 Hearst had recently become heavily involved in synthetics based on petroleum hydrocarbons, and wanted to quash efforts from competing companies to make similar products from hemp seed oil.Although that theory has been promoted for Oliphant's push for the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, his nephew Dr. Cleon O. Swayzee of Columbia University, in a 1984 interview stated two other reasons that took precedence for Oliphant's efforts.First was the influence of Oliphant's brother, Dr. Homer Oliphant, a physician who practiced in Forest and Frankfort, Indiana and who was promoting the theory as early as 1919 that smoking was dangerous for the health of mothers and unborn babies.