Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present – Chapter 6: 1930-1940 – Incurable Insanity

The 1930s! All the racism, demonization, ignorance and parental hysteria of the 1920s

, along with some high profile murders unfairly associated with pot and a US Federal cannabis prohibition pretending to be a US Federal marijuana tax. Images of hemp fields and cannabis medicine bottles would all but disappear from the public mind by the end of the decade. Jazz musicians tried to explain their own beneficial use of the herb through music, but the far more powerful visuals from the imaginations and cameras of anti-pot newspaper and magazine editors, book authors and movie directors kept the cannabis community on the defensive.

Special thanks to the Cannabis Museum for sponsoring the creation of this series. The introduction to this series (Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present) can be found here. Chapter 1 can be found here. Chapter 2 can be found here. Chapter 3 can be found here. Chapter 4 can be found here. Chapter 5 can be found here.

“The motion picture you are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug – a violent narcotic – an unspeakable scourge – The Real Public Enemy Number One! It’s first effect is sudden, violent, uncontrollable laughter; then come dangerous hallucinations – space expands – time slows down, almost stands still . . . fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances – followed by emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions . . . leading finally to acts of shocking violence . . . ending often in incurable insanity.”

– Reefer Madness (formerly Tell Your Children), 1936, A G and H Production

Image #1: Reefer Madness (1936) Cult Classic | Full Movie | Subtitled, YouTube

Aside from the movie Reefer Madness – which is in a class by itself in the history of cannabis stigmatization – the decade was marked by two events in the United States that would have a profound effect on both cannabis policy in particular and society in general. Those two events were the end of alcohol prohibition in 1933, and the creation of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.

Image #2: TAXATION OF MARIHUANA HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE UNITED STATES SENATE SEVENTY-FIFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. R. 6906, AN ACT TO IMPOSE AN OCCUPATIONAL EXCISE TAX UPON CERTAIN DEALERS IN MARIHUANA, TO IMPOSE A TRANSFER; TAX UPON CERTAIN DEALINGS IN MARIHUANA, AND TO SAFEGUARD THE REVENUE THEREFROM BY REGISTRY AND RECORDING, JULY 12, 1937

After 1933, the alcohol-dealing, speakeasy-facilitating gangsters turned to dealing other hard drugs, and then lost legal access to machine guns in 1934 with the National Firearms Act – a machine gun prohibition pretending to be a machine gun tax. Cannabis also became illegal through a prohibition pretending to be a tax – The Marijuana Tax Act. In fact, the first major federal anti-drug law – what is often called the “Harrison Narcotics Act” – is actually named the “Harrison Narcotics Tax Act” and was also arguably a prohibition pretending to be a tax. (Clinton M. Hester, Assistant General Counsel for the Treasury Department, admitted as much in his testimony of July 12th, 1937.) (1) It was almost as if the people doing all the prohibiting didn’t want to admit they were prohibiting.

Image #3: TAXATION OF MARIHUANA HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE UNITED STATES SENATE SEVENTY-FIFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. R. 6906, JULY 12, 1937, p.8  

Image #4: “… a photo of Clinton Hester (right). Tod (Mikuriya, M.D.) thought the gent at left was Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau.” https://beyondthc.com/prohibition-37-a-tragicomedy-in-three-acts/

The Marijuana Tax Act created the need for the Reefer Man – the friendly neighborhood pot dealer. The 1930s gave birth to American cannabis prohibition, which in turn led to global cannabis prohibition in 1961 through US efforts within the United Nations.

The 1930s was also the decade when scapegoating was first mechanized – when the Nazis took control of the German government and showed the world what state propaganda could really do. Using relatively new media such as radio programs and feature films, the Nazis set an example of efficient and effective scapegoating with the “big lie” – insisting the scapegoat was responsible for horrible atrocities and then repeating that lie over and over again, regardless of evidence to the contrary. That technique was used even more effectively by the pot prohibitionist propagandists in that reefer madness was 1) generally accepted by the establishment all over the world, and 2) used by the victors – not the losers – of World War Two, thus surviving and evolving from every decade since the 1930s until this day. One of the best examples that history has provided for the big lie is the “pot makes you crazy” lie, because it has persisted for at least the last 130 years, which has resulted in a lot of evidence to examine.

The 1930s was indeed a decade of madness – caused not by drugs but instead by the evidence-free stigma-filled scapegoating against Jews and Poles and cripples and Romanies and queers and left wingers and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Freemasons and drug users. And the scapegoating was fueled by both the “distract from the real problems” motives of the scapegoaters and the economic engine of scapegoating – the protection rackets and witch-hunt spoils – that always comes with scapegoating. The Nazis even had their own drug war! They called it “Rauschgiftbekämpfung” – “the combatting of drugs”. (2)

Because of the rising dominance of the mediums of the record player and the movie theatre, the champions of pot (having limited resources) chose the record player as the main vehicle of their pro-pot messages . . . mostly in the form of that relatively new invention: jazz music. The enemies of pot – mostly those either monopolizing the sale of various chemical and medical hemp substitutes, or those setting up massive law-enforcement-based protection rackets – had money, and enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the debate over cannabis policy taking place on the big screen – with the possible exception of a few select jazz musicians who somehow managed to sneak their pro-pot songs in big-budget Hollywood films for all to enjoy. The 1930s was when the fight over cannabis moved into high gear.

In 1930, a 38-year-old named Harry Anslinger became the founding commissioner of the Treasury department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics. His wife’s distant relative was head of the Treasury at the time – Andrew Mellon. (3)

Image #5: “H. J. Anslinger Becomes New Narcotic Chief,” The Washington Herald, Washington, D.C. September 24th, 1930, p. 1

Image #6: Andrew William Mellon https://mediarichlearning.com/andrew-mellon-financial-legacy/

Mellon was also the head of Gulf Oil and the Mellon Bank, which would help finance the takeover of General Motors by DuPont in the 1920s, and facilitate the creation of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, which would keep DuPont’s new invention – Nylon – and Mellon’s investments in oil safe from having to compete with hemp fibres and hemp ethanol. (4) Hemp is, after all, the best fuel crop – about 16 times more energy efficient than corn, the number one energy crop in the United States. (5)

Coincidence theorists believe conflicts of interest such as this are accidental, and exceptional, and rarely acted upon. Students of history will note, however, that there are very few accidental billionaires. This never-successfully-refuted conflict of interest was exposed by Jack Herer in the Emperor Wears No Clothes, a book that spawned the hemp movement of the 1990s, which itself gave rise to the medical and recreational pot movements that arose around the time of the new millennium. Herer exposed the conflict of interest between Mellon’s duty to his shareholders and business partners – to effect social policy to their short-term benefit – on the one hand, and Mellon’s duty to enact social policy which would have a long-term benefit to humanity. The shareholders and business partners won the conflict;

