Medical marijuana and the feds

If the federal government were right that medical marijuana has no medicinal value, why have so many doctors risked their practices by recommending its use for patients with cancer or AIDS?

Marcus Conant, the doctor who identified the first cases of Kaposi's sarcoma among San Francisco AIDS patients, can answer that. Imagine you're the doctor for a 40-year-old lady with breast cancer. They put her on chemotherapy, and every time she takes her therapy, she throws up. She can't sleep; she's up sick all night. She has trouble caring for her children. Medical marijuana can alleviate her nausea and give her an appetite.

Conant wouldn't write her a prescription for medical marijuana. He can't. But he would write a note for her file recommending marijuana. Since his patients have access to their files, they can present a copy of said note to a marijuana club authorized by California's Proposition 215. If they use the note, well, that's their business.

Conant sued the federal government to prevent federal law enforcement from investigating or punishing doctors who exercise their First Amendment right to recommend medical marijuana. Last month, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled in his favor. The Feds had argued that recommending marijuana was analogous to prescribing it, but the court agreed that this advice entailed "dispensing of information." That distinction goes to the heart of the matter ... the ability of doctors to give their best advice to people who desperately need it.

Why not prescribe marinol, the legal pill form of marijuana? Conant said that some patients don't respond well to it: It takes 45 minutes to work. If they take too little, it doesn't work at all. If they take too much, they fall asleep and don't eat.

My friend Julia, who is battling cancer, occasionally has used marijuana to help her sleep, but not often. Too much pot makes her think about dying. Still, Julia knows other cancer patients for whom cannabis is "the only thing that stands between them and a complete inability to get down food."

Cancer patients can take as many as 12 medications a day. They juggle which pills they can take with or without food, and with or without other drugs. There's something to be said, Julia added, for a drug that you can smoke at any time.

My advice: Don't. Walters also should reconsider his opposition to medical marijuana. Walters complains that advocates use sick people's pain as a platform to legalize pot for everyone. Legalize medical marijuana, however, and you take away that high ground.

It won't happen, said Daniel Abrahamson of the Drug Policy Alliance, because, "The drug czar's office can't abide the thought of losing any ground or having any legitimacy given to the issue of medical marijuana."

Walters' spokesman Tom Riley resents "this caricature; it's very frustrating. "Oh, they're drug warriors. They don't care that people are suffering and in pain."

Riley doesn't deny that marijuana can make patients feel better. A cigarette, he said, can make an emphysema patient feel great. His bottom line: The federal government doesn't make medical policy based on anecdotes.

But when the anecdotes are so plentiful, there's something missing in the research. When nurses wear Prop. 215 pins, they surely know something that the Feds don't.

Conant, 66, has no use for a system that won't let him alleviate misery. He closes his eyes, leans back in his chair and mutters, "To deny sick people relief because of abuses is not humane."

Second -- wasn't marijuana made illegal in the first place because of anecdotal stories and racist theories based on concerns for the safety of America's virgins at the "hands" of jazz-men?

Like this?

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.

NEGRO COCAINE "FIENDS" NEW SOUTHERN MENACE

New York Times, Sunday February 8, 1914

Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Because They Have Taken to "Sniffing" Since Being Deprived of Whisky by Prohibition

Edward Huntington Williams, M.D.

For some years there have been rumors about the increase in drug taking in the South-vague, but always insistent rumors that the addiction to such drugs as morphine and cocaine was becoming a veritable curse to the colored race in certain regions. Some of these reports read like the wildest flights of a sensational fiction writer. Stories of cocaine orgies and "sniffing parties" followed by wholesale murders seem like lurid journalism of the yellowest variety.

But in point of fact there was nothing "yellow" about many of these reports. Nine men killed in Mississippi on one occasion by crazed cocaine takers, five in North Carolina, three in Tennessee-these are the facts that need no imaginative coloring. And since this gruesome evidence is supported by the printed records of the insane hospitals, courts, jails, and penitentiaries, there is no escaping the conviction drug taking has become a race menace in certain regions south of the line.

In the North drug addiction is prevalent enough, in all conscience. The hospitals for the insane in New York State admitted one insane drug taker to every 380 other patients last year and New York's record is about the same as that of her immediate neighbors. But in Georgia the proportion was one to 42, in North Carolina about 1 to 84, in Tennessee 1 to 74, and in one of the Mississippi hospitals 1 to 23.

