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The Online Reefer Madness Teaching Museum
Marihuana - Our Newest Narcotic Menace
-
1940
72523
- 6 - 39 10M
Division
of Narcotic Enforcement - State of
California
Paul
E. Madden, Chief
There
was a time when the best way to deal with marihuana was to say nothing whatever
about it. That was up to about ten
years ago when this dangerous drug was virtually unknown in the
United States
. To discuss this product then could
only lead to arouse curiosity about it and cause adventurous young people
seeking new thrills to experiment with it.
The
time for silence, however, is now long past, for during the last few years this
menace has spread like wildfire throughout the
United States
. It started in the South (reaching
us from Mexico), where in 1934, according to reports of the League of Nations
Opium Advisory Committee, in some sections one-half the violent crimes committed
were attributed to marihuana. From
the South it spread throughout the
United States
and into
Canada
. In 1936, three hundred eighty-six
tons of marihuana, growing plants, bulk and finished products, were seized and
destroyed in thirty-one of our forty-eight states.
Thus we have now with as one of the problems which has long been one of
the most serious ones in the
Far East
. It is reported that in
Egypt
and
India
, where other forms of drugs are also extensively used, 25
per cent of all mental cases and a large proportion of criminality are due to
marihuana.
By
way of contrast, opium, morphine and heroin are hypnotic drugs; their effects
are sedative in nature. All an opium
user wants of life is his opium and to be left alone.
From opium, however, he usually goes on to the use of morphine, about ten
times as strong as opium, and then to heroin, again several times more potent
than morphine. At first the result
of his addiction is a mere stupor, then his appetite for food disappears,
resulting in a pallor and an emaciated appearance; he loses all sense of
cleanliness, and, mentally, the power to differentiate between right and wrong.
These effects become more and more pronounced until finally the result is
complete physical and mental deterioration.
But almost from the beginning he is lost to society and his dear ones.
All sense of obligation has vanished, he is rendered incapable of work or
obtaining a livelihood in a legitimate manner; the, plight of his family, their
actual suffering and starvation, does not touch him and he is completely immune
to their tears and pleadings. Almost
all such addicts become criminals, but their prowling, petty thievery, burglary,
etc., represent the indirect results of their addiction the direct results being
their mental deterioration together with the uncontrollable craving for the drug
which must be satisfied at all costs.
Marihuana,
on the other band, is an excitant drug. It
attacks the central nervous system and violently effects the mentality and the
five physical senses. But there is
no way of knowing what effect it will have in a particular case.
It will affect one person in one way and another in the very opposite
manner.
A
person tinder the influence of marihuana may believe himself so small that he is
afraid to step off the curbstone into the street, or he may feel himself of
enormous size and of superhuman strength and passion and in that condition
commit crimes altogether foreign to his nature.
Time and space and distance are obliterated; he may be driving an
automobile at the rate of eighty miles per hour and believe be is going only
twenty, a red light may appear green, and the ear hearing down upon him or
coming toward him may seem a mile away. Results
of it person in that condition driving a machine may easily be imagined.
Recently such a person came over the San Francisco-Oakland bay bridge at
76 miles an hour. Officers
at the risk of their lives succeeded in stopping him before serious accidents
resulted. The first thing he said
was, "Gee, I feel like flying."
To their surprise they found him sober.
They called one of the inspectors of our division who detected the
characteristic odor of marihuana upon his breath, and cigarettes found in his
car proved to be made of marihuana.
The
user of this drug may not feel the restraints of gravitation.
He may feel like flying and literally believe
that he can do so and step out of a tenth story window to his death.
He may suddenly get the idea that his best
friends or his own immediate family are about to take his life and proceed to
kill them. Natural inclinations may
become most abnormal and uncontrollable passions resulting in the most revolting
of crimes. In fact, no act is too
fantastic or horrible to the user of marihuana.
And, in the manner described, this drug-unlike opium, morphine and
heroin---is the immediate and direct cause of the crimes committed.
To
refer to specific cases, quoting from the reports in the files of the United
States Bureau of Narcotics, of crimes committed by marihuana users, just a
phrase in each case will tell the story--- "killing a bus driver,"
"murdered his friend," "rape of a nine year old girl,"
"unprovoked killing of a hotel clerk," "murdered motorist,"
"murdered his mother, father, sister and two brothers with an axe"---
these are characteristic acts caused by the use of marihuana.
Marihuana
is obtained from the perfectly innocent looking weed commonly known as Indian
Hemp. This plant attains a height of
from 3 to 16 feet and its stalk a thickness of from one-half to two inches.
The stalk has four ridges running lengthwise, and may have well-marked
nodes at Intervals of from four to twenty inches.
These stalks and stems are used in the textile industry for the
manufacturing of rope, twine, mats, bags and certain grades of coarse paper.
Though
all parts of the plant may contain traces of it, the dangerous drug is obtained
from the resin contained in the flowering tops and the leaves of the plant.
The
flowers are composed of irregular clusters of seeds, light yellow-greenish in
color. The leaves are compound,
composed of from five to eleven---always an uneven number--- of leaflets or
lobes. These are from two to six
inches long, pointed almost equally at both ends, with saw-like edges and
pronounced ridges running from the center diagonally to the edges.
The two outer lobes are always very small compared with the others.
The leaf is of a deep green color on the upper aide and of a lighter
green on the lower. The green plant
has a peculiar odor, is sticky to the touch, and is covered with fine hairs,
which, however, are barely visible to the naked eye.