“In DuPont’s 1937 Annual Report to its stockholders, the company strongly urged continued investment in its new, but readily accepted, petrochemical synthetic products. DuPont was anticipating ‘radical changes’ from ‘the revenue raising power of government . . . converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganization.’ (DuPont Company, annual report, 1937) . . . This prospect was alluded to during the 1937 Senate hearings by Matt Rens, of Rens Hemp Company: Mr. Rens: ‘Such a tax would put all small producers out of the business of growing hemp, and the proportion of small producers is considerable . . . the real purpose of this bill is not to raise money, is it?’ Senator Brown: ‘Well, we’re sticking to the proposition that it is.’ Mr. Rens: ‘It will cost a million.’ Senator Brown: ‘Thank you.’ (Witness Dismissed) . . . In the secret Treasury Department meetings conducted between 1935 and 1937 prohibitive tax laws were drafted and strategies plotted. ‘Marijuana’ was not banned outright; the law called for an ‘Occupational excise tax upon deals, and a transfer tax upon dealings in marijuana’. Importers, manufacturers, sellers and distributors had to register with the Secretary of the Treasury and pay the occupational tax. Transfers were taxed at $1 an ounce; $200 an ounce if the dealer was unregistered. Sales to an unregistered taxpayer were prohibitively taxed. At the time, ‘raw drug’ cannabis sold for one dollar an ounce. The year was 1937. New York State had exactly one narcotics officer. After the Supreme Court decision of March 29, 1937, upholding the prohibition of machine guns through taxation, Herman Oliphant made his move. On April 14, 1937 he introduced the bill directly to the House Ways and Means Committee instead of to the other appropriate committees such as food and drug, agriculture, textiles, commerce etc. The reason may have been that Ways and Means is the only committee to send its bills directly to the House floor without the act having to be debated upon by other committees. Ways and Means Chairman Robert L. Doughton, a key DuPont ally, quickly rubber-stamped the secret Treasury bill and sent it sailing through Congress to the President.” (6)

Image #7: TAXATION OF MARIHUANA HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE UNITED STATES SENATE SEVENTY-FIFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. R. 6906, JULY 12, 1937 p.26

Image #8: “Overprint marijuana revenue stamps from 1937” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937

Image #9: One Hundred Dollars 1937 Marijuana Tax Stamp Reproduction metal sign wall art, ebay.ca

Those skeptical of the potential conflict of interest arising from Mellon and DuPont’s influence in the US government and their interest in outlawing their natural competition – hemp – still haven’t found a compelling alternative explanation for why DuPont promised their stockholders “radical changes” from “the revenue raising power of government …  converted into an instrument of industrial and social reorganization” in 1937, or why Lammot DuPont admitted in 1939 that “Synthetic plastics find application in fabricating a wide variety of articles, many of which in the past were made from natural products” – or why

“Coincidentally, in 1937, DuPont had just patented processes for making plastics from oil and coal, as well as a paper from wood pulp. According to DuPont’s own corporate records and historians, these processes accounted for over 80% of all the company’s railroad carloading over the next 60 years …” (7)

If Dupont wasn’t talking about the Marijuana Tax Act as the “revenue raising power of government” in question – then what were they talking about?

Image #10: Cover of Dupont’s Annual Report of 1937, from the Emperor Wears No Clothes, Jack Herer, AH HA Publishing, Van Nuys, California, 11th edition, 2000, p. 26

Image #11: Carothers Nylon Patent Art – February 16th, 1937                                                                                    https://fineartamerica.com/featured/carothers-nylon-patent-art-1937-ian-monk.html

Image #12: US2071250A, Wallace H Carothers, February 16th, 1937.                                                         PDF downloaded from https://patents.google.com/patent/US2071250

Image #13: “11 Things You Might Not Know About Nylon,” 2/16/2017                                                   https://www.phillymag.com/news/2017/02/16/nylon-dupont-facts/

Our tour of 1930s cannabis-related media begins with a story about hashish smugglers in the May 3rd, 1930 London News. It was written by one Major Scudamore Jarvis, Governor of the Sinai Province – at a time when Egypt was occupied by Britain and was a protectorate under martial law. As usual, the story followed the “cannabis is inherently-harmful” narrative – complete with “insanity” for those who use it constantly:

“Compared with cocaine and heroin, hashish may be regarded as a mild form of narcotic, but constant use leads to a weakening of the moral fibre, loss of energy, and ultimately, in many cases, to insanity. . . . The profits of the trade are so enormous that there will always be individuals willing to run the risk of severe punishment, individuals so lost to all decent feeling that they care nothing for the suffering of the unfortunate drug addicts to whom they supply the hashish.” (8)

Image #14: “THE HASHISH SMUGGLERS: RUNNING NARCOTICS INTO EGYPT.” THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, May 3rd, 1930, p. 775

Image #15: “THE HASHISH SMUGGLERS: RUNNING NARCOTICS INTO EGYPT.” THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, May 3rd, 1930, p. 775

Image #16: “ASSASSIN – A Drinker of Hashish!” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, September 28th, 1930, p. 42

With similar information coming out of all the newspapers on a regular basis, artists were hesitant to come out in favour of cannabis for fear of public backlash. Pro pot references were often hidden in code words like “weed” or “grass” – such as Don Redman’s instrumental “Chant of the Weed(s).” (9)

On November 14^th, 1930, Louis Armstrong got busted for marijuana possession. Having gotten introduced to pot in the 1920s by fellow musician Mezz Mezzrow, Armstrong became an early proponent, recording an instrumental ode to cannabis way back on December 7^th, 1928. Titled “Muggles” – another code-word for pot – it gave marijuana its first sound-track (aside from “La Cucaracha” of course). (10)

Image #17: “HELD ON SERIOUS CHARGE,” The Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, December 6^th, 1930, p. 18

Armstrong recalled the arrest, claiming that he and his smoking partner were “having lots of laughs and feeling good” from smoking it when arrested. The judge would later state that Armstrong was “cultivating evil habits” and that marijuana was “something that only causes trouble.” Armstrong would do 9 days in jail before everyone missed his music so much that strings were pulled and Armstrong avoided the six-month minimum sentence that was routinely given out for simple possession at the time. (11) Armstrong would later write President Eisenhower, asking that pot should be legalized, arguing that it was less harmful than alcohol. (12)

Armstrong would also go on to attempt to write an autobiographical book based entirely on marijuana. He would never finish writing it, but it survived and was published posthumously in a book entitled Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words. Insight into how Armstrong viewed pot was revealed:

“It makes me feel ‘good as gracious’ . . . it’s a thousand times better than whisky . . .  it’s an assistant, a friend, a nice cheap drunk if you want to call it that. Good (very good) for Asthma – Relaxes your nerves . . .” (13)

Image #18: amazon.ca

Armstrong famously performed high, and would announce the fact to his band members and in-the-know audience members by saying “I’m ready, I’m ready, so help me I’m ready.” He would then launch into some of the most innovative and inspiring trumpet solos in jazz history. (14)

The jazz song “Smoking Reefers” first appeared as the final song in a play called Flying Colors in 1932, which did a 188-performance run on Broadway, and then was released as a recording with a single in 1938 by Larry Adler. (15) There was no hiding what it was about – it was about smoking reefers – and it described accurately both the medical effects of pot in the treatment of stress and depression, and the role its stigmatization played in maintaining white supremacy:

“Old weed cigarette that we all must depend on – marijuana. / Old weed, once beginnin’ and just sure to end on – marijuana. / It’s the kinda stuff that dreams are made of. / It’s the stuff that white folks are afraid of. /  Up in Harlem we go on a marijuana jag. / Smokin’ reefers – to get beyond the miseries. /  Go away you miseries! Go away. Go away. /  Smokin’ reefers – to get beyond the worrying. /  Go away you worrying! Go away. Go away. /  Must wake up to work in the morning. /        I must get by the broodin’ at night. /  Ah you can’t change this world you were born in.  /  But I declare . . . you can be walking on air by  /   Smoking reefers – you’ll have the angels sing away  /          helping you to fling away /  you worries, you troubles, you cares!  /  I must wake up to work in the morning.  /  I must get by the broodin’ at night.  /   You can’t change this world you were born in.   /    But I declare, you can be walking on air by  /   Smoking reefers – you’ll hear the angels sing away   /    Helping you to fling away  /  You worries, you troubles, you cares!” (16)

Image #19: Detail, “A night-club map of Harlem,” Campbell, E. Simms (Elmer Simms), 1906-1971, cartographer. Dell Publishing Company, publisher, New York, N.Y. : Dell Publishing Company, Inc., [1933] © 1933 https://www.loc.gov/item/2016585261/

The success of Flying Colors may have inspired some risk-taking on the part of both jazz musicians and Hollywood film directors, as the year after the play opened the film International House featured the song “Reefer Man” performed by jazz master Cab Calloway. Instead of focusing on the anti-stress and anti-depression medicinal effects, “Reefer Man” pointed to the more imagination-related effects:

[Conversation Intro]“Man, what’s the matter with that cat there?”“Must be full of reefer”“Full of reefer?!”“Yeah man”“You mean that cat’s high?!”“Sailing”“Sailing”“Sailing lightly”“Get away from here”“Man, is that the reefer man?”“That’s the reefer man”“I believe he’s losing his mind”“I think he’s lost his mind!”