Stated otherwise, these Southern States had between them, from five to fifteen times as many insane drug takers as New York state.

But these comparisons, although sufficiently startling, fail to show the extent of drug addiction in the South. For most of these insane drug users, both North and South, were the victims of morphine; whereas the negro drug "fiend" uses cocaine almost exclusively.

This preference is not explained by the difference in the effects of two drugs, but rather in the manner that each may be taken. Morphine, when taken into the stomach acts slowly and tends to upset digestion. If taken hypodermically its effects are produced almost immediately, and gastric functions are less disturbed. But hypodermic medication requires apparatus liquid solution of the drug,. and a somewhat complicated process of preparation.

Cocaine, on the other hand, can be taken in the dry form by the simple process of sniffing into the nose like an ordinary pinch of snuff. And the effects are almost instantaneous when so taken. It can indeed, be mixed with, a brown powder that resembles ordinary snuff, and taken without detection under the very eyes of watchful officers.

The drug produces an exhilaration which is usually simply a mild intoxication, although it may produce the wildest form of insane excitation, accompanied by the fantastic hallucinations and delusions that characterize acute mania. But this condition is followed by a state of terrible depression a few hours later, or would be followed by such depression if the drug were not again taken to prevent it. It is for the purpose of averting this depressed state, as well as to produce the exaltation, that the "fiend" continues to use the drug once he has experienced either condition.

Stated thus, the effects of cocaine do not seem very different from these of alcohol. But in point of fact, cocaine exhilaration is much more marked and the depression far more profound and destructive to the nervous system. The victim is much more likely to have peculiar delusions and develop hallucinations of an unpleasant character. He imagines that he hears people taunting and abusing him, and this often incites homicidal attacks upon innocent and unsuspecting victims.

Proof against Bullets.

But the drug produces several other conditions which make the "fiend" a peculiarly dangerous criminal. One of these conditions is a temporary immunity to shock--a resistance to the knockdown effects of fatal wounds.

Bullets fired into vital parts, that would drop a sane man in his tracks, fail to check the "fiend"--fail to stop his rush or weaken his attack.

A few weeks ago Dr. Crile's method of preventing shock in anaesthetized patients by use of a cocaine preparation was described in these columns. A similar fortification against this condition seems to be produced in the cocaine-sniffing negro.

A recent experience of Chief of Police Byerly of Asheville, N.C., illustrates this particular phase of cocainism. The Chief was informed that a hitherto inoffensive negro, with whom he was well acquainted, was "running amuck" in a cocaine frenzy, had attempted to stab a storekeeper, and was at the moment engaged in "beating up" various members of his own household. Being fully aware of the respect that the negro has for brass buttons, (and, incidentally, having a record for courage,) the officer went single-handed to the negro's house for the purpose of arresting him.

But when he arrived there the negro had completed the beatings and left the place. A few moments later, however, the man returned, and entered the room where the Chief was waiting for him, concealed behind a door. When the unsuspecting negro reached the middle of the room, the chief closed the door to prevent his escape and informed him quietly that he was under arrest, and asked him to come to the station. In reply the crazed negro drew a long knife, grappled with the officer, and slashed him viciously across the shoulder.

Knowing that he must kill this man or be killed himself, the Chief drew his revolver, placed the muzzle over the negro's heart, and fired-"Intending to kill him right quick," as the officer tells it but the shot did not even stagger the man. And a second shot that pierced the arm and entered the chest had as little effect in stopping his charge or checking his attack.

Meanwhile, the chief, out of the corner of his eye, saw infuriated negroes rushing toward the cabin from all directions. He had only three cartridges remaining in his gun, and he might need these in a minute to stop the mob. So he saved his ammunition and "finished the man with his club."

The following day, the Chief exchanged his revolver for one of heavier calibre. Yet, the one with which he shot the negro was a heavy, army model, using a cartridge that Lieutenant Townsend Whelen who is an authority on such matters, recently declared was large enough to "kill any game in America." And many other officers in the South; who appreciate the increased vitality of the cocaine-crazed negroes, have made a similar exchange for guns of greater shocking power for the express purpose of combating the "fiend" when he runs amok.

The list of dangerous effects produced by cocaine just described-hallucinations and delusions, increased courage, homicidal tendencies, resistance to shock is certainly long; enough. But there is still another, and a most important one. This is a temporary steadying of the nervous and muscular system, so as to increase, rather than interfere with, good marksmanship.

