The Online Reefer Madness Teaching Museum
Multiple Reefer Madness Newspaper Articles
circa 1930's
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Multiple Reefer Madness Newspaper articles circa
1930's #1
Multiple Reefer Madness articles circa 1930's #2
Multyple Reefer Madness Newspaper Stories #3
Our
purpose is to document the Reefer Madness era. The newspaper project (of the
Museum of Reefer Madness) has the educational goal of gathering and making
available to the general public (in electronic form) newspaper articles that
shaped our present views and opinions about medical marihuana. To this end we
need your help.
How You Can Help:
Many public libraries carry (on
microfilm) back copies of the local newspapers from that era. If they do not,
try asking the local newspaper office itself if they do so.
-
Also ask them if a newspaper
“index” exists. If so, look under such words as:
Marihuana -Note: Could also be
spelled Marijuana, Maria-juana, Mariguana etc.
Hemp
Cannabis - Note: could also be
spelled Cannabus, Cannibus etc.
Narcotics
Etc.
Of course, use the museum’s index to help you
obtain articles, but if none is given for your locale, and no index exists, than
use important dates to help you obtain articles. Example, Feb 5 to Feb 20 1938
were the trial dates for Bunny Sohl (the infamous girl slayer), who while under
the influence of marihuana, robbed and killed a bus driver (hey, would your
government lie to you?). The story was being pumped up by the drug police and
was heavily quoted by national wire services.
Use the museum’s index to find timely dates.
Also, find the dates of important state anti-medical marihuana laws were passed.
For example: What was the date the Uniform Narcotics Law was passed in your
state? Then look over issues just a few months before that date, etc.
When you find and make a photocopy of an article,
make sure that you mark down:
The name of the newspaper.
The city it came from.
The date and page number on which the
article appeared.
Thank you for your help.
Marihuana More Dangerous Than Heroin or Cocaine:
-- Scientific American - May 1938:
Marihuana is more dangerous drug than heroin or cocaine. Authority for
this statement is United States Commissioner of Narcotics H. J. Anslinger.
Mr. Anslinger's statement was made as part of a report on narcotics appearing
in the bulletin of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I am surprised to learn that certain police officers have been inclined to
minimize the effects of the use of marihuana. Science Service quotes Mr.
Anslinger. These officers should review some of the cases that are reported
to the Bureau. They would, I am sure, be convinced that the drug is adhering
to its Old World traditions of murder, assault, rape, physical
demoralization,
and mental breakdown. A study of the effects of marihuana shows clearly that
it is a dangerous drug, and Bureau records prove that its use is associated
with insanity and crime.
Effects of marihuana, according to an authority quoted by Mr. Anslinger, are
as follows:
1. Feeling of unaccountable hilarity.
2. Excitation and a disassociation of ideas: the weakening of power to direct
thoughts.
3. Errors in time and space.
4. Intensification of auditory sensibilities, causing profound dejection or
mad gayety.
5. Fixed ideas: delirious conviction. This is a type of intellectual injury
so frequent in mental alienation. The user imagines the most unbelievable
things, giving way to monstrous extravagances.
6. Emotional disturbance during which the user is powerless to direct his
thoughts, loses the power to resist emotions, and may commit violence which
knows no bounds when disorders of the intellect have reached a point of
incoherence. During this dangerous phenomenon, evil instincts are brought to
the surface and cause a fury to rage within the user.
7. Irresistible impulses which may result in suicide.
The illusions are those of sight, hearing, and sense. The mind loses all
idea of space and extent, and tends to exaggerate in all things; the
slightest
impulse or suggestion carries it away.
BELOIT DAILY NEWS - (Beloit, Wisconsin, Feb.
10, 1938 - page 1)
“Authorities Warn Against Spread of
Marijuana Habit After Janesville Arrests”
- - - - - -
Insanity, Degeneracy and Violence Follow Use
of Weed -- South Beloit School Acquaints Pupils with Dangers-- Seize Janesville
Peddler
- - - --
“I SOLD these cigarettes for 15 cents
apiece…I have been selling these marijuana cigarettes for about a year to make
a little extra money…I have about 10 different parties to whom I sell these
cigarettes.”
Two packages of marijuana cigarettes and two tins
of the raw weed in bulk in his possession, Thomas Gomez, 43, Mexican-born-alien,
was seized by Janesville police early this week. Gomez’ arrest was the first
blow struck in this vicinity at a rapidly growing drug traffic which has brought
insanity, disgrace, and destruction to its victims throughout the United States.
Peddler Confesses
Proof of use of the vicious drug in Rock county
was obtained Saturday when Janesville police removed a 23-year-old youth to the
state hospital at Mendota for observation. Police learned that he had been
smoking marijuana for about a year, and supplies of the narcotic were taken from
him. First proof of marijuana sales came with Domez (Gomez) arrest and
subsequent confession. Gomez said he had been “hanging around” taverns to
sell his “hopped-up” cigarettes.
A week before Gomez’ arrest, Principal John
Lienhard of the South Beloit high school took steps to warn pupils of the
disastrous effects of using the weed, which lienhard said he has been informed
is readily obtainable here.
“I have been given to understand Lienhard told
the Daily News, that marijuana cigarettes can be purchased at a number of
taverns, and can very definitely be purchased at a certain Beloit
establishment.”
Police Investigate
Beloit police do not feel that there is a
widespread traffic in marijuana here. Chief of Police Robert F. Blumer declared
that “there probably is some around here and probable some has been sold
here.” No complaints concerning the use or sale of the weed have come to his
attention, Blumer said. He declared, however that police are fully aware of the
ease with which this drug traffic is concealed, and stand ready to act on any
evidence that may be obtained concerning it.
Chief of Detectives Herbert A. Schultz of the
police department said that he is investigating a report about a suspected
marijuana vender here. Schultz does not think that the narcotic can be used here
to any extent. “If it were being sold in wholesale quantities, somebody would
be getting violent,”
he said.
It is possible, Schultz admitted, that marijuana
cigarettes may have figured in a recent series of apparently unpremeditated
slashings. Referring to these cases, Schultz said :”There’s something wrong
-- (Continued on Page 3) <
somewhere--none of those people seemed to be very
drunk; they weren’t staggering.”
No reports of the use of marijuana in rural Rock
county, or its sale in rural taverns have been made to his office, Sheriff James
E. Croake said today. Croake said the sheriff’s department will not tolerate
the introduction of the marijuana cigarette with its jurisdiction.
Used Not Widespread
Principal J. H. McNeel of the Beloit high school
said that there is no marijuana problem in the local high school, and that no
special instructions have been given Beloit high school pupils about the effects
of the drug.
“I have no knowledge that any of the pupils
have come in contact with that type of cigarette or that any have been sold in
Beloit,” McNeel said. “I have never talked with a boy or girl I had reason
to suspect had contact with that type of cigaret.”
Like McNeel, Principal Lienhard of South Beloit
declared that so far as he knows none of his pupils has used marijuana or has
been solicited to purchase it. “But,” said Lienhard, “I have information
from some of my students and from members of my Sunday school class who say they
know that marijuana exists here.” Lienhard said that he was told by a
“reliable source” of “ a .South Beloit girl who is a slave to the
marijuana cigaret right now.” He said there can be little doubt of the
authenticity of piece of information, adding that the marijuana victim in
question is not a school pupil.
The South Beloit school principal reported that
one of the boys in his Second Congregational church Sunday school class told him
that another boy had asked him if he ever tried marijuana. The Sunday school
pupil said that that was all of the conversation.
Youngsters Report Sales
“The kids say that you can get the cigarettes
in several taverns,” Lienhard declared. “Youngsters are likely to
exaggerate; but I am convinced that marijuana can be secured in these parts.”
Lienhard told the Daily News that he was informed
that a dealer sough to place marijuana cigarettes in a certain South Beloit
establishment. In this instance, Lienhard said, the answer of the proprietor was
a flat refusal.
The South Beloit school program of warning all
high school pupils of the dangerous and unpredictable effects of the marijuana
cigarette was predicated on information received concerning the sale of the
cigarettes and on articles recently published in a number of periodicals.
Lienhard referred, in particular to an article published in the Reader’s
Digest, for February, which was a condensation of an article appearing in the
July, 1937 issue of the American Magazine.
The article in question was written by H.J.
Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, with Courtney Ryley Cooper.
“Marijuana,” Anslinger writes, “is
comparatively new to the United States and as dangerous as a coiled
rattlesnake…it is the unknown quantity among narcotics. No one knows, when he
smokes it, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler, a mad
insensate, or a murderer.”
Leads to Violence
Anslinger described what happens to some young
marijuana addict as follows:
“Last year a young marijuana addict was hanged
in Baltimore for criminal assault on a 10-year-old girl. In Chicago, two
marijuana-smoking boys murdered a policeman. In Florida, police found a youth
staggering about in a human slaughterhouse. With an axe he had killed his
father, mother, two brothers, and a sister. he had no recollection of having
committed a crime. Ordinarily a sane, rather quiet young man, he had become
crazed from smoking marijuana. In at least two dozen comparatively recent cases
of murder or degenerate sex attacks, marijuana proved to be a contributing
cause.”
Anslinger emphasized “need for unceasing
watchfulness by every local police department and by every civic organization”
in the fight against the drug, and advocates educational campaigns in this
connection.
“There should be campaigns of education in
every school, so that children will not be deceived by the wiles of peddlers,
but will know of the insanity, the disgrace, the horror which marijuana can
bring to its victims.”
The
American Scholar, Volume 9, No. 1, Winter 1938/39. Copyright 1938 by the Phi
Beta Kappa Society.
Marihuana By MAUD A. MARSHALL
MARIHUANA, which because of its increasingly
popular use in this country has received so much attention of late in our
newspapers and magazine articles, is not a new drug. It has been known and
extensively used for 3000 years in the Far East. For marihuana is no other than
hashish, a narcotic derived from the leaves, flowers and resin of the hemp plant
which is grown for its fiber and its seed. Originally indigenous to Central
Asia, hemp has been distributed far over the world, in temperate as well as in
warm regions. It has long been found growing as an introduced weed in waste
places in the United States and has recently been cultivated here illegally for
the drug, marihuana. The word hashish we associate either with life in the Far
East or with a relatively restricted class of drug addicts in our own country.
It inspires feelings of horror and repugnance which the new word marihuana, used
in connection with more familiar surroundings, fails as yet to arouse. By
whatever name it may be called, however, the hemp drug well deserves to be
feared and dreaded. In an effort to acquaint people with the dangers involved in
smoking marihuana an energetic drive, led by our Federal Bureau of Narcotics and
the Opium Advisory Committee of the League of Nations, is on.