[Song]“Oh, have you ever met that funny reefer man? (reefer man!)Have you ever met that funny reefer man? (reefer man!)If he said he swam to China, and he sell you South CarolinaThen you know your talkin to that reefer manHave you ever met that funny reefer man (reefer man!)Have you ever met that funny reefer man (reefer man!)If he said he walks the ocean, any time he takes the notionThen you know your talkin to reefer man

Have you ever met this funny reefer man? (reefer man!)Oh baby baby baby reefer man reefer manIf he trades you dimes for nicklesAnd calls watermellons picklesThen you know your talkin to that reefer manHave you ever met that funny reefer man? (reefer man!)Have you ever met that funny reefer man? (reefer man!)If he takes a sudden maniaHe’ll want to give you PennsylvaniaOh, you know your talking to the reefer man

Have you ever met that funny reefer man? (reefer man!)Have you ever met that funny reefer man? (reefer man!)If he said wall st. is frantic Because he won’t sell me AtlanticThen you know your talkin to that reefer man” (17)

Image #20: Atlanta Daily World, September 9th, 1934, p. 5

The Don Redman version of the song – recorded in 1932 – has slightly different lyrics:

“I’m well acquainted with the reefer man. Ya Jim . . . I know the reefer man. / If I claim I own a portion of the Rockefeller fortune, then you know I just left that reefer man. / Yeah, I know the reefer man. I’m well acquainted with the reefer man. / So if I claim I have a billion and I wanted to trade it to you for a million, I just left that reefer man. / How well I know that reefer man. Oh I’m SO well acquainted with the reefer man. So if you hear me sniff and giggle, start to squirm and wiggle, / Ah that reefer man.” (18)

The message of the Calloway version is that smoking reefers will make you act silly and attempt the impossible. The Redman version adds radical wealth redistribution dreams to that message. This radical idea may have had some hand in the decision as to which version would make it to the silver screen.

In the 1930’s, the big push for a federal law against cannabis culminated in a series of anti-pot films. Narcotic (1933), Marijuana, The Weed With Roots In Hell (1936), Assassin of Youth (1937), and of course the famous cult film Reefer Madness (1936) – a name synonymous with establishment lies and myths about the effects of cannabis – a name which gave me the name of the series of articles you are reading now. Pot also played a cameo appearance in many films during this period.

For example, cannabis played a cameo role in the 1932 film Jewel Robbery as a tranquilizer offered by the robber to his victim. Exaggerated impairment ensues.  (19)

Image #21: The Jewel Robbery, lobby card, 1932

The 1933 film Narcotic seemed designed to conflate cannabis – a soft drug – with hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The Internet Movie Data Base description of the film explains how all the illegal drugs (including “the marihuana cigarette”) are lumped together by the black market, treating each drug as if it were as dangerous as the next:

“In the movie’s most shocking episode, Davies and his ritzy friends retire to a hotel room together for a drug party. ‘We’re gonna get lit,’ says a woman. A buffet of drugs is spread out on a table and each guest takes their drug of choice. ‘It takes a needle for me to get a bang,’ says a woman. As each participant indulges, the party quickly turns into an orgy of excesses, one woman hikes up her skirts, another laughs hysterically, a man pontificates, another man becomes paranoid.” (20)

Image #22: “Miami Alvarez, Patricia Farley, Herman Hack, Jean Lacy, and Philip Sleeman in Narcotic (1933)” – lobby card. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121587/mediaviewer/rm2266172928/

Image #23: Narcotic (1933) PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpGSK3R6-ys

Image #24: “Murder Drug That Gives Gunmen Courage to Kill,” Daily Press, Newport News, Virginia, August 23^rd, 1931, p. 22

Image #25: “World’s First Narcotic Farm At Lexington, Kentucky,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 20th, 1933, p. 71

Image #26: “World’s First Narcotic Farm At Lexington, Kentucky,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 20th, 1933, p. 71

Image #27: Parke-Davis cannabis medicine bottle from 1933. “The Parke-Davis & Co. paper label on this jar reads in part ‘Fluid Extract of American Cannabis was introduced to the medical / profession by us. The Cannabis we use is grown in / our own botanical gardens.’” Smithsonian National Museum of American History                                                                                                  https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_718525

On October 17^th, 1933, the first major high-profile murder that would be blamed on pot smoking occurred. Victor Licata, age 21, would be blamed for killing his father, mother, sister, and two younger brothers with an axe in their Tampa, Florida home. The very next day, before any real investigation could have possibly taken place, reefer smoking was already assumed to be the cause of the murders. The Tampa Tribune blamed the murders on marijuana smoking on page 1:

“W. D. Bush, city detective chief, said he had made an investigation prior to the crime and learned the slayer had been addicted to smoking marijuana cigarettes for more than six months. This, he said, had unbalanced his mind, at least temporarily. A similar statement was made by Frank S. Caston, state drug and narcotic inspector, who said he had aided Bush in the investigation, and was prepared to make charges against the youth when he heard of the ax slayings. He had also learned of several places where Licata bought the doped cigarettes.” (21)

Image #28: “CRAZED YOUTH KILLS FIVE OF FAMILY WITH AX IN TAMPA HOME,” The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, October 18^th, 1933, p. 1

On page 8 of the same edition of The Tampa Tribune, Tampa Police Chief again blamed the murders on marijuana, vowing to wage war on the weed, with an optimistic view on how long it would take to eliminate it entirely from the local scene:

“Every agency of the police department, with assistance pledged by federal, state and county law enforcement officials, will be put to work at once to stamp out the use of marijuana weeds as a narcotic, Police Chief Logan said yesterday after he had been informed that the weed, used as a cigarette, had been indirectly to blame for the wholesale murder of the Michael Licata family. ‘Maybe the weed only had a small indirect part in the alleged insanity of the youth,’ the chief explained, ‘but I am declaring now for all time that the increasing use of this narcotic must stop and will be stopped.’ . . . ‘If necessary I will use my vice squad, the auto theft bureau investigators and detectives to completely wipe out the weed.’ Logan said. ‘The county solicitor, state, county and federal officials have promised me help and cooperation. With this kind of help it will only be a question of weeks until we have the situation under control.’” (22)

Image #29: The Tampa Tribune was still using the murders to stigmatize pot decades later. “Pot: Groovy Drug or Ghastly Killer?” The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, February 11th, 1968, p. 25

The Tampa Times showed more restraint, and blamed the murders on “marajuana” smoking on page 2 instead of page 1:

“Every law enforcement agency in Hillsborough County was ready today to open a fight to the finish against the sale of marajuana, (sic) the narcotic which indirectly caused the murder of a family of five Tampans. Promised the help of State and County officials in a drive against the dope, Police Chief Logan issued orders to his men to stamp out the traffic in Tampa, and to stay on the job until the last particle of the murderous weed has been driven out of the city. . . . Victor Licata, who early yesterday slaughtered his mother and father, a sister and two brothers, is known to have been a marajuana addict, officers declare. It is among young people, investigators declare, where marajuana has made its greatest inroads. The recent investigation revealed appalling information concerning the use of the cigarettes among ‘teen-age boys and girls, and numerous cases have been reported of youths whose minds are on the verge of cracking because of their frequent visits to the ‘muggles’ joints, where marajuana addicts gather to smoke the weed. Originally a Mexican narcotic, marajuana was imported into the United States through the south western states.” (23)