Makes Better Marksmen

Many of the wholesale killings in the South may be cited as indicating that accuracy in shooting is not interfered with--is, indeed, probably improved-by cocaine. For a large proportion of such shootings have been the result of drug taking. But I believe the record of the "cocaine nigger" near Asheville who dropped five men dead in their tracks using only one cartridge for each, offers evidence that is sufficiently convincing. I doubt if this shooting record has been equaled in recent years: certainly not by a man under the influence of any other form of intoxicant. For the bad marksmanship of the drunken man is proverbial; while the deadly accuracy of the cocaine user has become axiomatic in Southern police circles.

Since every one in authority in the south is alive to the dangers of the cocaine habit, and eager to suppress it, two questions arise. How does the negro get his supply? And why do not the officers in authority prevent his getting it?

The reply to the first question is simple; the exact source of supply is unknown. The question as to why those in authority do not stop the practice of drug taking may be answered even more tersely: they can't stop it.

Of course the immediate channels of local distribution are frequently, detected. Newsboys and bootblacks act as local vendors, and frequently these culprits are caught and punished. But this does not solve the mystery of the general clandestine traffic; for these local vendors refuse to
"peach" on their associates.

One newsboy in a North Carolina city accumulated a small fortune by the sale of the drug. His regular price was "10 cents a sniff" or 25 cents for a day's supply which he dispensed in small pill boxes. This is a common method of distributing the drug--a vile concoction of cocaine mixed with some inert powder to give it bulk. The boy procured his supply in the pure (more or less) form, and prepared the mixture to meet trade demands. He was "the honored guest" at frequent gatherings of the cocaine taking brotherhood, (and sisterhood,) supplying his patrons when they dropped in casually for their "dope," to loll about, luxuriating in the delicious exhilaration. Any cabin might serve as resort, safe from the prying eyes of police officers

Although these officers suspected the boy of peddling the drug they failed to catch him at it. And even when he finally acquired the drug habit himself, as most of these peddlers do eventually, and was so thoroughly "doped" that he that he squandered his money, and gave away the drug, he would never reveal the source of his supply. But there is every reason to believe that he obtained regular consignments through the underground channels that flourish in many localities, entirely out of reach of the police.

The Mississippi River is probably the greatest highway for "wholesale" distribution, but Gulf ports and seaports are also avenues of entrance. It is perfectly easy for a man to drop over the side of a boat coming into Mobile harbor, or one of the numerous channels at the mouth of the Mississippi, and disappear into the interior carrying a few pounds of the deadly powder, every ounce of which represents one thousand average doses.

But in all probability the greatest wholesale traffic is carried on from fixed shipping points, from which packages are sent to local peddlers, disguised in one of a hundred ways that escape detection. And when we consider that even a single ounce--a quantity that does not fill an ordinary watch pocket-will keep fifty "fiends" well "doped" for a week or more, we can readily understand why every effort to suppress the traffic utterly fails.

Why Do They Do It?

Many of the negroes, even those who have not yet become addicted, appreciate the frightful penalty of dabbling with the drug. Why, then do so many of them "dabble"?

There are various facts that suggest an answer to this question, and evidence in the form or the opinions of physicians, officers, and the cocaine users themselves, that supports these facts. The "fiend" when questioned, frequently gives his reason in this brief sentence: ''Cause I couldn't git nothin' else, boss." That seems to be the crux of the whole matter.

A brief survey of conditions in the South and a bit of recent legislative history make it perfectly evident why the negro "couldn't git nothin' else."

In many States, in the South the negro population constitutes from 30 to 60 per cent of the total population. Most of the negroes are poor, illiterate, and shiftless. If we include in this class the poor whites, who are on a par with the average negro in poverty, ignorance, and general lack of thrift, we may reckon the aggregate number as representing about one person in three in the entire population. Governing, or even keeping in reasonable control, such a host is an onerous task, even when most of the individuals of the host are sober. The inevitable number of alcoholics adds to that task enormously.

The simplest way to remove this added menace--it seems simple, theoretically, at least--would be to keep whisky out of the low-class negro's hands by legislating it out of existence as far as he is concerned. And so Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia passed laws intended to abolish the saloon and keep whisky and the negro separated.

These laws do not, and were not intended to prevent the white man or the well-to-do negro getting his accustomed beverages through legitimate channels. They obliged him to forego the pleasure of leaning against a bar and "taking his drink perpendicularly," to be sure; but a large portion of the intelligent whites were ready to make this sacrifice if by doing so they could eliminate the drunken negro.

