Yes, but where did that idea originate from? I think the insinuation here is that the reason it was thought of that way was because that image was being propagated by the media. See: reefer madness, which a comment below indicates was a production of Hearst.
If you're very very lucky, you might be able to find a political source that predates your earliest known popular mention, but that's still not very authoritative. And if you can't trace some plausible epidemic-like spread over time and geography, which you almost certainly can't, you really just can't make a strong causal determination.
Even with Hearst (or Murdoch, or any other media titan), you can easily paint them as savvy amplifiers, cranking up the volume of existing rumors to the benefit of their own vision.