In Far Eastern countries the active drug
principles of the; hemp plant are used in various ways. Most commonly the dried
flowers of the plant (ganja) or the resin (charas) are mixed with tobacco and
smoked, and the dried leaves (bhang) are soaked in water and the infusion taken
as a beverage. Sometimes one of these preparations is mixed with sugar to form
at confection, the Gaiety Pills of the Sanskrit writings. In the United States
the leaves, flowers and resin of the hemp are usually dried, mixed with tobacco
and made into cigarettes.
Why marihuana-smoking should have become so
suddenly fashionable in the United States is a riddle not easy to answer. Only
since 1930 have our officers of law and order considered marihuana-smoking a
serious problem, and satisfactory statistics as to its use here have been and
are difficult to secure. All workers in the field of narcotics, whether
concerned with the psychological, spiritual, physical, legal or sociological
side of addiction, emphasize the difficulty of estimating the extent of a
practice necessarily secretive in nature. The estimates vary enormously, giving
rise to widely contradictory reports. Some claim that as much as 25 per cent of
the population in some of our southern cities are habitual users. Large seizures
of the drug in one form or another have been made in all sections of the United
States. In spite of inadequate laws for the control of marihuana a single state
destroyed 100 tons of it in I 936. Hemp has been discovered concealed between
rows of corn in the prison yards of San Quentin and Colorado State, in
window-boxes of New York penthouses and in city lots in the Bronx. Undoubtedly
marihuana-smoking is widespread. Some say the habit was brought to New York and
other large cities by "popular" musicians, who had found in Mexico the
cigarette capable of so distorting the sense of time that the rapid and
difficult technique of "hot" music could be managed without
consciousness of speed or super-agility. Perhaps the recent business depression
played some part in determining the moment for the spread of marihuana. It may
be that traffic in other narcotic drugs had become so restricted by 1930 as to
create an increasing demand for the cheaper and less-feared marihuana. Whatever
the cause of the apparent sudden increase in this drug habit, the use of
marihuana is growing with such rapidity that within a mere decade it has become
a real menace, serious particularly because of its attraction for young people,
who turn to it as an aid to the break down of conventional restraint and for
artificial thrills are "kicks." People of greater maturity feel less
need of continue excitement and confirmed addicts of other drugs are seldom
satisfied by marihuana, but young people are susceptible victim.
The obvious and immediate effects produced by the
hemp narcotic are release of inhibitions, weakening of will, increased
amenableness to suggestion and exaggerated sense of well-being and gaiety.
Depending on the dosage and on the mental and emotional nature of the individual
concerned, subsequent effects may be apparently harmless or markedly
deleterious. All the senses are affected; colors become more vivid, sounds are
intensified, time seems long and space limitless. Because the drug dulls the
nerves it gives general relief from pain. In many instances the preliminary
stimulation soon gives way to apprehension, and to a terror and feeling of
persecution which not infrequently lead to violence and crime, sexual
aberrations or even suicide. When sleep comes it may be peaceful or it may be
disturbed by dreams varying from those of great subjective pleasure to others of
extreme horror. Awakening is not generally accompanied by unpleasant
after-effects. Individuals vary greatly in their reaction to this drug;
seemingly there is no way of predicting how any particular person will be
affected. Repeated use of it has led to mental weakness, dullness and an
insanity either of a violent sort in which the victim is pursued by terrible
sense-illusions, with insomnia and acute mania, or of an imbecile-lethargic
kind, resulting in incurable dementia. Physically, addiction to
marihuana-smoking is likely to cause bronchitis, dysentery, increased
susceptibility to lung diseases, an insecure gait and emaciation. Destructive
changes in the brain are sometimes evident. Children of addicts are said to be
inferior; in some parts of India, where hashish has long been used to excess,
whole communities are imbecilic and morally degraded. A secondary and more
serious evil is directly traceable to marihuana: this drug seldom continues to
satisfy and often leads to the use of other and more dangerous narcotics. The
manner in which hashish acts on the body is as much of a mystery as the action
of other drugs. Many theories have been suggested but none fully explains the
phenomenon of narcosis. The present educational campaign against the popular
smoking of marihuana might be less difficult to wage if the case against hashish
were as strong as that against morphine, heroin, laudanum, cocaine and other
drugs that have been legally restricted in this country much longer than
marihuana. Dangerous as is the hemp drug it is riot so insidious as the opium
poppy. There is, for example, disagreement as to whether marihuana is
habit-forming in the physiological sense. A person accustomed to using it
regularly may be suddenly deprived of it without experiencing depression,
exhaustion, physical pain or death, which sometimes follow withdrawal of
morphine or heroin. Physically the marihuana habit may be broken by simple
abstinence, although psychologically the craving for the drug may become so
overpowering that the victim will resort to criminal action to secure the stuff.
But this habit does not grow with the rapidity of the opium habit; tolerance,
requiring constantly increasing doses, is not so quickly acquired. As has
already been noted, sleep produced by marihuana leaves no hangover with the
return of consciousness. Again, the onset of physical degeneration caused by
continued smoking of hemp appears to be long delayed. Several years may pass
before deterioration becomes obvious. One hashish addict, admittedly an unusual
case, lived for 20 years in spite of excessive use of the drug. Eventually,
however, he died insane. Finally, though symptoms may be alarming, no case of
death from an overdose of hashish appears
to have been recorded.
Although scientific study of the pharmacology of
the hemp drug dates only from the middle of the 19th century it is not
infrequently mentioned in ancient writings as affording solace in distress,
arousing religious hallucinations, inciting to violence or leading to excessive
gaiety. The hemp plant existed in Syria at least 700 years before the beginning
of the Christian era and much earlier than that in Persia and India. The Vedas
and the Mahabharata frequently mention hemp and bhanga[1], the drink made from
it. The Greeks had a word for it, kavvaiVw,
to smoke with hemp. Some have suggested that Homer's nepenthe was hashish. .
Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, took other counsel.
Straightway she cast into the wine of which they were drinking a drug [
nepenthe] to quiet all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill.
Whoso should drink this down when it is mingled in the bowl would not in the
course of that day let a tear fall down over his cheeks, no, not though his
mother and father should lie there dead, or though before his face men should
slay with the sword his brother or dear son, and his eyes beheld it. [2]
Herodotus wrote of vapor-baths formed by throwing
hemp-seed on hot stones: "the Scythians, transported by the vapor, shout
aloud." Mohammedans have long employed hashish as an intoxicant, since wine
is forbidden them, and the drug is reported to have been in regular use in the
religious ritual of some Mohammedan sects. Our word assassin is believed to be
derived from the Arabian word, hashshash, "one who has drunk of
hashish."
In modern times accounts of hemp intoxication by
Baudelaire, Balzac, Gautier ana Ludlow, the "minor De Quincy ," were
supplemented by the more scientific reports of Dr. J. Moreau of Tours who
deliberately took hashis[2] The Odyssey, Book 4-. Translated by Murray, A. T.
h for the purpose of studying its effects. The
Hemp Drugs Commission of India, investigating consequences of this drug in a
country where its use is closely interwoven with religious and social customs,
reported (1893) that moral depravity was produced and intensified and physical
and mental injury was brought on by the immoderate use of hashish.
With the recently increasing use of marihuana in
the United States opportunities for study have become frequent, at least among
the criminal class of users, but reports are still contradictory. Many
authorities believe that drug addicts constitute the major class of our
criminals, that they are the most violent and most frequent offenders and that
the smoking of marihuana actually produces crime, especially sex attacks and
murders. In 1934, out of a group of 450 prisoners in New Orleans, 125 in were
marihuana addicts. Nearly one-half of the murders committed in that city were
ascribed to them. Other investigators are convinced, however, that marihuana
exerts no such direct action but that its effect is due to the release of
inhibitions, and that where crime results the tendency to it was present
beforehand.
The legal control of marihuana is more difficult
than that of most drugs. In the first place the hemp plant may occur as a weed
almost anywhere in our country and may easily be secretly cultivated in almost
any soil. Its eradication is retarded by the general failure to recognize the
plant. [3] In the second place the hemp plant has so many legitimate commercial
uses ( as sources of fiber, birdseed, oil, etc.) and it grows so readily as a
weed that it cannot be absolutely prohibited by law. All permissible uses must
of course be protected by legislation directed against the marihuana drug. The
Harrison Narcotic Act of the United States Congress, passed in 1914, prohibited
the importation of opium poppy and coca leaf, except for medical purposes, but
it did not outlaw hemp in any form. Arrests for the misuse of marihuana could
therefore he made only when provisions of the Pure Food and Drugs Act had been
violated--that is, when adulterated or misbranded goods were offered for
shipment between states. Although many states had enacted legislation directed
against marihuana their laws were not uniform and were on the whole totally
inadequate. The need for federal legislation concerning the newly popular drug
became increasingly apparent and at length the Marihuana Tax Act was passed in
the summer of 1937.
Under the terms of this act the word marihuana is
defined to cover every part of the hemp plant, whether growing or not capable of
yielding the poisonous drug. It does not cover the harmless stalk used for
fiber, the oil from the seed, and the seedcake. It requires that seed to be used
for birds must be subjected to heat treatment to render them incapable of
growth. Since it is only through taxation that our federal government has power
to act, the law stipulates that "with the exception of federal, state and
municipal officials, every person who imports, manufactures, produces,
compounds, sells, deals in, dispenses, prescribes, administers or gives away
cannabis or any preparation or derivative thereof covered by the act must
register annually in the office of the collector of internal revenue and pay the
prescribed tax." These records must be at all times open to state and
federal officials and, on written request, to any person. The control of illicit
traffic will be greatly facilitated by thus making public all dealings in
marihuana. Already many arrests have been made under this law; but too often the
penalties, in cases of conviction, have fallen far short of the stated maximum
of five years imprisonment or a fine of $5000 or both.
Our government stands in a peculiar position in
regard to the marihuana question. The elimination of addiction to other drugs
depends largely on rigid law-enforcement and the detection of smuggling at our
national boundaries. In hemp the, United States has for the first time a drug
plant growing at random throughout the countryside-a drug plant that is also
cultivated (some 10,000 acres of it) for a commercial purpose, its fiber.
Experiments are now in progress to breed out the poisonous narcotic principle
from the hemp plant; but even if these are successful the process of achieving
any reduction in the supply of marihuana must necessarily be slow. Only the full
and intelligent cooperation of the people of the country can cope with the
marihuana problem now confronting us.
[1] It is interesting to note that the Sanskrit
word "bhanga" primarily meant frustration, humiliation, downfall,
ruin, paralysis.
[2] The Odyssey, Book 4-. Translated by Murray,
A. T.
[3] The hemp plant, cannabis sativa, is a rough
branching annual which at flowering time may be from 3 to 16 feet in height. The
thick stems and nearly erect branches are not easily broken, for their inner
bark, from which the hemp fiber of commerce is obtained, is tough and stringy.