The Tampa Times also had an anti-pot editorial, titled “Stamp Out This Weed Of Flaming Murder” on page 6:

“Shadows and figures stealing through an alleyway. Knuckles rap softly, furtively against a door panel, beating a cryptic tattoo. A peephole opens, brief inspection, and admission. Within a sparsely furnished room, groups and individuals seated. All waiting ‘the man.’ Soon he comes silently, with catlike tread, his wares hidden within a small tin box concealed in a pocket. Eager hands reach for the cigarettes-paper wrapped tubes, harmless appearing. ‘The man’ disappears as quickly and as quietly as he entered. Singly and in small groups his customers depart. Marijuana! Smoke that inflames the brain. Vapor that turns the blood to seething, boiling lava. Witness yesterday. A family slain. A loved son behind bars, his fingerprints on the murder ax. Recently the State opened a campaign against sale of the weed. Arrests were made here in Tampa and elsewhere in the State. One convicted seller has been sentenced to a year in prison. And still, officers and underworld tipsters declare, marijuana is sold – is purchased – is smoked in Tampa. Hundreds, those who are in position to know declare, are addicted to its use. Hundreds of persons – many of them young – many of them girls – have inflamed their brains with marajuana. (sic) Hundreds of others, unless the sale is curbed and stopped, will join the ranks. Stamp it out!” (24)

The day after all that – two days after the murder – a local sheriff announced a “$100 reward for each of the first five convictions secured in Criminal Court here for sale or possession of marijuana.” (25) And the day after that, another editorial in The Tampa Tribune laid the blame for “This Murderous ‘Smoke’” habit on “the Harlem district of New York City.” (26)

By October 30^th, Victor Licata’s psychotic face was circulated in newspapers across the US, with “Slayer of Five?” above and the following caption beneath:

“Victor Licata, 21-year-old drug addict, of Tampa, Fla., who is held by police of that city charged with the ax slaying of his mother, father, sister and two brothers. He is a user of marijuana, a Mexican weed that is said to cause insanity.” (27)

Image #30: “Slayer of Five?” Sapulpa Herald, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, October 30^th, 1933, p. 6

While the initial police report mentioned Licata had “smoked marijuana cigarettes for more than six months,” a later report from a psychiatrist concluded that Licata had a history of insanity that had stretched back “for more than a year” (28) and that his insanity was said to be “hereditary,” involving more family members than just Victor Licata:

“Dr. Smith in a supplementary report to Judge Cornelius gave the family history of the Licatas, tending to show the prisoner is subject to hereditary insanity. The report said that four other members of the family, an uncle, a brother and two cousins, had been found insane.” (29)

Licata broke out of his mental hospital with four other patients on October 15^th  1945. He was re-captured on August 14^th 1950, (30) and hung himself with a bedsheet on December 4^th 1950. (31)

Today, a detailed, meticulously-sourced 19-chapter analysis of the murders found online argues that Licata was innocent, had never smoked cannabis, and was framed by the police:

“DID YOU KNOW That there was a serial Axe murderer operating in the Tampa area at the time? That the Licata family was NOT the only Tampa family cut down by an Axe murderer? ” That one of the other families slain by the serial Axe murderer was the Rowell Family –same last name as the author of ‘On the Trail of Marihuana, the Weed of Madness’? That Victor Licata (to his dying day) DENIED that he has ever used Marihuana?   And that there was never a scratch of evidence to even suggest that he ever had? That at least one of the major players (the Detective chief who had accused Victor Licata of having committed the murders) has been caught (and documented) lying about the matter? That much of the (alleged) evidence against Victor Licata was fabricated and so fake it wouldn’t have stood the light of day in a courtroom? That many of the higher-up’s within the Tampa judicial justice system knew the truth – and choose (for whatever reason), to deliberately keep quiet?” (32)

Image #31: “VICTOR LICATA – A RUSH TO JUDGEMENT: Chapter 13: EXAMINING THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AGAINST VICTOR LICATA” http://reefermadnessmuseum.org/VictorLIcata/Chap13_PhyEvidence.htm          See also: “VICTOR LICATA – A RUSH TO JUDGEMENT: MAIN INDEX” http://reefermadnessmuseum.org/VictorLIcata/Chap00_Index.htm

On December 5, 1933, alcohol prohibition was repealed. This had a profound effect on the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and created a desire within Harry Anslinger to avoid losing his job like the prohibition agents were losing theirs. The marijuana history book Smoke Signals painted an accurate picture of the situation;

“Anslinger didn’t pay much attention to cannabis until 1934, when the FBN was floundering. Tax revenues plummeted during the Great Depression, the bureau’s budget got slashed, and Harry’s entire department was on the chopping block. Then he saw the light and realized that marijuana just might be the perfect hook to hang his hat on. A savvy operator and extremely ambitious man, he set out to convince Congress and the American public that a terrible new drug menace was threatening the country, one that required immediate action by a well-funded Federal Bureau of Narcotics.” (33)

Image #32: Winsor McCay, July 23^rd, 1934, reprinted in High Times magazine, #151, March 1988, p. 85

In 1934, a code of conduct was adopted by Hollywood. It was called the Motion Picture Production Code but came to be known as the Hays Code, for its author. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor and it did not become effectively enforced until July 1, 1934. One of the parts of the code forbade the depiction of drug addiction. Another part insisted that all crime had to be punished by the end of the film. The language of the code would shape movies that discussed cannabis for decades to come:

“No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. . . . Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation. . . . The depiction of illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, ‘when not required by the plot or for proper characterization.’” (34)

The 1934 film Harlem After Midnight seemed to want to paint all potheads with the snitch/kidnapper and “reefer addict” brush. (35) The same year, the film Murder at the Vanities – based on a 1933 Broadway musical of the same name – contains a scene featuring Gertrude Michael signing a song called “Sweet Marijuana.” The lyrics reveal an endorsement of the preventative medicinal effects. The film came out a month and nine days before the Hays Code began to be enforced: (36)

“Soothe me with your caress / Sweet marijuana, marijuana. / Help me in my distress / Sweet marijuana, please do. / You alone can bring my lover back to me. / Even though I know it’s all a fantasy. / And then you put me to sleep / Sweet marijuana, marijuana” (37)

Image #33: Harlem After Midnight, January 1^st, 1934 https://blackreelawards.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/harlem-after-midnight.gif

On August 31^st, 1934 a musical short called La Cucaracha was produced where the three-strip Technicolor process was used for the first time. Contains the singing of “La Cucaracha” – the version that mentions “marijuana.” (38) The same song with the same pot reference was sung by a 13-year-old Judy Garland and her sisters the next year in the film La Fiesta De Santa Barbara. (39)

The song has had various versions at various times, but the version that mentions “marihuana” became popular between 1910 and 1920, during the Mexican Revolution. The “revolutionary lyrics” versions go like this:

Spanish	English
“La cucaracha, la cucaracha,	“The cockroach, the cockroach,
ya no puede caminar	can’t walk anymore
porque no tiene, porque le falta	because it doesn’t have, because it’s lacking
marihuana que fumar.”	marijuana to smoke.” (40)

This author suspects the pot reference in the song was a way for the troops of Pancho Villa to remind their officers to supply them with marijuana so that they would have the energy to march, by testifying to its efficacy as a stimulant in their marching song.

