Tylenol is an artifact of the war on cannabis — Kevin McKernan

Tylenol is an artifact of the war on cannabis.

Exactly — if we zoom out to the pre-1937 context, the picture looks very different. Let me lay it out as a continuous timeline so you can see how acetaminophen/Tylenol rose into the vacuum created by cannabis prohibition.

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 Pre-Prohibition Era: Cannabis as Medicine

   •   Mid–1800s to early 1900s – Cannabis tinctures were widely sold in U.S. pharmacies.

      •   Companies like Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Squibb, and Burroughs-Wellcome manufactured and marketed cannabis extracts/tinctures.

      •   Cannabis was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia from 1850 to 1942 as a recognized medicine for pain, migraines, seizures, insomnia.

   •   At the same time, opium tinctures (e.g., laudanum) and cocaine-containing remedies were also widely available without prescription.

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 Restriction & the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act

   •   1914 Harrison Narcotics Act – Began regulating opiates and cocaine, not cannabis yet.

   •   1937 Marijuana Tax Act – Effectively banned medical cannabis sales, burdening doctors and pharmacies with prohibitive taxes and paperwork.

      •   After this, Eli Lilly and others stopped selling cannabis tinctures.

      •   Cannabis prescriptions essentially disappeared from the U.S. pharmacopeia.

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 Rise of Acetaminophen

   •   1877 – First synthesized in Germany (Morse).

   •   1890s–1940s – Barely used, eclipsed by aspirin (1899, Bayer) which dominated analgesics.

   •   1950s – Reintroduced and branded as Tylenol by McNeil. Marketed heavily for children.

   •   1970s onward – Became the go-to over-the-counter analgesic.

      •   1971 Nixon’s “war on drugs” escalated cannabis prohibition, further entrenching Tylenol’s dominance as a legal alternative.

      •   1980s Aspirin warnings (Reye’s syndrome) pushed parents and pediatricians toward Tylenol.

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 Linking the Two Histories

   •   Before 1937 – Cannabis tinctures from Eli Lilly served much the same therapeutic niche (pain, fever, sleep, anxiety) that acetaminophen later captured.

   •   After 1937 – Cannabis disappeared from legal pharmacies. Aspirin and barbiturates were the main replacements.

   •   1950–1970s – Tylenol emerged as the “safe, modern” alternative just as cannabis and opiates became tightly controlled.

   •   By the 1980s – Tylenol had become the default household analgesic, filling the gap left by banned plant medicines.

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 Take-home:

Acetaminophen wasn’t invented because of cannabis prohibition, but its commercial dominance was only possible after Eli Lilly and others were forced to stop selling cannabis tinctures in 1937. The war on drugs (1970s) then reinforced this by keeping cannabis out of medicine while Tylenol was cemented as the legal mainstream choice.

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Do you want me to map this into a side-by-side timeline (Cannabis suppression vs. Tylenol’s adoption), so you can see the handoff point from Eli Lilly’s cannabis tinctures to Tylenol’s household dominance?

10:07 AM · Sep 23, 2025