The plant is most readily recognized by its leaves; each has a distinct stem or
petiole which bears at its tip, arranged digitately, 5 or 7 narrow, thin and
flexible leaf segments, each with a conspicuous midrib; they are sharply pointed
at both ends and their margins are saw-toothed or serrate. Hemp is dioecious:
staminate (male) and pistillate (female) flowers are not borne together on the
same plant. Both flowers are small, green, insignificant in appearance and have
a characteristic odor. The staminate flowers are loosely arranged in panicles
between 3 and 5 inches long whereas the pistillate flowers grow in erect spikes
less than an inch long when mature. The seeds are ovoid, with hard and brittle
coats.
The
Literary Digest - Oct 24, 1936
Topic of the day - FACTS AND fancies about
marihuana
It's Non-Habit-Forming and Gives Users Delusions
of Grandeur
ANCIENT FABLE: Three men, one under the influence
of alcohol, another steeped in opium, a third intoxicated by marihuana, arrived
one night at the closed gates of a Persian city. "Let us break down the
gates!" roared the drunkard. "Nay," said the opium eater.
"Let us rest until morning, when we may enter through the wide-flung
portals." "You may do as you wish," was the decision of the
omnipotent marihuana addict. "But I shall stroll through the keyhole."
MODERN FACT: Five tons Of Marihuana weed, pitchforked into a -police cell as
legal evidence, sent dry, sweet fumes through the Dundalk, Maryland,
station-house last week. Police and Federal agents who had raided a farm just
over the Battimore city line, said the crop was worth $1,000,000 oil the retail
market. Along with two Mexicans, they garnered in 345 pounds of dried marihuana
leaves worth about $20,000. U. S. Addicts --While newspaper head-lines barked,
research workers dug into files giving some indication of the proportion of the
world's 200,000,000 "weed" smokers in this country:
The Kansas City Star charges that
marihuana is being smoked by students in the Kansas City high schools, and in
the University of Kansas.
The Tulsa (Okla.) Tribune reports the
home of a Mexican hot-tamale salesman, recently arrested, was a dope den for
boys and girls of high-school age.
The New York Daily News says that
twenty-three-year-old R D, socially prominent, arrested on a Harlem corner
acquired the marihuana habit at Amherst College.
The Chicago Daily News tells of seizure
by cops of 40,000 marihuana cigarettes. ..intended for sale to schoolchildren,
a fine trade having been worked up among these striplings.
The New York Times and other papers
announce discovery of marihuana growing in San Quentin (Calif.) Prison yard.
Some had been harvested and smoked by the convicts.
Confusion--From files of magazines, police
records and books on drugs, lurid stories tell of the horror that is marihuana;
others point out that it is not enslaving, as are other drugs; that in India it
is considered a gift from the gods and has been used in religious ceremonies for
centuries. The high degree of misinformation regarding marihuana has left the
general public in ignorance; even among officials, there is confusion: Continual
use is known to produce a violent type of insanity which has brought to it the
name 'loco weed,"' wrote V. Lewitus in the July, 1936, issue of the
American Journal of Nursing. "The subject suddenly will turn with murderous
violence upon whomever is nearest him. He will run amuck with knife, ax, gun or
anything that is at hand. ...After the sudden outburst wears away, the memory is
left blank, and the victim of these narcotic effects returns to normal."
[picture]
Investigation-on the other hand, Dr. Walter
Bromberg, senior psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, New York, wrote: "
where 2,216 criminals convicted of felonies were examined psychiatrically, not
one case of confirmed marihuana addiction was noted. ...Of the 361 individuals
diagnose as psychopathic personalities in the routine examination, thirty-two (9
per cent.) were drug addicts, and of these, only seven bad smoked marihuana for
any period of time.
"None of the assault cases could be
said to have been committed under the drug's influence. Of
the sexual crimes, there was none due to
marihuana intoxication. ...It is clear -from this study
that in this region the drug is a breeder
of crime only when used by psychopathic types in whom in
the drug allows the emergence of
aggressive, sexual or antisocial tendencies. ...It is quite
probable that alcohol is more responsible
as an agent for crime than is marihuana."
The following facts stand out in social and
medical reports:
I. Marihuana is not a habit-forming drug, as is
heroin or opium.
2. It prolongs sensations; it is in high favor as
an aphrodisiac.
3. It is the most inexpensive of drugs; marihuana
cigarettes usually selling at from three to twenty- five cents each.
Song and Story- The story of marihuana cigarettes
-commonly called "mooties" oorr "reefers' –is unparalleled.
Practically unheard of in this country a dozen years ago, they are today a
byword at intimate Hollywood parties, in Bobemian-artistic hang-outs, in the hot
-spots of New York's Harlem and along CChicago's South Wabash Avenue. It has
become a factor in song and story.
Last year, the show "Flying Colors"
introduced a song, "Smoking Reefers"; most sensuous of rhumbas is
"Marawanna"; over the air via Cab Callowa any night may come the
Harlem favorite: That Funny Reefer Man." "Any time he gets a notion,
he can walk across the ocean,"from one of the songs, is a fair
approximation of the drug's effect, better, perhaps, than the voluminous ac-
counts of the drug's therapeutic properties which appear in the ancient
literature of the Chinese, on the clay tablets of the Assyrians, or in histories
'written by Romans and Greeks. For nearly all modern investigators declare that
bemp (marihuana) intoxication is of a nature not- suited to any known
vocabulary; no two persons have ever recorded .identical symp- toms.
The
Literary Digest - Oct 24, 1936
Topic of the day - FACTS AND fancies about
marihuana
It's Non-Habit-Forming and Gives Users Delusions
of Grandeur
ANCIENT FABLE: Three men, one under the
influence of alcohol, another steeped in opium, a third intoxicated by
marihuana, arrived one night at the closed gates of a Persian city.
"Let us break down the gates!" roared
the drunkard. "Nay," said the opium eater. "Let us rest until
morning, when we may enter through the wide-flung portals." "You may
do as you wish," was the decision of the omnipotent marihuana addict.
"But I shall stroll through the keyhole."
MODERN FACT: Five tons Of Marihuana weed,
pitchforked into a -police cell as legal evidence, sent dry, sweet fumes through
the Dundalk, Maryland, station-house last week. Police and Federal agents who
had raided a farm just over the Baltimore city line, said the crop was worth
$1,000,000 oil the retail market. Along with two Mexicans, they garnered in 345
pounds of dried marihuana leaves worth about $20,000.
U. S. Addicts -- While newspaper
head-lines barked, research workers dug into files giving some indication of the
proportion of the world's 200,000,000 "weed" smokers in this country:
The Kansas City Star charges that
marihuana is being smoked by students in the Kansas City high schools, and in
the University of Kansas.
The Tulsa (Okla.) Tribune reports the
home of a Mexican hot-tamale salesman, recently arrested, was a dope den for
boys and girls of high-school age.
The New York Daily News says that
twenty-three-year-old R D----, socially prominent, arrested on a Harlem corner
acquired the marihuana habit at Amherst College.
The Chicago Daily News tells of seizure
by cops of 40,000 marihuana cigarettes . . . intended for sale to
schoolchildren, a fine trade having been worked up among these striplings.
The New York Times and other papers
announce discovery of marihuana growing in San Quentin (Calif.) Prison yard.
Some had been harvested and smoked by the convicts.
Confusion -- From files of magazines,
police records and books on drugs, lurid stories tell of the horror that is
marihuana; others point out that it is not enslaving, as are other drugs; that
in India it is considered a gift from the gods and has been used in religious
ceremonies for centuries. The high degree of misinformation regarding marihuana
has left the general public in ignorance; even among officials, there is
confusion:
Continual use is known to produce a violent type
of insanity which has brought to it the name 'loco weed,'" wrote V. Lewitus
in the July, 1936, issue of the American Journal of Nursing. "The subject
suddenly will turn with murderous violence upon whomever is nearest him. He will
run amuck with knife, ax, gun or anything that is at hand. . . . After the
sudden outburst wears away, the memory is left blank, and the victim of these
narcotic effects returns to normal."
[ A double exposed picture of a Negro. He appears to be on an acid trip]
Caption reads -- "Have you ever seen that
funny reefer man? He says he swam to China . . . " sings Cab Calloway -
Bert Longworth in "U.S. Camera"
Investigation -- on the other hand, Dr.
Walter Bromberg, senior psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital, New York, wrote:
" where 2,216 criminals convicted of felonies were examined
psychiatrically, not one case of confirmed marihuana addiction was noted. . . .
Of the 361 individuals diagnose as psychopathic personalities in the routine
examination, thirty-two (9 per cent.) were drug addicts, and of these, only
seven bad smoked marihuana for any period of time.
"None of the assault cases could be said to
have been committed under the drug's influence. Of the sexual crimes, there was
none due to marihuana intoxication. . . . It is clear - from this study that in
this region the drug is a breeder of crime only when used by psychopathic types
in whom in the drug allows the emergence of aggressive, sexual or antisocial
tendencies. . . . It is quite probable that alcohol is more responsible as an
agent for crime than is marihuana."
The following facts stand out in social and
medical reports:
I. Marihuana is not a habit-forming drug, as is
heroin or opium.
2. It prolongs sensations; it is in high favor as
an aphrodisiac.
3. It is the most inexpensive of drugs; marihuana
cigarettes usually selling at from three to twenty-five cents each.
Song and Story- The story of marihuana cigarettes
- commonly called "mooties" oor "reefers' --is unparalleled.
Practically unheard of in this country a dozen years ago, they are today a
byword at intimate Hollywood parties, in Bobemian-artistic hang-outs, in the hot
-spots of New York's Harlem and along CChicago's South Wabash Avenue. It has
become a factor in song and story.
Last year, the show "Flying Colors"
introduced a song, "Smoking Reefers"; most sensuous of rhumbas is
"Marawanna"; over the air via Cab Callowa any night may come the
Harlem favorite: "That Funny Reefer Man."
"Any time he gets a notion, he can walk
across the ocean," from one of the songs, is a fair approximation of the
drug's effect, better, perhaps, than the voluminous accounts of the drug's
therapeutic properties which appear in the ancient literature of the Chinese, on
the clay tablets of the Assyrians, or in histories written by Romans and Greeks.
For nearly all modern investigators declare that hemp (marihuana) intoxication
is of a nature not suited to any known vocabulary; no two persons have ever
recorded identical symptoms.
First Effects -- After smoking from one to
three "reefers," if one has not been told what to expect, the first
effects of the drug pass almost unnoticed -- nothing, perhaps, but a. slight
twitching of muscles of the neck, back or legs. The mind remains calm and clear.
Suddenly, without apparent cause, a chance remark -- "mootie" smoking
is a social pastime -- sends the subject into a spasm of violent laughter.
Becoming calm again, while the drug continues to
exert its weird effects, the smoker finds ideas crowding through his brain with
bewildering rapidity; those around him become slow-dull. Nor is the language of
his own tongue swift enough to keep pace with his lightning thoughts.
Soon the self-esteem of the smoker begins to grow
in like proportion. He may be a petty clerk in a down-town office by day; but
now be looks down with Olympian scorn on the doddering steps, the empty
banalities of his boss of some eon long ago.