Image #34: “A Cucaracha Original 1930’s Menu Cover.”                                      https://365thingsinhouston.com/la-cucaracha-cocktail-club-the-pastry-war-houston-february-2016/

Stimulation was not the only effect of cannabis to be heralded in song. In 1936, Stuff Smith recorded “If You’re A Viper”, a song about marijuana’s antidepressant,  performance-enhancing and mind-focusing effects:

“Dreamed about a reefer five feet long.Mighty Mezz, but not too strong.You’ll be high but not for longIf you’re a viper.I’m the king of everything.I’ve got to be high before I can swing.Light a tea and let it beIf you’re a viper.When your throat get dry you know you’re highEverything is dandyTruck on down to the candy storeBust your konk on peppermint candy

Then you know that your body’s spent.You don’t care if you don’t pay rent.Sky is high and so am IIf you’re a viper.” (41)

Image #35: Grimault’s Indian Cigarettes ad, The Sydney Mail, Sydney, Australia, September 19th, 1934, p. 20

Image #36: Grimault’s Cigarettes of Cannabis Indica ad, The Lancet, May 5th, 1888, p. 16

Image #37: “Hemp Field in Brooklyn Raided by Dope Sleuths,” Daily News, New York, New York, October 18th, 1934, p. 760

In November of 1934, an article appeared in the Ontario newspaper the Winsor Star regarding how Canadians were going to the League of Nations in Switzerland to complain about how Hollywood films were teaching young Canadians to smoke pot:

“Hollywood films are helping spread the habit of smoking marihuana cigarets in Canada, it was declared yesterday before the League of Nations consultative committee by Canadian Delegate C. L. Sherman. The United States delegate replied he would bring the complaint to the attention of Hollywood screen authorities. Expressing alarm at the growth of smoking marihuana (a drug from Indian hemp) Sherman said young Canadians were learning to smoke the weed, partly through indirect propaganda such as motion pictures. An American film shown at Toronto recently contained scenes showing the smoking of marihuana cigarets, he said.” (42)

A month later, a memo from the League of Nations was quoted by the Star-Phoenix – a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan newspaper regarding how the smuggling of pot from the U.S. had begun:

“A memorandum from the League of Nations report on drugs is also quoted: ‘A taste for Indian hemp products, while most developed with Asiatic and African peoples, is not confined to them. A smuggling trade in cigarettes containing Indian hemp (‘marihuana’ cigarettes) has sprung up between the United States and Canada. Such drugged cigarettes have fetched as high a price as one British pound each.” (43)

Image #38: “League Expert Says Canadian Soldiers Were Dope Fiends,” Star-Phoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, December 28^th, 1934, p. 13

Image #39: The Omaha Guide, Omaha, Nebraska, December 29th, 1934, p. 3

In 1935, a newspaper article entitled “EVILS OF THE MEXICAN BORDER HOT SPOTS” mentioned the “fantastic ‘pleasure’ to be had from smoking marihuana, the sex cigarette, and carousing with wanton women.” The image directly above that text depicted a man in a Mexican bar with his arm around a Mexican woman, cupping her breast. This article may have aroused as much curiosity as it did outrage. (44)

Image #40: “EVILS OF THE MEXICAN BORDER HOT SPOTS,” Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Arizona, September 8^th, 1935, p. 84

The May, 1936 edition of Popular Science Monthly featured a story entitled “Uncle Sam Fights a New Drug Menace . . . MARIJUANA”. The subtitle was “How an Innocent-Looking Plant, a Roadside Weed In Many States, Presents A Grave Narcotic Problem”, and it was written by William Wolf. The predictable tropes of harm to the young and permanent insanity were both there, as was the white supremacism. A Mexican peddler was pictured with a bale of weed, while the photo next to him were a bunch of white cops ripping up a pot garden. The body of the text supplied similar racist messaging;

“It is being sold to school children in more than one state. . . . Continued use of the drug, for example, will lead to a delirious rage in which the addicts are temporarily irresponsible and inclined to commit the most horrible and violent crimes. Any increase in crime in a community usually is attributed by authorities to marijuana. Many murders are committed either by persons not responsible while under the influence of the drug, or by persons who deliberately smoke it to gain a false courage for the commission of a planned slaying. Prolonged use is said to lead to mental deterioration and eventual insanity. . . . In Malay, where it is eaten as hashish, the murderous frenzy in which the native dashes with the weapon into a crowd screaming: ‘Amok! Amok!’ (Kill! Kill!) is due to the drug, according to some travelers. . . . It has been said that the followers of Pancho Villa, the Mexican bandit, derived their reckless courage from smoking marijuana, and, that most of their outrages were committed under its influence.” (45)

Image #41: “Uncle Sam Fights a New Drug Menace . . . MARIJUANA,” POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, May 1936, p. 14

Image #42: “Uncle Sam Fights a New Drug Menace . . . MARIJUANA,” POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, May 1936, p. 15

Occasionally, hashish or marijuana would serve as the backdrop to a smuggling adventure story and contain no information about the effects – positive or negative – of the drug. That was the case with the November, 1936 edition of Spicy Adventure Stories, which contained a sexy story of intrigue and betrayal, but no “madness” to speak of – or even much in the way of stigmatization of the smuggler. This “neutral” story was rare – stigmatization during this era was the norm.

Image #43: Spicy Adventure Stories, November 1936, Culture Publications, INC., Wilmington, Delaware.

Image #44: THE LAST PLAGUE OF EGYPT, BARON HARRY D’ERLANGER, LOVAT DICKSON & THOMPSON LIMITED, LONDON, 1936, p. 80

Reefer Madness (originally made as Tell Your Children and sometimes titled as The Burning Question, Dope Addict, Doped Youth, and Love Madness depending on where it was released) is a 1936 American propaganda film about high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana, and the supposedly inevitable consequences one should expect, from a hit and run accident, to manslaughter, suicide, attempted rape, hallucinations, and descent into madness – all a result of marijuana addiction. Produced in 1936, it was re-cut with more sexy footage and released under different names beginning in the late 1930s and continuing through to the 1950s. (46)

Image #45: Reefer Madness, circa 1939, movie poster

Thinking they had created the archetype of the depiction of drug-induced psychosis, they had in fact created the archetype of establishment exaggeration, and created a short-hand term for “establishment lies about pot,” a term that had not existed before. Whereas there is still no term in existence for “lies about witches” or “lies about Jews” or “lies about homosexuals” or “lies about heretics,” the potheads had physical evidence of establishment ignorance and slander and vilification of cannabis users, and had reduced that concept to a single phrase: “Reefer Madness.”

Image #46: Ad for Reefer Madness, Southwest American, Fort Smith, Arkansas, November 13th, 1940, p. 11

But not at first. Back in 1936 most people believed it, because most people who went to the movies had never tried marijuana, or even knew someone who had tried marijuana. But that situation had changed dramatically by the early 1970s. What happened to the movie Reefer Madness in the 1970s is summed up pretty nicely on Wikipedia:

“. . . in the spring of 1972, the founder of NORML, Keith Stroup, found a copy of the film in the Library of Congress archives and bought a print for $297. As part of a fundraising campaign, NORML showed Reefer Madness on college campuses up and down California, asking a $1 donation for admission and raising $16,000 toward support for the California Marijuana Initiative, a political group that sought to legalize marijuana in the 1972 fall elections.Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema eventually heard about the underground hit and went to see it at the Bleecker Street Cinema. He noticed the film carried an improper copyright notice and realized it was in the public domain. Seeking material for New Line’s college circuit, he was able to obtain an original copy from a collector and began distributing the film nationally, ‘making a small fortune for New Line.’” (47)

New Line has gone on to make all kinds of movies, including such pro-pot classics as: Straight Outta Compton, the Friday and Barbershop franchises, and such anti-war epics such as Thirteen Days and Wag The Dog. (48)

But back in 1936, far from being thought of as exaggeration, the film was thought of by the general public as accurate. A similar movie came out the same year – Marihuana, which, according to the DVD description, carries with it the central message that using marihuana leads to “extreme cruelty and license.”

