La Guardia Committee  The LaGuardia Committee was the first in-depth study into the effects of smoking cannabis (drug) in the United States. An earlier study, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, was conducted by the colonial authorities in British India in 1893–94. The reports systematically contradicted claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department that smoking marijuana results in insanity, deteriorates physical and mental health, assists in criminal behavior and juvenile delinquency, is physically addictive, and is a "gateway" drug to more dangerous drugs. The report was prepared by the New York Academy of Medicine, on behalf of a commission appointed in 1939 by New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia who was a strong opponent of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. Released in 1944, the report infuriated Harry Anslinger, who was campaigning against marijuana. Anslinger condemned it as unscientific. Anslinger went on an offensive against what he saw as a "degenerate Hollywood" that was promoting marijuana use. After high-profile arrests of actors like Robert Mitchum, Hollywood gave Anslinger full control over the script of any film that mentioned marijuana. After more than five years of research the members of the committee drew up a catalog of 13 salient points with the conclusions they reached. Therefore, according to the LaGuardia Report, the gateway drug theory is without foundation (points 7 and 9). Published in 1944, the report offended Harry Anslinger, who branded it as "unscientific". Harry Anslinger denounced Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the New York Academy of Medicine and the doctors who had worked for more than five years on the research. Anslinger said that they should not conduct more experiments or studies on marijuana without his personal permission. Anslinger interrupted, between 1944 and 1945, each current research on derivatives of cannabis, and according to some personally commissioned the American Medical Association to prepare a position which would reflect the one of the government. The study conducted by AMA between 1944 and 1945 on Anslinger's personal request, having as objective to disprove the statements of the LaGuardia Report, leveraged again on racism, asserting that "of the experimental group, thirty-four men were black, and only one was white", and "those who smoked marijuana, became disrespectful of white soldiers and officers during military segregation". Only in 1972, the same institutional source that spread the series of scientifically unfounded rumors about the dangers of cannabis admitted that "these stories were largely false" and that "with careful consideration of the documentation there is no confirmation of the existence of a causal relationship between marijuana use and the possible use of heroin".