Teeming Thoughts -- Paradoxically,
trifling discomforts become unbearable evils; the flare of a match near-by
brings a resentment that is immediately transformed into an Overwhelming desire
for revenge. But before the "reefer man" could possibly climb to his
feet, or even reach a band for a gun or knife, new thoughts have come crowding
in. Perhaps the most causal interest in one of the girls present has become
passionate love.
Above all other distinguishing effects of
marihuana intoxication is the fact that all normal conceptions of time and space
are lost.
As in the split-second dream that seems to last
the night through, time seems of interminable length; the clock stands still for
days.
Fancies -- Vision, too takes on new
concepts. Inconsiderable distances become tremendous; the smallest studio-room
takes on proportions dwarfing those Hollywood exhibits in exaggeration of a
millionaire’s ballroom.
An ordinary man or woman becomes beautiful beyond
compare.
Yet, thoughout the intoxication, there fancies
rushing though the mind are not natural, but purely the effects of the drug;
unlike the opium-cater, he is acutely conscious of those about him. He has many
of the sensations of the gay ”drunk” at the ball.
Parties -- While whites often buy
“reefers” in Negro night-clubs, planning to smoke them elsewhere, sometimes
they manage to gain entrance to a mixed-color party. The most talked of
“reefer” parties -- excluding those of Hollywood -- take place in Harlem.
Early in the morning, when night-club singers, musicians and dancers are thought
work, they gather informally -- these affares apparently are never arranged --
and have a few drinks.
With their uncanny power for wheedling melody out
of even the worst pianos, it isn’t long before the crowd is humming, solftly
clapping hands or dancing in sensuous rhythms that have never been seen in
night-clubs. There is little noise; windows are shut, keeping the smell of
smoking weeds away from what might be curious nostrils.
Nor is there any of the yelling, dashing about,
playing of crude jokes or physical violence that often accompany alcoholic
parties; under the effects of marihuana, one has a dread of all these things.
Sensuous pleasure is the beginning and the end”
“Let us enjoy pleasure while we can; pleasure is never long enough” -- as
Propertius put it.
Facts About Marihuana --Known by many
names -- hashish, Indian hemp, Indian hay moota and (incorrectly) loco weed, its
scientific name is cannabis sativa.
The plant is a big, hardy weed which thrives with
little cultivation in almost all temperate and tropical parts of the country.
Supposedly, it was introduced into the United
States from Mexico.
In the United States it is cultivated for four
purposes: (1) for the fiber out of which rope, twine, cloth and hats are made;
(2) for the seed from which a rapidly-drying paint oil is made; (3) as a
narcotic in pharmaceutical preparations; (4) as a constituent in commercial
bird-seed.
No Federal law obstructs the raising and use of
cannabis sative; but thirty-four States and the Territory of Hawaii have
statutes regulating the cultivation, sale and possession of marihuana.
Principal consumers in the United States are
Negroes, Mexican, Puerto Ricans, Spaniards, West Indians, East Indians. Some
artists and writers use it -- maintain it gives them new concepts of color or
plotting.
There price range, from three cents to as high
(occasionally) as fifty cents, depends upon (1) the marihuana content of the
cigarette; (2) what the traffic will bear.
An
original, “The Menace of Marihuana” by Albert Parry, to my knowledge the
first “Reefer Madness” article ever published by any American magazine. The
year is 1935; But the dis-information campaign is already well under way, and
very well organized.
Highlights of the article:
+ “A school supply store was discovered selling
reefers to boys and girls, some of whom had become temporarily blinded by the
weed.”
+ “That reefers are known - - - can be seen
from the roll call of marihuana patients in a New York hospital.”
+ “A Negro - - had run after and threatened two
women in the street while under the influence of reefers”
You’ll noticed that the word “WEED” is well
used, and I like the prophetic ending; “It could hardly be said that the
rights of individual states would be endangered if congress recognized marihuana
as a drug - - and passed an act prohibiting its growth and sale.” Now we know
what happened to California’s Prop 215.
The American Mercury – Dec 1935
“The Menace of Marihuana” – By Albert Parry
- p487
It is not generally known that marihuana, the
smoking of which in this country has been on the rapid increase, is the same
drug as hashish. Both are derived from the same hemp plant of the cannabis
sativa class. From the Orient comes our word “assassin,” and out there it
sprang from the word “hashish.” In Malay, natives under the influence of
hashish are said to run amuck:; there, the words “hashish” and “amuck”
are synonyms. Hence, the danger presented by the growing consumption of
marihuana in America.
Dr. Walter Bromberg, Senior Psychiatrist of
Bellevue Hospital, New York, who has made a comprehensive study of the addiction
in this country, remarks. “British investigators in India tell us that hashish
does not bring out the excitement or hysterical symptoms in Anglo-Saxons that
occur in native users. But marihuana or hashish smoking as a mass phenomenon
among the Anglo-saxons is comparatively new.” So new, in fact, that few
statistics have been gathered on the subject as yet. But in the south, where the
practice is older, we already have many marihuana smokers who suffer from
extreme inertness or violent irritability, both conditions leading to a
disintegration of personality. In a few years we may have the same mass
condition in the Northern states.
The spread of marihuana smoking in the Southern
belt is described by an elderly doctor who states that whereas thirty-five years
ago the frequency of narcotic addiction in his medical practice was in the order
of morphine, cocaine, chloral, bromide, now it is the barbituric acid group
first, marihuana second. The role of the latter as a crime instigator is
suggested by the report of the public prosecutor in New Orleans who in 1930
found that of 450 prisoners he dealt with, 125 were marihuana addicts. Slightly
less than half of the murderers, about twenty percent of the larceny men and
about eighteen per cent of the robbery prisoners smoked what they called Merry
Wonder. A recent report from Denver stated: “Most crimes of violence in this
section, especially in country districts, are laid to users of marihuana.”
The loco weed of the Southwest is the same hemp
that produces marihuana; The sinister meaning of the old statement “gone
loco,” may now well apply to the new crop of addicts. The smoke and smell of
the drug are not unlike those of burning hay, and many American users call it
Indian hay, for it arrived here from Mexico by way of the southwest where the
Indians have been known to grow and smoke it. The present-day menace of the drug
is enhanced by the fact that the economics of marihuana growth and sale is
simple: the low price of the weed, as compared with the high cost of other
drugs, is the main reason for its rapid spread. The hemp plant grows wild or can
be cultivated almost anywhere in the United States. The illicit growers conceal
patches of the plant amid the tall tassels of corn, or in fields of sugar beets,
or alfalfa, or any other harmless weed. Vacant lots in big cities are handy; a
marihuana field of this type was recently discovered in Brooklyn – the
authorities had it burned, and peddlers in Harlem set the value of the crop lost
at $50,000. On at least one occasion a marihuana patch was discovered in the
truck garden of an inland American penitentiary.
If the plant remains undiscovered until it
blossoms, the crop is gathered, dried, and made into cigarettes. The average
price per cigarette is fifteen cents, but in large cities it is sometimes as low
as two cigarettes for a quarter, and even a dime or nickel each. The cigarettes
are known as reefers, and their peddlers as reefer men. The surreptitious sale
goes on in pool-rooms, beer gardens, tobacco stores, and cheap restaurants. In
Chicago a school supply store was discovered selling reefers to boys and girls,
some of whom had become temporarily blinded by the weed. In Denver, reefer men
peddled among the local high school pupils, skillfully appealing to their
adolescent bravado. Some smokers are even younger than high school age. A report
from a Detroit newspaper tells of local Mexicans who grow the weed in rural
districts nearby, and of one of their peddlers, an American woman. She gives the
reefers to her own children to sell to their schoolmates.
Of the youthful smokers in New York a
representative example was afforded by a boy of sixteen, a novice in the Hudson
Dusters gang. He said that while smoking reefers he felt happy and light as if
he were running or walking on air; but his family on bringing him to a hospital,
revealed that for two months he had been apprehensive, scratching his hands
nervously, praying constantly, complaining that somebody was reading his
thoughts. Psychologists may well suggest that these youths take to marihuana
because there is a certain vacuum in their lives which the present-day family
and school cannot fill. The same paucity of aims made marihuana popular in the
south.
Among the sickly aesthetes, the wee – as
hashish – had been known long before the Mexicans and Indians introduced it.
In the first Bohemian group in new York, in the 1850’s and ‘60’s,
Fitzshugh Ludlow smoked the drug and published his confessions. The son of a
clergyman and himself planning to take the orders, he changed his mind, writing:
“The sublime avenues in spiritual life, at whose gates the soul in its
ordinary state is forever blindly grouping, are opened widely by hashish.”
However, when he died it was at the early age of thirty-four, and of lungs and
nerves ruined by the same drug.
In the Greenwich Village of the 1920’s hashish
parties were not infrequent. That reefers are known in the Village of the
1930’s can be seen from the roll call of marihuana patients in a New York
hospital. Here is a man who mumbles that thoughts slip away from him
“centrifugally as they do on the ferris wheel at Coney Island.” Here is an
artist’s model in her late twenties who was found rolling in a courtyard with
two dogs. She told the police that she had arrived from England, that the liner
was wrecked in mid-ocean, that the passengers were eaten by sharks, one of the
victims recovering without his skin. Her conversation blends hallucination with
literary slang; I saw Phoenix running down the road. .I came down to earth with
the Sun god. . . . I heard voices telling me that I was the lowest thing in
creation. They said I was a rat, that I smelled bad, that I was syphilitic and a
sick cat.” She had nightmares about people who “had been very wicked and
lost their sense of naturalness and they wanted to make machines and forgot all
about beauty and they only made machines to see who could cut the most people .
. . “ She sought beauty in reefers but found only pain and misery.
When a bohemian intellectual boasts that reefers
give him that thousand-and-one-nights-feeling, he means this mostly in the
erotic sense. Some Harlemites, too, smoke the weed as an aphrodisiac. A Negro
was brought to a New York hospital because he had run after and threatened two
women in the street while under the influence of reefers; he said he had seen in
his reefer-dream “a bunch of naked wimmin, some of ’em in bed, black an’
white together, like dey was expectin’ men.”
Harlem cabaret and radio performers smoke reefers
for stimulation. They crack under the strain of unhealthy competition, and take
to the hay to patch up the crack somehow, to keep going. It is said that a
number of radio showfolk, white as well as black, take a puff or two before
broadcasting. Similar reports emanate from Times Square theater dressing rooms.
There is already a number of the socalled reefer
songs, made popular by the cabaret and the reaio: Smokin’ Reefers from the
“Flying Colors” show, with words and music; also Marawanna, a rumba without
words; and most celebrated of all, That Funny Reefer Man, a Cab Calloway song,
but with many variations because almost every Harlem singer makes up his own
ditties to it, all praising the stimulating qualities of the drug.