That their only sacrifice was in method of taking, not in the amount of ardent spirits consumed, is shown by the records of liquor shipments that go to individual consumers. The Interstate Commerce Commission reported in 1911, using the figures presented by the Southern Express Company as a basis, that "the total annual movement indicated (for the South alone) is 6,085,264 gallons," almost exclusively into prohibition territory, of course.

In December 1913, the officials in Asheville, N.C. reported that they were receiving 400 gallon packages daily, 12,000 gallons monthly, or about three gallons per month for each family. And Asheville is quite as abstemious as the other well-governed cities of the South.

But none of these countless gallon parcels reached the lower class negro, the "one man in every three" in the South. His own ignorance and poverty make this a certainty, as the governing white intended.

Of course it is nothing short of "class legislation," this giving to the rich and depriving the poor. But what of it, so long as the discrimination applies to whisky? Nothing, of course--provided, always, that those discriminated against do not find some substitute worse than the original trouble maker. But unfortunately for the negro, and for his community, such a substitute was found almost immediately--a substitute that is inestimably worse even than the "moonshine whisky," drug-store nostrums, or the deadly wood alcohol poison. This substitute, as I have pointed out, is cocaine; and a trail of blood and disaster has marked the progress of its
substitution.

Should anyone doubt that prohibition is directly responsible for the introduction , and increase, of cocaine-taking in the South, let him consider a few pertinent facts supported by the opinions of competent observers.

Hospital and police records show that during the prohibition period drug habits have increased with alarming rapidity. Physicians, officers, and "fiends," with very few dissenting opinions, attribute the rise of cocainism to the low-class negro's inability to get his accustomed beverages. Of course "fiends" are usually liars, and even officers of the law or practitioners of medicine may be mistaken. But it is entirely improbable that all these men, from such widely different walks of life, should reach the same conclusion without adequate grounds for doing so.

Moreover, in cities where prohibition is strictly enforced, (relatively speaking,) the drug habit is increasing with alarming rapidity; whereas in cities in which little attempt is made to prevent liquor traffic, there is a comparatively slight increase in cocaine taking. thus the officials of Raleigh, N.C., and Knoxville, Tenn., to mention but two places where the prohibitory statute is enforced, report that cocaine taking has doubled in four years. the Knoxville police arrested seven cocaine-taking women in a single day recently. In Memphis, on the other hand, where half the population is colored, but where no attempt is made to prevent the sale of liquors, the drug habit is increasing slowly, if at all.

From Bad to Worse

In short, the South in attempting to correct a bad condition has created one infinitely worse. For the evils of alcoholism--its effects upon the individual, or even upon the community-- are not to be compared with the horrors of cocainism.

What is the South going to do about it?

As far as the thousands who have already formed the habit are concerned there is little choice of remedies. Once the negro has formed the habit he is irreclaimable. The only method to keep him away from taking the drug is by imprisoning him. And this is merely palliative treatment, for he returns inevitably to the drug habit when released.

For the thousands of negroes who have not yet acquired the habit, but who will do so eventually if present conditions continue, the outlook is scarcely more hopeful. The drug traffic puts an irresistible temptation in their way, and this traffic continues to flourish.

The failure to suppress it cannot be attributed to lack of interest or strenuous endeavor on the part of officials. Every one of these is doing his utmost to stop it, not merely from a sense of duty, but because of the much more compelling motive, self-preservation. It is literally a matter of life and death with them. And yet they fail utterly.

The great stumbling block in the way of suppressing the traffic is the fact that the causes that produce it have become entangled with a political issue. The question is not merely-- what is best for the negro, or the race? But it is: What is best for the politician? Presently the issue will take some other fantastic political twist, and then they will "call in the surgeons to patch up the wounded."

But meanwhile these politicians have forced a new and terrible form of slavery upon thousands of colored men--a hideous bondage from which they cannot escape by mere proclamation or civil war.