Image #47: Lobby card, MARIHUANA – WEED WITH ROOTS IN HELL, 1936

Image #48: “Marihuana follows a group of partying high school kids who are introduced to the drug by a pair of older sophisticates (and it turns out, traffickers). Naturally, one of the kids drowns and another becomes pregnant—and then gets involved in drug trafficking herself.” Narcotic | Marihuana: Weed with Roots in Hell  https://wexarts.org/film-video/narcotic-marihuana-weed-roots-hell

Image #49: Ad for MARIHUANA – WEED WITH ROOTS IN HELL, The Humboldt Times, Eureka, California, July 21st, 1936, p. 3

Image #50: “A HEMP FIELD IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.” Chronicle, Adelaide, Australia, October 29, 1936, p.36

Image #51: “One Place to Get Tough,” Cleveland Press, November 13, 1936, from “Drawing the Peddler: ‘Reefer Madness’ in Four Editorial Cartoons, May 11, 2021                                                https://pointshistory.com/2021/05/11/reefer-madness-four-editorial-cartoons/

The next year, in 1937, the onslaught of anti-pot films continued with Assassin Of Youth (AKA The Marijuana Menace), with the same old false associations with assassins and the corruption of youth, with an article appearing in The American Magazine by Harry J. Anslinger that came out the same year with the same title. From the big courtroom scene at the end of the film:

“Marijuana: the assassin of youth, the scourge of our country, is reaching out like a mad killer, mowing down the youth of our land, distorting their minds and leading them into lives of degradation and crime. This evil has struck here, your honor. Right in your own home, and has turned innocent play into tragic orgies!” (49)

Image #52: Assassin Of Youth, 1937, movie poster, https://atthemovies.uk/

Image #53: Assassin Of Youth, 1937, lobby card

Image #54: Assassin Of Youth, 1937, promotional match books

From Anslinger’s article of the same title and same year:

“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 young, immature brain is a thing of impulses, upon which the ‘unknown quantity’ of the drug acts as an almost overpowering stimulant. . . . 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.” (50)

Image #55: “Shocking New Menace To Nation’s Youth,” Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, January 24th, 1937, p. 15

Image #56: “Marijuana: SEX CRAZING DRUG MENACE,” Physical Culture, Vol. 77, No. 02, February 1937, p. 18 https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/PhyCul/id/13397

Image #57: “The Devil’s Roost,” The Washington Herald, Washington, D.C., February 26th, 1937, p. 8

Image #58: “Narcotics Makes the Beast,” The Oakland Post Enquirer, Oakland, California, April 23rd, 1937, p. 22

1937 was a key year for pot prohibition – it was the year Anslinger engineered the Marijuana Tax Act. It was a federal prohibition pretending to be a tax. If you applied for the tax you were required to bring in some cannabis with you, which could lead to an arrest on the spot – if you could actually find where to buy the stamps in the first place. (51)

Image #59: “Congress Asked To Tax Student-Used Narcotic,” The Paducah Sun, Paducah, Kentucky, April 28th, 1937, p. 12

Anslinger was fortunate to continue to have plenty of help from the mass media in regards to whipping up a cannabiphobic frenzy. In February of 1937, the propaganda barrage continued with the titillating cover-story in Physical Culture magazine, as the cover promised to deliver “The Truth About Marijuana – Sex Crazing Drug Menace.” Inside, readers learned that

“A peculiarly perilous characteristic of the drug, from the viewpoint of the youth protectionists, is that it commonly inflames the erotic impulses – especially when smoked by adolescents. . . . Irrespective of whether the addicts are boys, girls or adults, continued use of the drug almost invariably leads to mental collapse, and quite frequently, to complete insanity.” (52)

Anslinger testified at a January 14^th, 1937 conference at room 81 of the Treasury Building, the first of many meeting on what would eventually be known as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. (53) The familiar ingredients of 1) the myth of Reefer Madness and 2) the invoking of parental hysteria can be found in the making of the legislation from the very beginning, as one can clearly see from the following exchange:

Mr. Anslinger: (Reading the 14th question.) “‘What are the proofs that the use of marihuana in any of its forms, are habit-forming or addicted, and what are the indications and positive proofs that such addiction develops socially undesirable characteristics in the user?’ We have a lot of cases showing that it certainly develops undesirable characteristics. We have a case of a boy, about 15, (reads from report of case). This took place in a community playground in Finely, Ohio. The playground supervisors were the men who were selling the stuff. It all developed from the case of this youngster who was evidently going crazy. That’s only one of the many cases we have.”

Mr. Tipton: “Have you a lot of cases on this–horror stories — that’s what we want.” Mr. Tennyson: “Isn’t there some literature on the effects, Dr. Voegtlin?”

Dr. Voegtlin: “Oh, yes.”

Mr. Anslinger: “And it leads to insanity?”

Dr. Voegtlin: “I think it is an established fact that prolonged use leads to insanity in certain cases, depending upon the amount taken, of course. Many people take it and do not go insane, but many do.” (54)

Image #60: “BREAKING THE CROP,” “Hemp, Now a Rarity, Was One of Chief Crops 40 Years Ago,” The Lexington Herald, Lexington, Kentucky, February 28th, 1937, p. 33

Anyone who dared question any part of their narrative – anyone who didn’t subscribe to their agenda – was castigated by those involved in crafting the legislation and then ignored. For example, the May 4^th, 1937 testimony of Dr. William C. Woodard, the legal council for the American Medical Association:

Mr. Lewis: “Are there any substitutes for the latter psychological use?”

Dr. Woodward: “I know of none. That use, by the way, was recognized by John Stuart Mill in his work on psychology, where he referred to the ability of Cannabis or Indian hemp to revive old memories, and psychoanalysis depends on revivification of hidden memories. That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for their statements. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime. But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point. You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children’s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children. Inquiry of the Children’s Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it. Inquiry of the Office of Education— and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit— indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it. Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point. Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms. The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence. But we must admit that there is this slight addiction with possibly and probably, I will admit, a tendency toward an increase.” (55)

Dr. Woodward would continue to maintain that the evidence of harm from cannabis did not exist, and the people crafting the Marijuana Tax Act didn’t like a little thing like a lack of evidence of a problem get in the way of making a great effort to stop that problem. They claimed Dr. Woodward’s efforts to tell the truth about the medical effects of pharmaceutical cannabis or street weed was uncooperative:

Mr. Dingell: “We know that it is a habit that is spreading, particularly among youngsters. We learn that from the pages of the newspapers. You say that Michigan has a law regulating it. We have a State law, but we do not seem to be able to get anywhere with it, because, as I have said, the habit is growing. The number of victims is increasing each year.”

Dr. Woodward: “There is no evidence of that.”

Mr. Dingell: “I have not been impressed by your testimony here as reflecting the sentiment of the high¬class members of the medical profession in my State. I am confident that the medical profession in the State of Michigan, and in Wayne County particularly, or in my district, will subscribe wholeheartedly to any law that will suppress this thing, despite the fact that there is a $1 tax imposed.”

Dr. Woodward: “If there was any law that would absolutely suppress the thing, perhaps that is true, but when the law simply contains provisions that impose a useless expense, and does not accomplish the result—-“

Mr. Dingell (interposing): “That is simply your personal opinion. This is kindred to the opinion you entertained with reference to the harrison Narcotics Act.”