The non-professionals of Harlem, as well as of
certain white sections of New York, smoke reefers in an unsuccessful attempt to
forget their troubles, economic and otherwise. One of the reefer songs declares
about a smoker that “every time he gets a notion, he can walk across the
ocean.” For the brief moment, a reefer dissipates brooding and gives a feeling
of power and grandeur. In another Harlem song the Negro chants that when he says
he owns a portion of the Rockefeller fortune you will know that he just met That
Funny Reefer man.
One patient in New York is a white man of
twenty-six, vain, boyish, who likes to dress fashionably, likes girls, and they
in turn call him cute. He is married and has children, but whines that he is not
the type to be married. He is miserable, he says, “To puff away the misery,”
chants one of the reefer songs, “To get beyond the worryin’.” Still
another patient is a Negress, an undernourished married woman in her early
twenties, who, while smoking reefers, dreamed that she was “a committee to
meet the Elks right away.” She said she had many robes and rings, saw
beautiful colors and heard marvelous sounds, and that every nation was there
“to reorganize things”. The song tells you to smoke reefers because “you
can’t change this world you were born in.” But in her case, too, there is
the doctor’s notation: “Irritable, sluggish. Acted in a manic manner.
Indefinite ideas of persecution.”
Is there a remedy? Marihuana was until lately
considered a rather harmless weed, of which little was known. Thus, the Harrison
Act – the federal law against traffic in narcotics, passed in 1914 and amended
in 1922 – does not mention the drug. Many states, however, have already taken
the initiative in the prohibition of its use. The federal authorities co-operate
by the preparation of a uniform law of prohibition which they submit to state
legislatures. But perhaps a better answer to the problem is within the power of
congress. It could hardly be said that the rights of individual states would be
endangered if congress recognized marihuana as a drug no less vicious than
opium, cocaine, morphine or heroin, and passed an act prohibiting its growth and
sale.
THE
CHRISTIAN CENTURY - June 29, 1938
Youth
Gone Loco - By Wayne Gard
HIGH
SCHOOL, youngsters who turn to banditry for thrills, girls who leap from
skyscraper windows, striplings who chop their parents to death -- all have their
tragedies spelled; out in front page head lines. But the news stories seldom
tell what brings on the crazes that lead to such crimes. Obviously there may be
many causes, but in a surprising number of instances the villain is marijuana,
the perilous drug that has been sweeping through high schools in many parts of
the United States.
In New Jersey, a young woman recently confessed
that she and a girl companion lad held up and coldly murdered a bus driver. She
had been smoking marijuana cigarettes or “reefers,” she said and didn't know
what she was doing. In Ohio, a gang of seven youngsters who learned to smoke
reefers in high school terrorized a town by making 'thirty-eight holdups.
Because they were drugged at the time, they had trouble in recalling their
crimes. “If I had killed somebody on a job,” said one, "I'd never have
known it."
Murder
While Drugged
In
Florida, marijuana led a young man to kill his father, mother, sister and two
brothers with in axe. The list of holdups, sex crimes, murders and suicides by
marijuana addicts could be multiplied indefinitely. In some districts, inhabited
by Latin Americans, Filipinos, Spaniards and Negroes, half the violent crimes
are attributed to marijuana craze. Dr. Lee Rice of San Antonio reports that
eighty per cent of all the murders committed by Mexicans are done while the
killers are drugged by marijuana.
But although this Indian hemp weed which Asiatics
know as hashish is often associated with Mexican, it is no respecter of races.
Addiction has spread in the last few years to high school groups in nearly every
state. In New York not long ago a federal grand jury indicted sixteen alleged
members of a ring that had been producing and distributing hemp in Minnesota,
Iowa, Chicago and New York City. Investigator found abandoned in fields in Iowa
and Minnesota between 12,000 and 15,000 pounds of harvested hemp -- enough to
make thirty billion cigarettes and to drug the whole population of the United
States.
For the hemp plant that scientists calf cannabis,
and for the narcotic intoxicant derived from it, Americans have borrowed the
Mexican word, marijuana or marihuana -- meaning "Mary Jane." But the
drug has been in circulation since ancient times and was known to Homer and
Herodotus. It has been used by Hindu priests to induce religious hallucination,
and as bhang.or hashish it figures in many stories of The Thousand and One
Nights. It is the drug that commonly causes Malays to run amuck. Indeed our word
"assassin" comes from an Arabic word hashish addict. Today-the drug
plays a leading role in the Mexican folk song, "La: Cucaracha," and in
such cabaret and radio pieces as "Smoking' Reefer,” “That Funny Reefer
Man,” and the wordless rhumba “Marawanna.”
An Ancient Drug
The cannabis plant, which probably originated in
central or western Asia, is an herbaceous annual that attains a height of three
to sixteen feet. It grows rapidly, maturing within three months after the seed
is sown. It has a fibrous stalk, seven-bladed, saw-tooth leaves, small flowers
with a distinct odor, and smooth, globular fruit. Hairs on the leaves and bracts
of the mature plant secrete amber-colored resin that encases the tops in a sort
of protective varnish. This resin contains a substance that, eaten or inhaled
induces a dangerous intoxication.
Cannabis or Indian, hemp was cultivated in
Colonial days as a fiber for homespun. At present it is used commercially in
making twine, rope, hats, textiles, plastics and kinds of paper. For industrial
use, the plant is cut before maturity and contains little of the harmful resin.
Ten thousand acres, mainly in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Kentucky, are
used to produce commercial hemp. Large quantities of the seed, imported from
Manchuria, are used as bird food. Oil from the seed is used in paint, linoleum
and soap.
Marijuana Cigarettes
Introduced through the southwest for narcotic
purposes the plant now grows wild in almost every state and is cultivated for
illicit use in vacant lots and backyards in many cities. Even in populous
sections of New York City, marijuana patches have been found in the last few
years. A fifty-acre field of cultivated marijuana was destroyed within the city
limits of Dallas in the summer of 1937, and a few weeks later plants on 580
acres in south Texas were burned. Officials made 377 marijuana seizures in 1936,
in 31 states. These raids netted 386 tons of growing plants and bulk marijuana
and 15,715 cigarettes.
Marijuana cigarettes are peddled at five cents to
more than fifty cents each, the most common price being fifteen cents or two for
a quarter. Usually the cigarettes are crudely rolled by hand, but tailor-made
ones with pasteboard tips have been found occasionally. Marijuana smoking clubs
have been formed in many dance halls, parks and high schools.
When Homer wrote that marijuana made men forget
their homes and turned them into swine, he used no more than usual poetic
license. Though marijuana is not as hard to break away from as some of the
stronger narcotics, its continued use leads to a strong craving. The drug varies
greatly in its effects on individuals; but the bodily reactions usually include
muscular-trembling, increased heartbeat, accelerated pulse and a ringing in the
ears.
Often the user feels hot in the head, becomes
dizzy and has sensations of cold in the hands and feet. Later he experiences
muscular contractions, constrictions in the chest and dilation of the eye
pupils. These effects lead to either vomiting or stupefaction, followed by
restless sleep filled with bizarre kaleidoscopic visions.
Mental effects, which are even more variable,
commonly include a feeling of exaltation, followed by a delirium in which sense
of space and time is lost. Recent experiments have tended to confirm the
description of marijuana's effects published by Dr. J. Moreau of' Tours nearly a
century ago. He listed eight stages: first euphoria, or unnatural
lightheartedness; second, excitation, dissociation of ideas, and exaggeration of
emotions; third, illusion in regard to time and space; fourth, auditory
insensibility in which musical sound is distorted; filth, fixation of ideas
derived from nearby stimuli; sixth, overbalancing emotional disturbances;
seventh, impulses to commit irresponsible acts; eight, varied and often
terrifying hallucination.
Effect on the Mind
With effects that vary from fits of idiotic
laughter to the wildest sexual debauchery, anything can happen. In his annual
report, H. J. Anslinger, United States commissioner of narcotics, writes,
"The principal effect of the drug is upon the mind, which seems to lose the
power of directing and controlling thought. Its continued use produces mental
deterioration in many cases. Its more immediate effect apparently is to remove
the normal inhibitions of the individual and release any antisocial tendencies
which may be present. Those Who indulge in its. habitual use eventually develop
a delirious rage after its administration, during which time they are,
temporarily at least, irresponsible and prone to commit violent crimes.
The illusion of time and space is especially
dangerous to automobile drives. The drugged motorist is likely to think a bridge
or a train is much father away than it is, and he may assume that he is going
only twenty miles an hour when he is hitting seventy. This illusion also
accounts for the common use of marijuana by players in “hot” dance
orchestras. Marijuana makes the beat seem to come much slower than it does and
enables the musician to play at a furious speed, interpolating as many as a
dozen notes in the time normally allowed for one.
In Egypt and India continued use of marijuana has
been known to cause many cases of mental derangement and insanity, some medical
authorities considering it more potent than opium in this respect. The influence
of marijuana as a cause of crime would be hard to overestimate. With the victim
experiencing hallucination and violent rages, he is likely to run-amuck and
commit crimes he would not have nerve enough to attempt if he were in his right
mind.
Legal Forces in -Action
Reports of the bureau of narcotics list stores of
murders and other crimes committed by marijuana addicts. In Baltimore, a young
man, sentenced to be hanged for criminal assault on ten-year-old girl, testified
that he had been temporarily insane from smoking marijuana cigarettes. In
Columbus, Ohio, a man sentenced to the electric chair for robbing and murdering
a hotel clerk, made the same plea of' insanity from marijuana. In New Jersey, a
similar, but ineffectual excuse was made by a young man sentenced to a long
prison term for killing another youth and smashing his head and face to a pulp.
A New Orleans prosecutor attributes half that
city’s murders to marijuana addiction, and similar reports come from Denver
and other cities. The marijuana invasion, coming almost entirely in the last
decade, caught legislators and police off officials unprepared.
No mention of this drug was made in the Harrison
narcotics act, passed in 1914 and amended in 1922. The same was true of the
Hague Opium Convention of 1912 and the Narcotics Limitation Convention of 1931.
Even today, few local policemen know the marijuana plant when they see it.
In the last few years, however, both the state
legislature and Congress have taken steps to cope with the marijuana peril. A
uniform narcotics law, which applies to marijuana, has been enacted in more than
half the states; and all the others now have some sort of restriction on sale of
the drug, though loopholes are still available in some instances. The demand for
a federal check on marijuana resulted in adoption of the marijuana revenue act
of 1937.
This act, which I became effective October 1,
1937, is ostensibly an internal revenue measure but should have some indirect
effect in limiting the marijuana plant and its products to industrial and
medicinal channels. Legitimate producers, importers and dealers are required to
register and to pay an occupational tax. An unregistered vender is subject to a
tax of $ioo per ounce on all the marijuana he sells. If he fails to pay this, he
is liable to penalties that run to a maximum of two years in prison and $5,000
fine. Severe penalties are provided also for unregistered production.