Marijuana, Assassin of Youth

The American Magazine - Volume 123 Number 1

A weed that grows wild throughout the country is making dope addicts of thousands of young people

THE sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk the other day after a plunge from the fifth story of a Chicago apartment house. Everyone called it suicide, but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic known to America as marijuana, and to history as hashish. It is a narcotic used in the form of cigarettes, comparatively new to the United States and as dangerous as a coiled rattlesnake. How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries, and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can be only conjectured. The sweeping march of its addiction has been so insidious that, in numerous communities, it thrives almost unmolested, largely because of official ignorance of its effects. Here indeed is the unknown quantity among narcotics. No one can predict its effect. No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer. That youth has been selected by the peddlers of this poison as an especially fertile field makes it a problem of serious concern to every man and woman in America.

THERE was the young girl, for instance, who leaped to her death. Her story is typical. Some time before, this girl, like others of her age who attend our high schools, had heard the whispering of a secret which has gone the rounds of American youth. It promised a new thrill, the smoking of a type of cigarette which contained a “real kick.” According to the whispers, this cigarette could accomplish wonderful reactions and with no harmful aftereffects. So the adventurous girl and a group of her friends gathered in an apartment, thrilled with the idea of doing “something different” in which there was “no harm.”Then a friend produced a few cigarettes of the loosely rolled “homemade” type. They were passed from one to another of the young people, each taking a few puffs. The results were weird. Some of the party went into paroxysms of laughter; every remark, no matter how silly, seemed excruciatingly funny. Others of mediocre musical ability became almost expert; the piano dinned constantly. Still others found themselves discussing weighty problems of youth with remarkable clarity. As one youngster expressed it, he “could see through stone walls.” The girl danced without fatigue, and the night of unexplainable exhilaration seemed to stretch out as though it were a year long. Time, conscience, or consequences became too trivial for consideration. Other parties followed, in which inhibitions vanished, conventional barriers departed, all at the command of this strange cigarette with its ropy, resinous odor. Finally there came a gathering at a time when the girl was behind in her studies and greatly worried. With every puff of the smoke the feeling of despondency lessened. Everything was going to be all right — at last. The girl was “floating” now, a term given to marijuana intoxication. Suddenly, in the midst of laughter and dancing she thought of her school problems. Instantly they were solved. Without hesitancy she walked to a window and leaped to her death. Thus can marijuana “solve” one’s difficulties. The cigarettes may have been sold by a hot tamale vendor or by a street peddler, or in a dance hall or over a lunch counter, or even from sources much nearer to the customer. The police of a Midwestern city recently accused a school janitor of having conspired with four other men, not only to peddle cigarettes to children, but even to furnish apartments where smoking parties might be held. A Chicago mother, watching her daughter die as an indirect result of marijuana addiction, told officers that at least fifty of the girl’s young friends were slaves to the narcotic. This means fifty unpredictables. They may cease its use; that is not so difficult as with some narcotics. They may continue addiction until they deteriorate mentally and become insane. Or they may turn to violent forms of crime, to suicide or to murder. Marijuana gives few warnings of what it intends to do to the human brain.

THE menace of marijuana addiction is comparatively new to America. In 1931, the marijuana file of the United States Narcotic Bureau was less than two inches thick, while today the reports crowd many large cabinets. Marijuana is a weed of the Indian hemp family, known in Asia as Cannabis Indica and in America as Cannabis Sativa. Almost everyone who has spent much time in rural communities has seen it, for it is cultivated in practically every state. Growing plants by the thousands were destroyed by law-enforcement officers last year in Texas, New York, New Jersey, Mississippi, Michigan, Maryland, Louisiana, Illinois, and the attack on the weed is only beginning. It was an unprovoked crime some years ago which brought the first realization that the age-old drug had gained a foothold in America. An entire family was murdered by a youthful addict in Florida. When officers arrived at the home they found the youth staggering about in a human, slaughterhouse. With an ax he had killed his father, his mother, two brothers, and a sister. He seemed to be in a daze. “I’ve had a terrible dream,” he said. “People tried to hack off my arms!” “Who were they?” an officer asked. “I don’t know. Maybe one was my uncle. They slashed me with knives and I saw blood dripping from an ax.” He had no recollection of having committed the multiple crime. The officers knew him ordinarily as a sane, rather quiet young man; now he was pitifully crazed. They sought the reason. The boy said he had been in the habit of smoking something which youthful friends called “muggles,” a childish name for marijuana. Since that tragedy there has been a race between the spread of marijuana and its suppression. Unhappily, so far, marijuana has won by many lengths. The years 1935 and 1936 saw its most rapid growth in traffic. But at least we now know what we are facing. We know its history, its effects, and its potential victims. Perhaps with the spread of this knowledge the public may be aroused sufficiently to conquer the menace. Every parent owes it to his children to tell them of the terrible effects of marijuana to offset the enticing “private information” which these youths may have received. There must be constant enforcement and equally constant education against this enemy, which has a record of murder and terror running through the centuries.

