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The Online Reefer Madness Teaching Museum
The Pacific Coast Journal of Nursing
- Jan 1942 - page 12
Marihuana Our Domestic
Narcotic Menace
- By L. Raymond Holmes
[Because
of many questions about marihuana, Mr. Holmes.
Assistant Chief of the California State Division of Narcotic Enforcement,
was asked to prepare this article for the "Journal."
This is the third article prepared by Mr. Holmes, through the courtesy of
the Chief of the Division, Paul E. Madden, to be published in the
"Journal" The two previous articles appeared in the March and
September, 1940, issues.]
About
fifty years ago, marihuana, the drug obtained from the plant Cannabis Sativa,
was used in medicine. It was attempted both as a stimulant
and as a desensitizer, but on account of its unpredictable effects it was
almost entirely discarded. Its
limited use in corn remedies has persisted, but even here its use appears to be
on the decline.
The
professional nurse is therefore not likely to contact or have any personal
experience with this narcotic as a medicine.
She might, however, have occasion to treat and have the care of patients
whose only pathology is the result of using marihuana.
And as the nurse, perhaps more than any other professional worker, is
called upon to deal with social and individual problem growing out of any kind
of narcotic addiction, it may be justified to supplement our former articles on
narcotics with a brief discussion of the nature and effects of marihuana.
Marihuana
was first known as hashish. Under
that name the narcotic, and the plant from which it is obtained, was used, as
far back as three thousand years, in India, Persia, Arabia, and other parts of
Asia. The
natives would chew the leaves, and from this obtain thrills and manifold
stimulation of their animal strength and passions experienced in no other way.
It would make them completely oblivious to all sense of danger; they
would feel no restraints whatever, and would indulge in the most revolting and
inhuman cruelties.
From
Asia the plant and its use spread to Egypt and throughout Africa. From
there it was brought with the slave trade, the Spaniards, to South America, It
northward into Mexico, where it became known as marihuana, and in 1910 it was
used for the first time in the United States, as a narcotic, in New Orleans.
Since that time the plant and its use have spread into every state in the
Union and from here into the Dominion of Canada.
In
the early days and among the primitive races, the effects of marihuana were
obtained by chewing the leaves and flowering tops of the plant.
Then after the smoking of tobacco was discovered among the American
Indians and this habit spread throughout the world, the dried marihuana leaves
were smoked, either with or without tobacco mixed in with the substance.
Today
the almost universal method of using Marihuana is in the form of cigarettes.
Unless a customer definitely seeks to obtain these, they are not sold as
marihuana cigarettes, and may not even be referred to as "reefers" or
"muggles"---the slang terms for them----but they are often offered
merely as a new type of cigarette with a new kind of
kick in it. In this way
ignorant and adventurous high school boys and girls have been known to take up
the smoking of marihuana, sometimes with tragic results.
Marihuana
cigarettes differ from others in that they are usually rolled in a heavier brown
paper, and are, usually, somewhat shorter. This is due to the fact that the substance --- resembling
some herbal tea, with a distinct odor of hay or alfalfa---is sharp and pointed
and would cut the ordinary cigarette paper.
A heavy paper, or two or three layers of the regular paper, is therefore
used. As
marihuana is not soft and stringy like tobacco it would fall out at both ends, so
these are well tucked in, making the cigarette shorter.
Marihuana
was no doubt used by primitive people, and in a primitive way, as a means to
ameliorate or escape from the monotony or harshness of life and
environment---much as modem man indulges in the use of tobacco, liquor, and
stimulants for the same purpose. The
more highly sensitive nervous system of the white man, however, makes him much
more susceptible to its effects, and this in conjunction with the more complex
life we live---as compared with the wilds of Asia where it originated---makes
marihuana one of the greatest scourges that have ever come to our shores.
An unbalanced mind upon our streets and highways, perhaps at the wheel of
an automobile, will do manifoldly more damage than the savage in the same
condition in the wilderness.
Marihuana
being a violent stimulant, the physiological reactions produced are the very
opposite of those caused by the use of the sedative narcotics, opium, morphine,
codein and heroin. There is an
immediate increase in appetite and thirst.
The eye usually presents a staring, glazed appearance, with a widely
dilated fixed pupil, the white of the eye bloodshot, in extreme cases orange red
in color, and the lids and the surrounding mucous membrane similarly inflamed.
The
use of marihuana immediately attacks the brain and central nervous system, and
in that way affects all the organs and functions of the body which depend upon
these for control and coordination. The
subject becomes supersensitive and stimulated, and the five physical
senses---sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch---one or all, may go completely
haywire, to use a common expression.
While
in this condition, such sounds as the mere ticking of a clock, or the soft
singing of birds, or the blowing of the wind, become unendurably loud, and the
ordinary light of day becomes blinding to the eye. The sense of sight may also become otherwise distorted.
The room may seem to widen, or close in upon the person, the floor may
seem to slope, and the walls and ceiling to fall upon him, and he will extend
his arms, terror stricken, as he attempts to protect himself against the injury
which he imagines is inevitable. Persons
in his presence may become extraordinarily attractive, or they may appear
grotesque and menacing, with huge hands, or feet, or nose, or stomach---like
reflections in curved mirrors. The
temperature may seem unendurably hot or cold, the atmosphere vaporous and foggy,
and colors most extraordinarily bright and luminous.
The
subject is astounded and over-whelmed by everything, even the most commonplace,
which happens in his presence, and by what he himself does, says, or thinks.
What he thinks and feels seems to take place outside himself in a
peculiar indescribable manner. His
sense of time is completely obliterated, due perhaps to the rapidity with which
thoughts, ideas, and impressions crowd upon his consciousness.
Sometimes he is capable of nothing but the most uncontrolled hysterical
laughter, but more often he is in on of superhuman strength---like the violently
insane---and has to be restrained as he madly assaults those about him.
While
the effects, and. the behavior of persons under the influence of marihuana,
differ widely, sex crimes and perverted acts are more or less typical.
These crimes are often committed upon small children or very old people,
on account of the abnormal stimulation in conjunction with distorted vision,
which causes the individual to see maturity, or youth and beauty, where these
are in reality absent. A physician
in charge of a hospital in the East once informed the writer that a group of
high school students had been brought to his hospital while under the influence
of this drug. One of them a young
girl, while in this condition an the way home from school, had made the most
violent sexual advances toward her own brother.
During
the investigation of prison conditions early in the administration of governor
Culbert L. Olson, it was revealed that a number of young men were in San Quentin
for long terms, for crimes committed while under the influence of
marihuana---young men who, were it not for this narcotic, undoubtedly would be
useful members of society. The
Governor therefore immediately ordered the Division of Narcotic Enforcement to
make every effort possible to curb and stamp out this terrible menace.
As
a part of this effort, due to the unfamiliarity with marihuana on the part of
law enforcement officers as well as the general public, the Division has issued
a bulletin on the subject which will be mailed to anyone on request addressed to
the Division of Narcotic Enforcement, State Building, San Francisco, California.
vigation-->
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