Several years may be needed to test the
effectiveness of this act, but it already has resulted in numerous raids and
arrests, with indictments in a number of important cases. Complete wiping out of
the marijuana menace however, will require increased vigilance on the part of
parents and policemen. Marijuana addiction has become so widespread that its
eradication cannot safely be left entirely to a skeleton force of federal
narcotics agents.
MUSEUM
OF REEFER MADNESS MAGAZINE LIST: last update = July 11, 2001
Note: Obtained in Photocopy form:
- * (means) the magazine has been bought and
is on order.
**(means) a physical copy of the
magazine is available.
Reefer Madness Rating System:
In order to better utilize this index, a Reefer
Madness rating system (specifying the degree of dis-information) has been
devised. A plus 4 (or four star) rating is a worst case example, (while under
the influence of marihuana, that individual grabbed and axe and chopped that
poor woman’s head off, kind of thing.) A zero rating, indicates that the
[5 Star], the worst form of Reefer
Madness article, while under the influence of marihuana that individual
grabbed an axe and chopped that poor woman’s head off, kind of story.
[4-Star], almost as bad as a 5 star
rating, but they left out the guy with the axe. Usually a high ranking
narcotics official is quoted or praised
[3-Star] These articles use wording
like, “While scientist disagree about the affects of Marihuana, still the
Law enforcement community is assures us that, etc.”
[2-Star] These articles are usually
about something else, and just briefly mention “The Weed of Madness.” Had
the author had more space, the article would easily have jumped to a 4 or 5
star rating.
[1-Star] These articles
[0-Star] Almost all, 0 Star rated
articles are published in industrial journals, and only mention Marihuana in
an incidental way, say a trade journal reporting on a new tax affecting
Cannabis etc.
American Druggist:
-[1] “Extract of Cannabis Indica.” Vol.13
pg121 1884 – A boring but mercifully short
article concerning the color of cannabis preparations. The only interesting
thing about it is that it shows that a lot of druggists were (be implication)
making local medicines out of Cannabis.
-[1] “Indian Hemp.” Vol.13 pg121 1884 – a
second article, (see above) which tells about the history of Medical Marihuana.
Example: “In 780 A.H., very severe ordinances were passed in Egypt against the
use of hemp, those convicted were subjected to the extraction of their teeth”
American Journal of Nursing American Nurses
Association:
-[1] “Dangerous Marihuana” – By F. T.
Merrill - Aug, 1938 –[5-Star]
-[2] “Marihuana” – By V. Lewitus - July,
1936 –[5-Star]
American Journal of Police Science: (Vol.
2.)
-[1] “Marihuana as a Developer of Criminals”
– By Eugene Stanley – pg:252 –[5-Star] Date missing?
American Journal of the Medical
Sciences
-[1] “Marihuana - Our new addiction” - By N.
S. Yawger – March 1938
American Journal of Psychiatry:
-[1] “Marihuana Intoxication” – By Walter
Bromberg MD - Vol 91, pg302 - Sept 1934:
-[2] “Marihuana, an Intoxicant” By Herbert S.
Gaskill, - Vol. 102, pg 202- 1945
-[3] “Marihuana and Aggressive Crime” By
Commander Walter Bromberg (MD) U.S.N.R.– Vol. 102, pg. 825 - May 1946
-[4] “Personality Studies of Marihuana
Addicts” - Charen, S + L. Perelman – Vol. 102, pg674- 1946
American Journal of Public Health (and the
Nation’s Health)
-[1] (book Review of- “Marihuana – The new
Dangerous Drug by Frederic T. Merrill” Vol.28, July 1938 – The booklet is a
reefer madness classic:
American Magazine:
-[1] “Marijuana, assassin of youth” By H.J
Anslinger & CR. Cooper – pg18 - July 1937 5 Star Rating.
American Mercury
-[1] “Menace of marihuana” By Albert Parry
– pg437, Dec. 1935 – 5 Star Rating
-[2] “Marijuana addicts and their lingo” By
David W. Maurer –pg.571, Nov. 1946 – 2 Star Rating.
American Scholar: (The Phi Beta Kappa
Society)
-[1] “Marihuana” By Maud A. Marshall – Vol.
8, pg95, Winter 1938/39 – 4 Star Rating
American Speech (Coumbia University)
-[1] “Jargon of Marihuana Addicts” By James
A. Donovan – Vol.15 pg336, Oct. 1940
BULLETIN of the New York Academy of Medicine:
-[1] “Marihuana (Harvey Lecture)” By Roger
Adams – Vol. 18, Nov. 1942 -
Canadian Historical Review:
-[1] “Hemp and Imperial Defense” By Norman.
MacDonald Vol.17 pg385 – Dec. 1936
(Summary) A studious (a polite term for long and
boring) article about why Canada didn’t grow very much Hemp for the English
Navy. The whole article can be summed up in the immortal words of Beetle Ringo
Star, “Anything the government touches turns to sh#!.” Unless you’re into
industrial hemp or a libertarian that loves to read about government stupidity,
simple ignore this article.
Canadian Medical Association Journal:
-[1] “Editorial” Nov 1934
CAR AND DRIVER:
-[1**] “Marijuana; road tests” June 1980 –
A study of Marijuana use and driving.
Click Photo-Parade Magazine March 1938
-[1**][c] "Marijuana: How a Roadside Weed
Has Become a National Menace" lite girlie Magazine. Two pages of (comical
but professionally) staged photos and sub-captions that could have come right
out of the move “reefer madness.” – 5 Star rating.
Christian Century:
-[1] “Youth gone loco; villain is marijuana”
– By Wayne Gard – pg812 – June 29, 1938 – 5 Star Rating
Colliers:
-[1] “The Crazy Dreamers” By Earl Wilson –
June 1949 – 4 Star Rating
COMPLETE POLICE CASES/WINTER 1954/VOL 1 #2
-[1**][c] The Dope Raid article consists of
several stops of which heroin was
Confiscated, in another raid 3 pounds of deadly
marijuana was confiscated.
Current Detective”
[**][c] - “Torture Death of the Reefer
Queen” – Winter 1945
Down Beat Magazine: (see other material)
-[1] “Tea Scandal Stirs Musicdom” – Jan.
15, 1943
-[2] “Headline article concerns Gene Krupa's
marijuana case” 8/1/43
-[3**] “Marihuana Problems” March 15, 1944
-[4**] “Light up gates, Report Finds 'Tea' a
Good Kick." - ?? before April 1945
Druggist Circular:
-[1] “Marihuana – “Depraver of youth” By
George C. Schicks –pg12 - March 1938 5 Star Rating
Esquire:
-[1] “Marihuana and a pistol” By Chester B.
Himes March 1940 – a fictional story not rated.
Federal Probation: - Publication of the
Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice
-[1] “Marihuana” By Lawrence Kolb (Assistant
Surgeon General) – pg. 22, July 1938
Article contains statements such as:
“In some the sex impulse seems to be
aroused”
“Continued use of the drug causes
insanity in many cases.”
Etc., etc., but the importance of this article
lies NOT in it’s message, but in the author who would in later years turn
against Drug Laws in general. (I guess there is hope after all.) Already,
statements such as, “The prevalent opinion that anyone who smokes a marihuana
cigarette … will have criminal impulses is an error” start to appear. He
also argues for sentencing marihuana (addicts) to treatment not prisons. It is
with deep sorrow that I must give the article a 4-Star reefer madness rating, I
would a hundred times, rather be issuing a medal to the man. [4-Star]
-[2] “A Prosecutor’s Viewpoint on Narcotic
Addiction”: By William T. McCarthy 1943 – Note: not related to the subject,
but often quoted.
-[3] “ Some Myths About Marihuana” – By
J.D. Reichard, MD (Medical Director, retired, US Public Health Service) –
Oct-Dec 1946 – 0 Star Rating:
Forum and Century: The forum Pub co. Inc
570 Lexington Ave N.Y
-[1] “One more peril for youth -
Editorial” By Henry Goddard Leach – Jan 1939
GLANCE: - (light porno mag, mostly ladies
in swimsuits)
-[1**] “Can dope Traffic be Stopped?”–
April 1950 Two pages of staged photos right that could have come right out of
the move “reefer madness” itself. -4-star Reefer Madness rating.
HARPERS:
-[1**] “The Poison Ship” By Morgan Robertson
- 1915 A work of fiction, (note the daatte), said by some to be the first reefer
madness story.
Hygeia: - (American Medical Association)
(becomes Today’s Health)
-[1**] “What is marihuana?” By George Randall
McCormack – Oct 1937 – Must reading, pure reefer madness and lies -5 Star
Rating
-[2] “Marihuana” By S. R. Winters, Oct. 1940
– 4 Star Rating
Industrial And Engineering Chemical (news
edition):
-[1] “Preliminary note on investigation” By
Herbert J. Wollner (Treasury Dept.) –Feb 20, 1939
International Medical Digest: - see Practice
of Medicine
Journal of the American Chemical Society:
-[1] “Structure of Cannabidiol” By Roger
Adams, M. Hun & J. Clarke – Vol 62 pg196 Jan 1940 – 1 Star Rating
JAMA - Journal of the American Medical
Association
-[1] “Opinions as to smoking of marihuana”-
pg1554 Nov. 4, 1923
-[2] “The Indispensable uses of Narcotics”
(Narcotics in Patent Medicines) By Arthur J. Cramp MD – Vol 96, pg1950 –
June 6, 1931
-[3] “Federal Cannabis Regulations Approved”
No. 63B-64B - 1937
-[4] “Marihuana: A psychiatric Study” By
Walter Bromber MD July 1, 1938
-[5] “Recent Investigation of Marihuana” –
Editorial Vol.120, pg 1128 – Dec. 5, 1942
-[6] “Marihuana Problems – (An editorial
against the La Guardia report)” Vol.127, pg1129 - April 28, 1945 - 5 Star
Rating:
Journal of the American Pharmaceutical
Association:
-[1] “The Effects of Large Doses of Cannabis
Indica” – March 1923
-[2] “First Marijuana Charge in Dallas
County” – March 1931
-[3] “Report of the Marihuana Investigation
(summer of 1937)” H.J. Wollner, John R. Matchett, Joseph Levine & Peter
Valare – Jan 1938
Journal of Clinical Psychopathology
-[1] “The Cultivation of Medicinal Plants with
Observation Concerning Cannabis” By L.E. Sayre – Vol. 4, Jan-Dec 1915.
-[2] “Marihuana: A Factor in Personality
Evaluation and Army Maladjustment” -By Major Harry L. Freedman & S/Sgt
Myron J. Rockmore Part 1: April 1946: Part 2 Oct. 1946
Journal of Criminal Psychopathology:
-[1] “Psychosis Following the Use of Marijuana;
with Report of cases” By H. C. Curtis MD (taken from the Journal of Kansas
Medical Society.) pg 390 - 1939
Journal of (American Institute of)
Criminal Law and Criminology:
-[1] “Marihuana” – By M.H. Hayes & L.E.