THE weed was known to the ancient Greeks and it is mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. Homer wrote that it made men forget their homes and turned them into swine. Ancient Egyptians used it. In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason. The members were confirmed users of hashish, or marijuana, and it is from the Arabic “hashshashin” that we have the English word “assassin.” Even the term “running amok” relates to the drug, for the expression has been used to describe natives of the Malay Peninsula who, under the influence of hashish, engage in violent and bloody deeds. Marijuana was introduced into the United States from Mexico, and swept across America with incredible speed. It began with the whispering of vendors in the Southwest that marijuana would perform miracles for those who smoked it, giving them a feeling of physical strength and mental power, stimulation of the imagination, the ability to be “the life of the party.” The peddlers preached also of the weed’s capabilities as a “love potion.” Youth, always adventurous, began to look into these claims and found some of them true, not knowing that this was only half the story They were not told that addicts may often develop a delirious rage during which they are temporarily and violently insane; that this insanity may take the form of a desire for self-destruction or a persecution complex to be satisfied only by the commission of some heinous crime.

IT would be well for law-enforcement officers everywhere to search for marijuana behind cases of criminal and sex assault. During the last year a young male addict was hanged in Baltimore for criminal assault on a ten-year-old girl. His defense was that he was temporarily insane from smoking marijuana. In Alamosa, Colo., a degenerate brutally attacked a young girl while under the influence of the drug. In Chicago, two marijuana smoking boys murdered a policeman. In at least two dozen other comparatively recent cases of murder or degenerate sex attacks, many of them committed by youths, marijuana proved to be a contributing cause. Perhaps you remember the young desperado in Michigan who, a few months ago, caused a reign of terror by his career of burglaries and holdups, finally to be sent to prison for life after kidnapping a Michigan state policeman, killing him, then handcuffing him to the post of a rural mailbox. This young bandit was a marijuana fiend. A sixteen-year-old boy was arrested in California for burglary. Under the influence of marijuana he had stolen a revolver and was on the way to stage a holdup when apprehended. Then there was the nineteen-year-old addict in Columbus, Ohio, who, when police responded to a disturbance complaint, opened fire upon an officer, wounding him three times, and was himself killed by the returning fire of the police. In Ohio a gang of seven young men, all less than twenty years old, had been caught after a series of 38 holdups. An officer asked them where they got their incentive. “We only work when we’re high on ‘tea,’” one explained. “On what?” “On tea. Oh, there are lots of names for it. Some people call it ‘mu’ or ‘muggles’ or ‘Mary Weaver’ or ‘moocah’ or ‘weed’ or ‘reefers’ — there’s a million names for it.” “All of which mean marijuana?” “Sure. Us kids got on to it in high school three or four years ago; there must have been twenty-five or thirty of us who started smoking it. The stuff was cheaper then; you could buy a whole tobacco tin of it for fifty cents. Now these peddlers will charge you all they can get, depending on how shaky you are. Usually though, it’s two cigarettes for a quarter.” This boy’s casual story of procurement of the drug was typical of conditions in many cities in America. He told of buying the cigarettes in dance halls, from the owners of small hamburger joints, from peddlers who appeared near high schools at dismissal time. Then there were the “booth joints” or Bar-B-Q stands, where one might obtain a cigarette and a sandwich for a quarter, and there were the shabby apartments of women who provided not only the cigarettes but rooms in which girls and boys might smoke them. “But after you get the habit,” the boy added, “you don’t bother much about finding a place to smoke. I’ve seen as many as three or four high-school kids jam into a telephone booth and take a few drags.” The officer questioned him about the gang’s crimes: “Remember that filling-station attendant you robbed — how you threatened to beat his brains out?” The youth thought hard. “I’ve got a sort of hazy recollection,” he answered. “I’m not trying to say I wasn’t there, you understand. The trouble is, with all my gang, we can’t remember exactly what we’ve done or said. When you get to ‘floating,’ it’s hard to keep track of things.” From the other youthful members of the gang the officer could get little information. They confessed the robberies as one would vaguely remember bad dreams. “If I had killed somebody on one of those jobs, I’d never have known it,” explained one youth. “Sometimes it was over before I realized that I’d even been out of my room.”