Marihuana
has no therapeutic or medicinal value that can not better be replaced by other
drugs. It
serves no legitimate purposes whatever. For
thousands of years it has been known in Persia as hashish, by which name it is
also known in this country to a considerable extent, and from which we get the
word assassin. Another word
we get from the characteristics of this drug is the word amuck, and the phrase
"running amuck." "Amok" means kill and was the word that the
native of Malay would shriek as he, maddened by hashish, would dash down the
street in a murderous frenzy. And
today ignorant and criminal elements will use this drug with whisk" and in
that manner intensify its violent properties.
Marihuana
is most commonly used in cigarettes, however.
These are, in the language of the street and the underworld, referred to
as reefers, muggles, weeds, hot hay or Indian hay.
In 1936, in San Francisco alone, our Division seized and confiscated
1,122,207 grains of the finished product of marihuana.
In 1937 we confiscated 2,926,802 grains, enough for 300,000 cigarettes.
Marihuana
users present an altogether new type and a new class of addicts.
It has been taken up by young people, sometimes
mere children, who would not have occasion to contact other forms of narcotics
or addicts. The plant may be growing
in anyone's backyard or garden, and the dangers may be lurking within the
shadows of our schoolhouses. Indeed,
here is a favorite market for the marihuana peddler.
Anyone low and unscrupulous enough to try to make money by selling this
product does not hesitate to seek out high school boys and girls as his victims.
Fortunately,
marihuana is not habit forming to the extent that other drugs are.
One addicted to other narcotics will experience actual physical pain,
sometimes most excruciating torture, when deprived of his drug, while the
marihuana user will at most feel a mere hankering or craving much like the user
of tobacco or alcohol. Considering
the dangers involved there can be no excuse for using or peddling marihuana;
anyone guilty of either should be brought promptly to the most severe punishment
provided by law.
With
the exception of doctors and pharmacists who comply with strict regulations in
this regard, the State Narcotic Act makes it unlawful for any person to sell,
administer, give away or have in his possession marihuana, opium,
morphine, heroin, cocaine, or any other form of narcotics.
All peddlers of these drugs belong in prison and should be placed there
without delay, when apprehended. For
the users, the addicts, the State of California maintains, at Spadra, a Narcotic
Hospital for the treatment and cure of their addiction.
A considerable proportion of the addicts can, under favorable conditions,
be cured at this institution.
Unfortunately,
however, certain types of addicts are incurable.
The drug destroys their will power and their desire to be restored to
society. This incurable criminal
type of addicts should be confined to a farm and segregated from the rest of
society for a term of years or permanently.
In this manner they could be prevented from preying on society by
engaging in their petty thievery, etc., and from spreading drug addiction and
crime among their associates; and a major part of the market for the illicit
drug peddler would be thus removed; we would at the same time be taking ft real
step toward a complete solution of this problem.
As
most of these addicts could be to work and be made partly or wholly
self-sustaining, and considering the expense they are to society when at large,
such an institution could be made a real asset to the State and constitute a
saving to the taxpayer. It is to be
hoped that a narcotic form of this nature may be established in the near future.
All
authorities are virtually unanimous in their condemnation of marihuana as a
serious menace:
U.
S. Commissioner of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger, says:
"It
is a new peril---in some ways the worst we have met, and it concerns us
all."
In
passing sentence in the case of Moses Baca, found guilty of criminal assault on
his wife, while under the influence of marihuana, Judge J. Foster Symes, of
Denver, Colo., made the following noteworthy statement in stressing the
seriousness of the use of marihuana:
"I
consider marihuana the worst of all narcotics---far worse than the use of
morphine or cocaine. Under its
influence men become beasts, just as was the case with Baca.
Marihuana destroys life itself. I
have no sympathy with those who sell this weed."
The
following editorial appeared in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, October 1st,
1938:
"THE
EDITOR SAYS:
PUBLIC
ENEMY NO. 1 is no longer some
snarling gangster, or kidnaper.Instead,
it is the marihuana traffic that is growing rapidly in this nation and
throughout the world, according to Dr. James C. Munch, eastern pharmacologist of
note.
The
marihuana addict, commonly known as a 'reefer,' becomes a grave menace to
community and state.
The
drug disrupts and destroys the brain, and so distorts the victim's mind that his
visions of grandeur and ruthless power usually result in crime and degeneracy.
The
California Congress of Parents and Teachers and other civic organizations,
see the peril of this traffic and are enlisting their efforts, with the law, to
stop it.
The
peddlers of this drug often make a practice of trying to sell one or two of the
cigarettes to school children, knowing that once the habit is begun they will
have a new victim---and a steady customer.
The
drug is so powerful that murderers who are addicts frequently confess that their
crimes were committed after smoking only one or two 'reefers.'
The
crime of dope-peddling is even worse than murder, because, deliberately and for
profit, it BREEDS DEGENERATES AND MURDERERS."
To
stamp out the menace of marihuana, and all narcotics for that matter, it is the
duty of every citizen to render his aid whenever the opportunity affords.
If you saw a fire spreading in a neighborhood, or you saw lives and
property being destroyed in any other manner, you would lose no time in
notifying the agencies interested in checking the destruction.
Considering that most addiction comes from association with other
addicts, and considering that almost all addicts are criminals, either directly
or made so by the drug used or by the necessity of obtaining it and the means of
supporting their addiction---considering these things and the dangers which we
have been able merely to mention in this leaflet, there is no higher duty and no
greater necessity than for all of us to do everything in our power to check and
to stamp out completely, if possible, the narcotic menace.
Anyone in position to render aid to this end is invited to communicate
with the. State Narcotic Division,
State Building, San Francisco, Telephone Underhill 8700.
Any information given us will be kept strictly confidential as far as
your identity is concerned.
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