Bowery – Oct. 1932
-[2] “Dope Fiend” Mythology” By AR
Lindesmith (professor of Sociology, State U. Bloomington, Indiana) pg199, Vol.
31, July/August 1940.
Note – NOTE a reefer madness article, deals
only with opium. But worth the read, here is a brave man fighting against the
drug laws at a time when it was thought to be heresy. [N/R]
-[3] “Lindesmith's Mythology” By Judge Twain
Michilson – Nov/Dec. 1940
-[4] “The Drug Addict: Patient or criminal?”
By A.R. Lindesmith – pg. 531, 1941
Must reading, No wonder the Lindesmith institute
was named after him, in a few pages he explains our position in clear no
nonsense terminology! Note: this is anything but a reefer madness article. [N/R]
-[5] “Narcotic Addiction and Criminality” By
Pablo Osvaldo Wolff – pg. 162
NOTE: The author (an Argentinean) would go on to
write a book titled “Marihuana in Latin America – 1948,” and makes H.
Anslinger look like a Boy Scout. Although the article deals with all drugs, he
devotes 4 pages to the “evil weed” and its all here.
Marihuana give induced illusions
Marihuana addicts claiming trees and
acting like parrots
Marihuana addicts committing acts of
violence
Hindus running amok etc.
Must reading. [5-Star]
Journal of the Kansas Medical Society:
-[1] “Psychosis Following the use of Marijuana
with Report of Cases” – By Howard C. Curtis M.D. Dec. 1939 – 5 Star Rating
Journal of Home Economics – (American Home
Economics Association)
-[1] “Marihuana ” pg477 Sep. 1938 (an abridge
version of F.T. Merrill booklet) –5 Star Rating
Journal of the Medical Society of New Jersey
-[1] “Cannabis Indica Prescriptions” pg748
Dec. 1937
-[1] “Cannabis indica in pharmaceuticals” By
(M Sasman ?) Vol.35 pg51 1938
Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society
“Cannabis Sativa” By W. H. MacCraken MD –
Vol 36 pg848 Nov. 1937 – 5 Star Rating
Kiwanis Magazine:
-[1] “Marijuana” By Dr. Charles B Holman –
Oct 1938 – 4 Star
LEGION (the American Legion Magazine)
-[1**] “Vice, Crime and Marijuana” By Rodney
Gilbert March 1963 – Although written in 1963, it’s pure reefer madness. The
story of the “Old Man of the Mountain” and how Marihuana addicts today
become violent after it’s use. Must reading – 5 Star rating.
Liberty Magazine:
-[1**] “The Truth About Marihuana” By Nanette
Kutner pg13, May 1949 – AT first there was some hope that the truth will come
out, but as the article goes on it is obvious tha Ms. Kutner wasn’t interested
in the facts only in writing a reefer madness article. – “3 Star rating.
Life Magazine::
-[1**] “Narcotics” By Gerard Piel – July
19, 1943: The article is mostly about other drugs, but it does have a page or
two about a Marihuana peddler and jazz musicians --“Marihuana smoker(s) are
carried off into a state equivalent to deep alcoholic intoxication etc.” – 1
Star Rating (not worth reading).
-[2**] Police catch Robert Mitchum smoking
Marijuana—Sep. 13,1948. A short 1/2 page article (mostly a photo), not worth
reading.
Literary Digest (Funk & Wagnalls):
-[1**] “Facts and fancies about marihuana” -
Oct. 24, 1936 – Must reading, Acid trip picture of Cab Caloway. 5 Star Rating
-[2] “Marijuana menace” By Clarence VB. Beck,
Attorney General of Kansas – Jan 1, 1938
Living Age:
-[1] “Hashish Smuggling in Egypt” By C.S.
Jarvis Jan. 1938
Look:
-[1*] “Marijuana becomes a major American
problem” Nov. 22, 1938 – 5 Star Rating
MECHANIX ILLUSTRATED:
=[1**] “Exploding the Myths About Marijuana”
April 1949. Must reading, 5 star reefer madness rating.
Medical Journal and Record:
-[1] “The weed of insanity” By Louis J.
Bragman MD – Vol.122, pg416 –(July to Dec.)1925
-[2] “The Green Goddess” By Robert Kingman
– Vol. 126 pg470 – 1927 – 5 Star Rating.
Medical Record:
-[1] “The Menace o Marihuana” By Walter
Bromberg –Vol.142 pg309- July-Dec. 1935
-[2] “Book Review – America’s New Drug
Problem” Editorial section – April 19, 1939
Military Surgeon: (the association of
Military Surgeons):
-[1] “Maria-Juana (Panama canal Study) November
1933
-[2] “The Marihuana Bugaboo” Editorial by
James M. Phalen (colonel, US Army) Vol.93 pg94 1943: 0 Star Rating:
Nature , Macmillan + co. Ltd. St. Martin's
St. London, WC 2 York
-[1] “Cannabidiol and cannabol, constituents of
cannabis indica resin” By A Jacob & A.R. Todd – Vol.145, pg350 – March
2, 1940
-[2] “Actions and uses of hemp drugs” By A.D.
MacDonald – Vol.147 pg167 Feb 8, 1941
Nature Magazine:
-[1*] “Marijuana ; Mexican dope plant, source
of a social problem” By Clair.A. Brown – Vol.31 pg271 May 1938: 5 Star
Rating
New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal
-[1] “Marihuana Menace” By A.E. Fossier MD
–Vol.84 pg247 – July 1931-toJune 1932 – 5 Star Rating
New Yorker:
-[1] “Tea for a viper” By Meyer Berger –
May 12, 1938
Newsweek:
-[1] “New federal tax hits dealings in potent
weed” –(Science section) August 14, 1937
-[2] “The History of Marihuana” (book review
– Marihuana America’s new drug problem) – Nov. 28, 1938
-[3] “Army Study of marihuana smokers points to
better ways of treatment” pg72 Jan. 15, 1945.
-[4] “Marijuana and Mentality” pg 70 Nov. 18,
1946
“Home-made imports” – Oct. 5, 1942
REAL – (the exciting Magazine For Men)
-[1**] “The Truth about Drugs and Sex Fears”
Dec. 1954 – 0 Star Rating
Pacific Medical Journal:
-[1] “The Loco Weed” pg52 Jan 1913
PHYSICAL CULTURE MAGAZINE:
-[1**] “The Truth about Marijuana –
Sex-crazing drug menace” By Lionel Calhoun Moise – Feb. 1937. Must be read
to believe – 5 Star reefer Madness rating.
(the national) POLICE GAZETTE:
-[1**] “Dope- Teen-agers’ Latest Craze!” By
George McGrath – May 1951: “Many girls who start out seeking a thrill by
smoking a marijuana cigarette end up as hopeless addicts.” Blah, Blah, Blah.
– 4 Star Rating.
Popular Science:
-[1] “Uncle Sam fights a new drug
menace; marijuana” By William Wolf – pg 14 May 1936
-[2**] “”Fighting the Dope Rings” pg96 Vol.
133,Nov. 1938
-[3**] “Can we grow hemp without dope? - plant
wizards fight wartime drug peril” By Alden P. Armagnac pg62 – Sep. 1943
Practice of Medicine: ( International Medical
Digest)
-[1] “The Menace of Marihuana” – Symposium
Section Vol.31 pg183 – Sep. 1937
PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS:
-[1] “The effects of synthetic Marihuana like
musical talent” By C. Knight Aldrich Vol.59 pg431 March 31, 1944
-[2] “Studies on Marihuana and Pyrahexyl
compounmd” By Edwin G. Williams et all, July 19 1946
PSYCHIATRIC QUARTERLY
-[1] “Some Psychiatric Aspects of Marijuana
Intoxication” – By P.H. Drewry MD – Jan 1936
REAL (the exciting magazine for men)
-[1**] “The Truth about Drugs and sex fears”
By Robert Mines– Dec. 1954 – Believe it or not, a favorable story. Story has
to do with sex, but a favorable reference about Marihuana by Dr. Riechard (an
outspoken opponent against the anti-Marihuana laws).
READER'S DIGEST:
-[1**] “Marijuana, assassin of youth (abr)”
By HF. Anslinger & Courtney Ryley cooper Feb. 1938 – 5 Star Rating
-[2] “The Facts About Our Teen-Age Drug
Addicts” –By Harry J. Anslinger Oct 1951 – Not a Reefer Madness article
per say.
-[3] “Marijuana and Driving” May 1979
REWARD: - pocket magazine:
[1*]- 1954. It features an very rare anti
marijuana propaganda story which details how kids on marijuana are screwing up
there lives with a photo of a young girl hiding her head in shame with the
caption this girl starting smoking a 13 and now battles addiction and also
blames murder/suicides on the wacky weed!!
SATURDAY EVENING POST:
[**]- Let’s Stop This Narcotics Hysteria
article by Laurence Kolb MD, a plea for treating drug addiction as an illness,
not a crime - July 28, 1956
[
SCIENCE: (Science Press)
-[1] “A Physiologically Active Principle from
Cannabis Sativa (Marihuana) A. J. Haagen-Smit et al. Pg602 June 21, 1940
-[2] “Marihuana” By Roger Adams- August 9,
1940
-[3] “The Active Principle of Marihuana” –
By G. Powell, M. Salmon & T.H. Bemery May 30, 1941
-[4] “The Marihuana Problem” (book review
about LaGuradia) By R.P. Walton Vol.101 pg538 – May 25, 1945
SCIENCE
-[1] “Comparison of the effects of Marihuana
and Alcohol on simulated driving” By Crancer A. Vol.164-pg851 1969
SCIENCE DIGEST:
-[1] “Marihuana Proves Bad for Musicians”
July 1944
-[2] “What happens to marihuana
smokers”(Condensed from LaGuardia) May 1945
-[3] “War Born Hemp Industry Requires New
Uses” Dec. 1945
-[4] “ The Wicked Weed” April 1952
SCIENCE NEWS LETTER:
-[1] “Marihuana weed grows where rope factory
failed” - Jan. 15, 1938
-[2] “Marihuana smoking seen as epidemic among
the idle” Nov. 26, 1938
-[3] “Marihuana gives some a jag” – Jan.
14, 1939
-[4] “Hemp will be grown, but Bureau of
narcotics will police areas” Feb. 7, 1942
-[5] “Hemp being grown in U.S. as war cuts off
imports” – May 30, 1942
-[6] “Marihuana found useful in certain mental
ills” – May 30, 1942
-[7] “Tests show marihuana does not help;
musical ability” – April 29, 1944
-[8] “Hemp needs new uses” - Sep. 11, 1945
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN:
-[1] “Marihuana menaces youth” March 1936 –
5 Star Rating
-[2] “Marihuana more dangerous than heroin or
cocain” – By H. J. Anslinger – May 1938
-SHE (the man’s picture magazine) - booklet
[**]-Marijuana peddling (story) – (note, could
not find the story, but have not looked that much) Nov. 1956
SOCIAL PROBLEMS:
[ ]- “The Use of Drugs by Jazz Musicians” By
Winick, C. Vol.7 pg210 1960
STARTLING DETECTIVE Dope King
[1**]-“ Dope King story” 4/39 (dope =
Marihuana) S1
SURVEY (Survey Associates, INC.)