THEREIN lies much of the cruelty of marijuana, especially in its attack upon youth. The young, immature brain is a thing of impulses, upon which the “unknown quantity” of the drug acts as an almost overpowering stimulant. There are numerous cases on record like that of an Atlanta boy who robbed his father’s safe of thousands of dollars in jewelry and cash. Of high-school age, this boy apparently had been headed for an honest, successful career. Gradually, however, his father noticed a change in him. Spells of shakiness and nervousness would be succeeded by periods when the boy would assume a grandiose manner and engage in excessive, senseless laughter, extravagant conversation, and wildly impulsive actions. When these actions finally resulted in robbery the father went at his son’s problem in earnest — and found the cause of it a marijuana peddler who catered to school children. The peddler was arrested. It is this useless destruction of youth which is so heartbreaking to all of us who labor in the field of narcotic suppression. No one can predict what may happen after the smoking of the weed. I am reminded of a Los Angeles case in which a boy of seventeen killed a policeman. They had been great friends. Patrolling his beat, the officer often stopped to talk to the young fellow, to advise him. But one day the boy surged toward the patrolman with a gun in his hand; there was a blaze of yellowish flame, and the officer fell dead. “Why did you kill him?” the youth was asked. “I don’t know,” he sobbed. “He was good to me. I was high on reefers. Suddenly I decided to shoot him.” In a small Ohio town, a few months ago, a fifteen-year-old boy was found wandering the streets, mentally deranged by marijuana. Officers learned that he had obtained the dope at a garage. “Are any other school kids getting cigarettes there?” he was asked. “Sure. I know fifteen or twenty, maybe more. I’m only counting my friends.” The garage was raided. Three men were arrested and 18 pounds of marijuana seized. “We’d been figuring on quitting the racket,” one of the dopesters told the arresting officer. “These kids had us scared. After we’d gotten ’em on the weed, it looked like easy money for a while. Then they kept wanting more and more of it, and if we didn’t have it for ’em, they’d get tough. Along toward the last, we were scared that one of ’em would get high and kill us all. There wasn’t any fun in it.” Not long ago a fifteen-year-old girl ran away from her home in Muskegon, Mich., to be arrested later in company with five young men in a Detroit marijuana den. A man and his wife ran the place. How many children had smoked there will never be known. There were 60 cigarettes on hand, enough fodder for 60 murders. A newspaper in St. Louis reported after an investigation this year that it had discovered marijuana “dens,” all frequented by children of high-school age. The same sort of story came from Missouri, Ohio, Louisiana, Colorado — in fact, from coast to coast. In Birmingham, Ala., a hot-tamale salesman had pushed his cart about town for five years, and for a large part of that time he had been peddling marijuana cigarettes to students of a downtown high school. His stock of the weed, he said, came from Texas and consisted, when he was captured, of enough marijuana to manufacture hundreds of cigarettes. In New Orleans, of 437 persons of varying ages arrested for a wide range of crimes, 125 were addicts. Of 37 murderers, 17 used marijuana, and of 193 convicted thieves, 34 were “on the weed.”

ONE of the first places in which marijuana found a ready welcome was in a closely congested section of New York. Among those who first introduced it there were musicians, who had brought the habit northward with the surge of “hot” music demanding players of exceptional ability, especially in improvisation. Along the Mexican border and in seaport cities it had been known for some time that the musician who desired to get the “hottest” effects from his playing often turned to marijuana for aid. One reason was that marijuana has a strangely exhilarating effect upon the musical sensibilities (Indian hemp has long been used as a component of “singing seed” for canary birds). Another reason was that strange quality of marijuana which makes a rubber band out of time, stretching it to unbelievable lengths. The musician who uses “reefers” finds that the musical beat seemingly comes to him quite slowly, thus allowing him to interpolate any number of improvised notes with comparative ease. While under the influence of marijuana, he does not realize that he is tapping the keys, with a furious speed impossible for one in a normal state of mind; marijuana has stretched out the time of the music until a dozen notes may be crowded into the space normally occupied by one. Or, to quote a young musician arrested by Kansas City officers as a “muggles smoker”: “Of course I use it — I’ve got to. I can’t play any more without it, and I know a hundred other musicians who are in the same fix. You see, when I’m ‘floating,’ I own my saxophone. I mean I can do anything with it. The notes seem to dance out of it — no effort at all. I don’t have to worry about reading the music — I’m music-crazy. Where do I get the stuff? In almost any low-class dance hall or night spot in the United States.” Soon a song was written about the drug. Perhaps you remember: “Have you seen That funny reefer man? He says he swam to China; Any time he takes a notion He can walk across the ocean.” It sounded funny. Dancing girls and boys pondered about “reefers” and learned through the whispers of other boys and girls that these cigarettes could make one accomplish the impossible. Sadly enough, they can — in the imagination. The boy who plans a holdup, the youth who seizes a gun and prepares for a murder, the girl who decides suddenly to elope with a boy she did not even know a few hours ago, does so with the confident belief that this is a thoroughly logical action without the slightest possibility of disastrous consequences. Command a person “high” on “mu” or “muggles” or “Mary Jane” to crawl on the floor and bark like a dog, and he will do it without a thought of the idiocy of the action. Everything, no matter how insane, becomes plausible. The underworld calls marijuana “that stuff that makes you able to jump off the tops of skyscrapers.”

