerated and that long criminal sentences imposed on an occasional use or possession of the drug are in poor social perspective. Although marijuana has long held the reputation of inciting individuals to commit sexual offenses and other antisocial acts, the evidence is inadequate to substantiate this.”
It was suggested that the U.S. laws governing marijuana should be rewritten because they were “in poor social perspective.”
The Kennedy administration also advocated for repealing of mandatory penalties put into place by the Boggs Act of 1951.
In 1963 the Kennedy administration created a Presidential Advisory Committee on Narcotics and Drug Abuse. The committee expressed the opinion that the marijuana drug laws should be changed. The plans didn’t come to fruition because Kennedy was assassinated in November.
The Lyndon B. Johnson administration was also critical of the marijuana laws. Its Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice denounced the laws that treated marijuana as harshly as the highly addictive substances cocaine and heroin.
Despite the findings and viewpoints of the White House, personal marijuana use remained illegal, and the Boggs Act remained in effect. Meanwhile, marijuana use greatly increased during the 1960s, and so did the number of people being arrested for breaking the marijuana laws.
Marijuana arrests went from 169 in 1960 to over 15,000 in 1966. More people were smoking it, more people were smuggling and selling it, and more people were getting arrested for it. It was obvious that people wanted it, liked it, and were not going to stop using it. And it was becoming more apparent than ever that the laws to control it were not going to work.