Dr. Woodward: “If we had been asked to cooperate in drafting it—-“

Mr. Dingell: “You are not cooperating in this at all.” (56)

Image #61: Dr. William C. Woodward, representing the American Medical Association at the Marijuana Tax Act hearings. https://beyondthc.com/prohibition-37-a-tragicomedy-in-three-acts/s

Image #62: “MARIHUANA GROWN FOR EXPERIMENTAL PURPOSES AT ARLINGTON EXPERIMENTAL FARM OF U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE DURING SUMMER OF 1937,” “TRAFFIC IN OPIUM AND OTHER DANGEROUS DRUGS, FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 1937,” U. S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D. C., 1938

Image #63: “There’s A New ‘Cop’ On The Beat,” The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, California, September 28th, 1937, p. 22

The Marijuana Tax Act was approved on August 2^nd and became October 1^st, 1937. The first arrest under the new law – an American of Mexican heritage named Moses Baca – occurred October 3^rd. The second – an ex-bootlegger named Samuel Caldwell – occurred October 5^th. Both pleaded guilty, and were sentenced on October 8^th. Baca got 18 months for possession of 7 grams. Caldwell got four years for selling three joints. The judge – federal Judge J. Foster Symes – had this to say at sentencing:

“I consider marijuana the worst of all narcotics, far worse than the use of morphine or cocaine. Under its influence men become beasts. Marijuana destroys life itself. I have no sympathy with those who sell this weed. The government is going to enforce this new law to the letter.” (57)

Image #64: Samuel R. Caldwell, first person arrested for possession of marijuana on October 2, 1937 https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWayWeWere/comments/c88huh/samuel_r_caldwell_first_person_arrested_for/

Image #65: “Moses Baca in 1935, two years prior to his cannabis bust.”                                               https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/drug-war-prisoners-1-2-true-story-moses-sam-two-denver-drifters-became-cannabis-pioneers

Image #66: Various racist newspaper headlines regarding marijuana offences from 1937-1939.

Image #67: Examples of racist newspaper reporting regarding marijuana offences, 1937-1939.

Image #68: The race of the non-white person is deemed newsworthy. The race of the apparently white person is not mentioned. “SEIZED IN MARIJUANA RAID,” The St. Louis Star and Times, St. Louis, Missouri, October 8th, 1937, p. 3

Image #69: Nowhere in this story are the races of the apparently white arrestees mentioned. “2 Men, 4 Girls Captured in First Marijuana Raid,” The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 8th, 1937, p. 1

Image #70: The cops are always white. The message the media provides is that whites uphold the law, and sometimes break it. Non whites never uphold the law, and their breaking the law has something to do with them not being white. White supremacy is subtile for whites, and blatant for non-whites, who can’t ignore it because they’re on the receiving end, and they intuitively know they weren’t born criminals, in spite of the messaging in the media. “HEADED MARIJUANA RAIDS,” ST. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, October 9th, 1937, p. 5

Image #71: Again, the race of the apparently white arrestees is not deemed relevant to the story. “Two Jailed, Marijuana Seized in Raid on Hotel in Gateway,” The Minneapolis Star, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 13th, 1937

The black community was the only group engaged in active and ongoing resistance to this ubiquitous demonization propaganda attempt – insisting that it’s a medicine for depression instead of a mania-causing temptation. The great Ella Fitzgerald, at the beginning of her singing career, would make this anti-depression effect of reefer smoking crystal clear in the song “When I Get Low I Get High,” which came out in 1937, the year after the release of the film Reefer Madness:

“My fur coat’s sold / Oh, Lord ain’t it cold / But I’m not gonna holler / ’cause I’ve still got a dollar / And when I get low / Ooh, I get high / My man walked out / Now you know that ain’t right  / Well he better watch out  / If I meet him tonight / I said when I get low / Ooh, I get high / All the hard luck in this town has found me / Nobody knows what troubles are all around me / Ooh, I’m all alone / With no one to pet me / My old rocking chair / Ain’t never gonna get me / ‘cause when I get low / Ooh, I get high“ (58)

The group The Cats & The Fiddle did much the same thing the next year with their pot smoker’s anthem entitled “Killin’ Jive.”

“He’s the man that smokes that jiveThat jive will take you for a diveOne slip you will arriveWhen you smoke that killin’ jiveIt will make you very tallSeems as if you’re going to fallKnock yourself out for a rideYou know I mean that killin’ jiveYou will think you’ll blow your topStart laughing and you just can’t stopNow won’t you give him a smile‘Cause he’s a sad man not a bad manEverything will seem so funny. Darkest days will seem so sunnyThat feeling will arriveWhen you smoke that killin’ jiveWhen you’re high manYou’re sailin’ manYou’re in the sky manYou got no mail manYou’ll be so mellowJust like a jelloWhen you smoke that killin’ jive” (59)

The song was featured in the 1938 movie The Duke Is Tops – a film about the rise of popularity of a black female jazz singer, played by then-unknown Lena Horne. (60) Given the rather positive, anti-depressant and relaxant effects described in the lyrics, one would have to view the title of the song – “Killin’ Jive” – as a way to make fun of the reputation the rest of society was trying to give their sacrament, as there really wasn’t anything deadly about it.

In spite of all the testimonials found in jazz music describing cannabis as an effective antidepressant, relaxant, euphoric and performance-enhancer, Hollywood would continue to associate cannabis with all manner of asocial behavior. In the film Wages of Sin (1938), the protagonist (Marjorie) gets drunk and tries a marihuana cigarette, and as a result gets involved in prostitution and murder. (61)

Image #72: “Marihuana Supply Seized By Newport Police In Raid,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio, February 25^th, 1938, p. 1

In February, 1938, a story about a murder in the newspapers would put marijuana into the headlines. In the “Gungirls case” – where the accused, 20-year-old Ethel “Bunny” Sohl and her teen sidekick Genevieve “Chippy” Owens were on trial for the murder of bus driver William Barhorst – the defense argued that Sohl wasn’t able to distinguish right from wrong because she smoked marijuana:

“Her 23-year-old husband, William, testified he gave her ‘reefer’ cigarets to relieve pain from injuries she suffered in an auto accident. ‘They make you feel happy and forget pains,’ he said, adding that he purchased them on one of this city’s main streets. ‘Bunny,’ slim but athletic – she once captained a girls’ basketball team – blamed marihuana for her short and tragic career in crime. She said the cigarets ‘made wrong things seem right at the time.’ . . . Mrs. Sohl’s council contended she was ‘insane from marihuana’ at the time of the slaying.” (62)

Image #73: “Blame Is Laid On Marijuana By Girl Killer,” The Montgomery Advertiser, Montgomery, Alabama, February 11^th, 1938, p. 1

Their expert witness was Dr. James C. Munch, the “Official Expert of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics about marijuana.” (63) Dr. Munch testified at the trial, that he had once “smoked a marihuana cigarette” and hallucinated that he had found himself “sitting in an ink bottle:”

“‘I peeped over the edge of the bottle,’ he said. ‘I wrote a book. I was in that bottle for 200 years. Then I flew several times around the world. After I came to my senses I found myself sitting on the same chair in which I had started the experiment.’” (64)

According to some accounts, Dr. Munch testified that he “turned into a bat:”

“With all the press present at this flamboyant murder trial in Newark New Jersey, in 1938, the pharmacologist said, and I quote, in response to the question ‘When you used the drug, what happened?’, his exact response was: ‘After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat.’ He wasn’t done yet. He testified that he flew around the room for fifteen minutes and then found himself at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot high ink well Well, friends, that sells a lot of papers. What do you think the Newark Star Ledger headlines the next day, October 12, 1938? ‘Killer Drug Turns Doctor to Bat!’” (65)

According to another reporter;

“Dr. Munch declared that even if Mrs. Sohl hadn’t smoked reefers on the day of the hold up murder, the cumulative influence of the weed would have kept her marijuana-crazy.” (66)

Image #74: “Bunny’s ‘Conscience-Killer’,” Daily News, New York, New York, February 13^th, 1938, p. 211