[ ]- “Danger - the Menace of Marihuana” –By
B.A. – April 1938 – 5 Star Rating:
TIME:
-[1] “Jute, hemp and bedlam” - Mar 30 1942
– 1 Star Rating
-[2**] “Weed” – July 19, 1943 – 4 Star
Rating
TODAYS HEALTH: (formally Hygeia)
-[1] “Our youth and NARCOTICS” - By Vitti
Vogel, Pg. 24 Oct 1951- Not rated:
TRUE EXPERIENCES:
-[1**] “I Plead not Guilty” Vicki Evan’s
own story of the (Robert) Mitchum Marijuana Raid. – March 1949 – not rated
just a scandal magazine with a story that had to do with Marihuana.
TRUE STORY NYC: Macfadden Publications
-[1**] “Reefer Party” Pg.132 Feb. 1954 –
Article is actually a short novelette (full of dis-information) about a young
women. – Not rated.
US News + World Report:
-[1] “Teen Age Dope addicts” (interview with)
H.J. Anslinger – June 29, 1951 – 2 Star rating:
United States Department of Agriculture
Washington D.C.
-[1] “Hemp” By B.B. Robinson - Farmer's Bul -
1935
WAR MEDICINE:
-[1] “The Marihuana Addict in the Army” –
By Markowitz and Meyers – Dec 1944 – 4 Star rating
WHISPER. "thru the keyhole:
-[1**] “REEFER PARTY - ACTUAL PHOTOS” - Jan
1949 Two pages of what appear to be staged photos with light sub captions. Girly
mag from the late 1940’s . The pictures are tamer than a Sears catalog. Lots
of great pulp magazine articles about the social ills of society including
Tourist Camps and Reefer. One tip I picked up was” A Shopping bag over ones
head speeds up the oncoming jag of the marijuana” have to try that(hehe)and
“The reefer does its deadly work” A 5 star Reefer Madness rating, but not
worth reading.
= = = = = = = = =
NOTE: THE MUSEUM DOES NOT HAVE ANY INFORMATION
ABOUT AND IS LOOKING FOR COPIES/ PHOTOCOPIES ETC. FROM THE FOLLOWING:
(Note: Information may be incomplete or
incorrect:::)
AMERICAN DETECTIVE
[ ]-August 1938 A Lesson in Lust and Marijuana-
The Weed of Sin!
AMERICAN MAGAZINE
[2]- “Camps of Crime” (a story about
motel’s) - ed by C.R. Cooper and J. Edgar Hoover, 14-15 + Feb 1940
[3]- “Dope Dynasty” 126: 37 + N. 1938 by C.R.
Cooper
[4]- “Double dealers in dope” 125:42-3 + My
1938 by C.R. Cooper
CRIME DETECTIVE:
-[1] “I fed the Marijuana Monster” – Winter
1945
The Clubwoman Magazine
[1*]- March 1937 - A lengthy article about the
evils of marihuana. “The situation concerning club women particularly is the
accessibility of the frightening, degenerating, marihuana weed, which is rolled
in cigarettes…and has been playing such havoc with young high school boys and
girls.”
Complete Detective cases: May – article
unknown date unknown
COSMOPOLITAN - Hearst's International
“Walking on Air” By A.R. St.Johns - pg104 May
1936
DETECTIVE MAGAZINE
-[1] “Trailing Cleveland's Marihuana Killers”
May 1948
DETECTIVE WORLD
-[1] “Marihuana-THE EVIL WEED” – Dec. 1947
-[2] “Marijuana I sold Hollywood Stars” Feb.
1948
Fraternal Order of Police Journal
“Marihuana evils” pg10 Jan. 1933
FBI - Law enforcement Bulleting 6: No5 11-16
1937
FOTO Magazine:
[c]- “MARIJUANA MADNESS” – OCTOBER 1937
Here is an old FOTO magazine , Vol. #1 No. 4
October 1937, Published by DELL
Publishing N.J.. There is an interesting section
on Marijuana Madness telling of the effects it's has on people,( very amusing)
15 STORY DETECTIVE
[c]- Donald Barr Chidsey's Sgt. Morton story
"Marijuana Madness".I- Dec 1950
INSIDE DETECTIVE:
-[1] [c] One-Way to Hell” ...by Phil Dorf Four
page article on the perils of drug addiction - "From two or three sticks
of marijuana a day she progressed to 'weed parties' and then to heroin. It
might have been morphine or cocaine, but the effect would be the same...for dope
is like an octopus..." Great descriptions and 6 photos including several
paragraphs on Barney Ross and a pic of actress Lila Leeds ( Wild Weed ) after a
raid. --November 1950
-[2][c] Inside Detective from June 1959. Decent
shape...Big story on exotic dancer Candy Barr and how she might have to spend 15
years in jail for possession of marijuana! Yikes!
THE KEYNOTE: - Monthly publication of the
Detroit Federation of musicians
Editorial - Jan/Feb 1941
MACLEANS 1938 Look out for Marijuana
[ ]- This is a June 15, 1938 copy of Maclean's
magazine - Canada's National Magazine which sold for only 5 cents !! The most
interesting article is the one called "Look out for Mary Jane".
MADEMOISELLE MAGAZINE
-[1] “Park Reefer” (may not be a reefer
madness article) Feb 1941
MODERN ROMANCES:
-[1][c] “Reefer Club” - November, 1938 Prizal
mike
OIL, PAINT & DRUG REPORTER
-[1] “Hemp seed oil out of marihuana bill”
May 3, 1937
-[2] “Unknown Article” July 25, 1937
RADIO STARS
-[1] “Exposing the marihuana Drug Evil in Swing
bands” – July 8, 1938
PACIFIC RURAL PRESS: (also called California
Farmer)
-[1] “Menace of marihuana is increasing rapidly
in the United States” By C.H. Kinsley Dec 3, 1938 – 136-536
Pacific Coast Internation:
-[1] “Unknown article” March 1939
-[2] “Unknown Article” Dec. 1940
Parent-Techers Association:
“Unknown Articles” Dates unknown:
PHOTOPLAY
-[1] "The Truth About Dope In
Hollywood" marijuana use with coverage of Robert Mitchum's arrest at Lila's
Leeds's house. - Dec 1948
POPULAR MECHANICS:
-[1] Feb 1938 (I have the article but would like
another copy)
PRIVATE DETECTIVE:
“RING AROUND A REEFER” By Wallace
Kayton 10/38 (note may not be a Reefer story)
REAL DETECTIVE MAGAZINE –
[1]-“The Fight Against Marijuana, The
"sex" Cigarette” by Joseph Appelgate - APRIL 1935
PURDUE AGRICULTURIST - Purdue University
“Marijuana challenges the farmer” By J.M.
Williamson Dec. 1938
"RELIGIOUS DIGEST"
"THE MENACE OF MARIHUANA" - December,
1937
RURAL AMERICA - American country life asso.
Inc
“Marihuana - The new dangerous drug” Vol.31
pg271
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN:
[1]- “From Opium to Hasheesh” By Simon
Carlton Vol.125 pg14 – Nov. 1927
SHOCK magazine:
[1]- “Marijuana (story) cover” 1941
THE SPIDER:
[ ]- “The Devil-Weed a poem by Spiderette about
the evils of marijuana!” Vol.22 #3 Dec. 1940
Standford Univ:
“Lane Lectures on Pharmacology.” By
Sftraub, Walther III No. 1 ch1 page16 1931
TIME:
[ ]- July 19,1943- , Music: Gene Krupa drumming
(photo) , Krupa to San Quentin Prison to serve 1-6 years for marijuana
possession and using minor for transportation narcotic ,
TODAY MAGAZINE:
[1]-“BackYard Hashish” By G.V. Haliday –
Jan 23, 1937
TRUE:
-[1][c] “White Slaves for Yellow Devils” by
John Hilton- Japanese conspiracy to lure white women into prostitution - August
1942
Note, could be called true thrills
-[2] Trailing Texas' Dope-Crazed Killer, by
Leland Heath September 1942
TRUE CRIME CASES:
[1][c]- “Hollywood's Reefer ring” – Dec.
1949
TRUE CRIME MAGAZINE:
[1]-“MARIJUANA MADNESS” By WADE HITSON -
APRIL,1948
UNCENSORED Vol.1, No. 1
articles on White slavery, Reefer parties, June
1953,
THE WHISPERER pulp magazine
-[1][c] “The Vilest Weed” By Henry Lysing
Oct. 1937
Magazine also contains a novelette, three short
stories and an article "The Vilest Weed" about Marihuana - "The
newest dope menace which faces America's younger generation".
WHISPER. "thru the keyhole:
-[2] “HOW REEFER PARTIES BREED VICE” Vol. 2,
#2 - July 1948
WINK Magazine-A Whirl of
Girls-Late1940’s
The January 1949 issue has complete cover
separation,wear and folding, but inside is the good stuff. “How to Tame A Wild
Wife” and “Reefer Dance” are some of the articles. Most of the models are
in fishnets and heels. Some things never change.
WOMEN IN CRIME
-[1][c] “I sold death and Marijuana” Vol2 #2
1947
THE YORKER: (note- not the New Yorker)
published by a historical society
-[1][c] “The Marihuana Menace” Nov. 1933
Circular Letter No. 324 from H.J.Anslinger
Warned his own men to "be on the lookout for
an informant he described as a ginger color nigger - Dec 4, 1934
ARTICLES THE MUSEUM IS NOT LOOKING FOR:
Business week
“It's a hemp year.” – 61 Apr 24 '43
“Hemp slows up” - p4 Oct 23 '43
“Hemp won't move” - p44 May 6 '44
JAMA - Journal of the American Medical
Association
“unknown article” Vol.33 pg659 – 1899
“Effects of Cannibs” Vol. 100 pg 601 - 1933
“Campaign against marihuana cigarettes” –
Vol.102- pg850 1934
“Unknown Article” Vol 105 pg 891 1935
“Marihuana grown on vacant lots”
Vol.105-pg877 1935
“WPA workers assigned to marihuana
eradication” Vol.107 pg437 1936
“Unknown Article” Vol.106 pg2144 1936
“Unknown Article” Vol.109 1937
SATURDAY EVENING POST:
[2 ]- “We put the heat on Washington dope
peddlers” by a former Federal Prosecutor OCT. 3 1953
Multiple Reefer Madness Newspaper articles circa
1930's #1
Multiple Reefer Madness articles circa 1930's #2
Multyple Reefer Madness Newspaper Stories #3
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