10 Fascinating Hollywood Stories You Didn't Know

The owner of vast acreages of timberlands, William Randolph Hearst had been battling cheaper, more sustainable hemp as America’s paper source since 1916 when he decided to use moral outrage to his advantage.

Hearst turned to Harry Anslinger, head of the newly created Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who promptly initiated a ‘scare’ campaign against Marijuana. During Anslinger’s tenure, such ‘educational’ pictures as Assassin of Youth, The Devil’s Harvest and She Shoulda Said No! were created.

Most notorious of all is Reefer Madness, the church-funded picture that sought to inform its audience that marijuana is a “violent narcotic” whose “soul-destroying effects” include “acts of shocking violence” and “incurable insanity.” Unsuccessful on its initial release, Reefer was resurrected as a midnight movie when a public domain print was discovered in the Library of Congress in the early 70s, becoming a hit with potheads who jeered at its hectoring.