REPORTS from various sections of the country indicate that the control and sale of marijuana has not yet passed into the hands of the big gangster syndicates. The supply is so vast and grows in so many places that gangsters perhaps have found it difficult to dominate the source. A big, hardy weed, with serrated, swordlike leaves topped by bunchy small blooms supported upon a thick, stringy stalk, marijuana has been discovered in almost every state. New York police uprooted hundreds of plants growing in a vacant lot in Brooklyn. In New York State alone last year 200 tons of the growing weed were destroyed. Acres of it have been found in various communities. Patches have been revealed in back yards, behind signboards, in gardens. In many places in the West it grows wild. Wandering dopesters gather the tops from along the right of way of railroads. An evidence of how large the traffic may be came to light last year near La Fitte, La. Neighbors of an Italian family had become amazed by wild stories told by the children of the family. They, it seemed, had suddenly become millionaires. They talked of owning inconceivable amounts of money, of automobiles they did not possess, of living in a palatial home. At last their absurd lies were reported to the police, who discovered that their parents were allowing them to smoke something that came from the tops of tall plants which their father grew on his farm. There was a raid, in which more than 500,000 marijuana plants were destroyed. This discovery led next day to another raid on a farm at Bourg, La. Here a crop of some 2,000 plants was found to be growing between rows of vegetables. The eight persons arrested confessed that their main source of income from this crop was in sales to boys and girls of high-school age. With possibilities for such tremendous crops, grown secretly, gangdom has been hampered in its efforts to corner the profits of what has now become an enormous business. It is to be hoped that the menace of marijuana can be wiped out before it falls into the vicious protectorate of powerful members of the underworld.

BUT to crush this traffic we must first squarely face the facts. Unfortunately, while every state except one has laws to cope with the traffic, the powerful right arm which could support these states has been all but impotent. I refer to the United States government. There has been no national law against the growing, sale, or possession of marijuana. As this is written a bill to give the federal government control over marijuana has been introduced in Congress by Representative Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. It has the backing of Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, who has under his supervision the various agencies of the United States Treasury Department, including the Bureau of Narcotics, through which Uncle Sam fights the dope evil. It is a revenue bill, modeled after other narcotic laws which make use of the taxing power to bring about regulation and control. The passage of such a law, however, should not be the signal for the public to lean back, fold its hands, and decide that all danger is over. America now faces a condition in which a new, although ancient, narcotic has come to live next door to us, a narcotic that does not have to be smuggled into the country. This means a job of unceasing watchfulness by every police department and by every public-spirited civic organization. It calls for 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 victim. And, above all, every citizen should keep constantly before him the real picture of the “reefer man” — not some funny fellow who, should he take the notion, could walk across the ocean, but — In Los Angeles, Calif., a youth was walking along a downtown street after inhaling a marijuana cigarette. For many addicts, merely a portion of a "reefer" is enough to induce intoxication. Suddenly, for no reason, he decided that someone had threatened to kill him and that his life at that very moment was in danger. Wildly he looked about him. The only person in sight was an aged bootblack. Drug-crazed nerve centers conjured the innocent old shoe-shiner into a destroying monster. Mad with fright, the addict hurried to his room and got a gun. He killed the old man, and then, later, babbled his grief over what had been wanton, uncontrolled murder. “I thought someone was after me,” he said. “That’s the only reason I did it. I had never seen the old fellow before. Something just told me to kill him!” That’s marijuana!

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