The murder began to be referred to as the “New Jersey Marijuana Murder” in subsequent reporting – even though the jury didn’t end up agreeing with the “temporary insanity” defense, the herb was blamed for the killing anyway. The rhetoric was cranked up to 11, and the “just say no” philosophy which so dominated 1980s drug propaganda made an early appearance at this time;

“Teach children to hate it so much that if they are urged to smoke a cigarette called a ‘reefer’ or ‘muggles’ or ‘Mary Warner’ or other queer name, an automatic ‘No!’ will spring up within them and take command of the situation before it is too late.” (67)

The hallucinations that large doses of cannabis edibles can sometimes bring about were claimed, fraudulently, to come about as a result of smoking one or two joints, by “experts” such as Dr. Munch. These made-up stories – repeated for months in various newspapers across the country – combined with scary graphics of monsters such as devils and skulls, allowed the newspapers to give pot an undeserved reputation for being a potent, dangerous hallucinogen by the experts that should have known better;

“‘After the first cigarette, I felt as if I had wings,’ Professor Munch says. ‘I seemed to have great blue wings – and I was flying around the world. After the second one, I was depressed. I thought I had been spending 200 years at the bottom of an ink bottle.’” (68)

Image #75: “A DOCTOR TRIES MARIHUANA – DEVIL-WEED DELIRIUM,” Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, May 15^th, 1938, pp. 51-52

Image #76: “Growing Menace to Schoolchildren of the ‘Devil’s Weed’,” The San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, California, April 3^rd, 1938, p. 93

Image #77: “Two Arrested on Marijuana Charge,” The Minneapolis Journal, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 8th, 1938, p. 30

Image #78: “Marijuana Peddlers Leaving County Court,” The Daily Reporter, White Plains, New York, May 24th, 1938, p. 1

Comic strips – a relatively new medium – were recruited to spread the propaganda to the general population and younger readers. In 1938 a series of strips were devoted to the evil distillers of the “loco weed” – combining the evils of alcohol moonshiners and pot growers into one composite villain – in a strip called “KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED” – a strip about a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer and his exploits. (69)

Image #79: “KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED,” Delaware County Daily Times, Chester, Pennsylvania, May 25^th, 1938, p. 31

Image #80: “‘Devil Weed’ Found in City Limits – Large Patch of Marijuana Found in City Limits Here,” The Globe, Worthington, Minnesota, July 31st, 1938, p. 1

Efforts to create an all-out war on a plant that often manifested itself as a common ditch-weed were occasionally comical. For example, a well-publicized case of mistaken identification appeared at this time, complete with a photo of a very confused-looking police officer and a bouquet of obviously-not-pot-plants in his hands, with the heading “WEED OR LOCO WEED?” and the following caption;

“THE EVIDENCE – County Detective Albert T. Lorch with a bouquet of weeds dug up under the direction of Chief Peter A. Connors, who thought he was making a marijuana raid.” (70)

Image #81: “WEED OR LOCO WEED?” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, June 28^th, 1938, p. 2

Mistaken identity must have been a common occurrence among the do-gooders of the general public, because editors saw fit to support a campaign to help their readers better identify the cannabis plant, reporting on the police-turned-gardeners and their demonstration pot gardens, complete with a photo of the iconic pot leaf appearing in many newspapers all over the country, (71) providing nearly instant positive results. (72) The term “Loco Weed” would be used quite extensively during this period.

Image #82: “What ‘Loco Weed’ Looks Like,” The Herald-News, Passaic, New Jersey, July 23^rd, 1938, p. 3

Image #83: “What ‘Loco Weed’ Looks Like,” The Herald-News, Passaic, New Jersey, July 23^rd, 1938, p. 3

In fact, one could see many of the same elements in propaganda designed to scapegoat Jews in Nazi Germany during this exact same period. The famous children’s book The Poisonous Mushroom – also published in 1938 – by Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, also contained information on how to “identify the scapegoat” as well as parental hysteria, white supremacy, and false information regarding the inherent harmfulness of the scapegoat.The Jews depicted in this book were all a supposed sexual threat to German children and they were all a supposed threat to whites by seducing, exploiting and enslaving Aryan white women. Jews were accused of distorting reality and inventing “fairy tales” about “decent Jews.” (73)

Image #84: How to Recognize a Jew: “The Jewish nose is bent. It looks like the number six…”* Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom), 1938  https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/thumb.htm 

Image #85: “The Experience of Hans and Else with a Strange Man: ‘Here, kid, I have some candy for you. But you have to come with me. . .’,” Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom), 1938 https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/thumb.htm

Similar to these books handed out to German school children, books were issued to U.S. school children that echoed the anti-pot propaganda campaign in other media – one in 1938 and another in 1939, both from same publishing company. In the 1938 edition of SCIENCE SPEAKS TO YOUNG MEN ON LIQUOR, TOBACCO, NARCOTICS AND MARIJUANA, written by Dr. George Thomason and published by the Pacific Press Publishing Association, a publishing house owned by the Seventh Day Adventists, (74) a group that still publishes debunked science on cannabis to this day. (75)

The book begins by following the story of a marijuana peddler named Baptiste Chautemps, who has turned to selling cannabis because the feds have taken all his cocaine and morphine – so he decides to sell pot to school kids from an ice-cream cart. When he gets caught, the judge gives him what-for:

“’You are an assassin, Chautemps!’ said the judge. ‘By luring these boys and girls into the use of this terrible drug you have assassinated their characters, you have blasted their lives. We hope to reclaim most of them from drug addiction; but those we cannot reform would be better off dead. Chautemps, may your conscience – if you have one – give you rest neither day nor night during all your years in prison. You are worse than a murderer, and lower than any other criminal who ever entered my court. No drug will be allowed you in prison. You are going to suffer agonies. Every spasm of pain that contorts your body will burn into your soul the realization of the unspeakable injury you have done to our youth. No suffering you will go through can ever compensate for the irreparable damage you are responsible for.” (76)

Image #86: “Slyly, Baptiste sold ‘reefers’ to the high school students.” SCIENCE SPEAKS TO YOUNG MEN – ON LIQUOR, TOBACCO, NARCOTICS, and MARIJUANA, By George Thomason, M. D., F. A. C. S., Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, 1938, p. 7

In the following chapter (entitled “SHORT CUTS TO INSANITY”), the author repeats the assertion that cannabis causes insanity, citing no sources, of course;

“… as a general rule, more of this drug is used by the addict, and soon his brain is affected, a complete breakdown occurs, and he is destined to spend the rest of his life in an asylum. Its use always eventuates in mania and dementia. In the complete distortion and demoralization of the brain, due to the rapidity of its inroads, marijuana is even more harmful than morphine.” (77)

Image #87: “Marijuana attacks the brain.” SCIENCE SPEAKS TO YOUNG MEN – ON LIQUOR, TOBACCO, NARCOTICS, and MARIJUANA, By George Thomason, M. D., F. A. C. S., Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, 1938, p. 13

The February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics, however, was another lonely voice of reason in a sea of stigmatization. The article, about the potential of the American industrial hemp industry to be a “New Billion Dollar Crop,” had this to say about hemp’s association with marijuana;

“. . . the connection of hemp as a crop and marijuana seems to be exaggerated. The drug is usually produced from wild help or locoweed which can be found on vacant lots and along railroad tracks in every state. If federal regulations can be drawn to protect the public without preventing the legitimate culture of hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.” (78)

Image #88: “NEW BILLION-DOLLAR CROP,” Popular Mechanics, Vol. 69, No. 2, February 1938, pp. 238-239

“Preventing the legitimate culture of hemp” was the main reason for the federal regulations in the first place. Farmers didn’t run the country. People like Lammot DuPont and Andrew Mellon did.

The May 1938 issue of Cosmopolitan (itself a Hearst publication since 1905) featured a cover promising “the story of a reefer party,” an initial story about “DOPE” being “Public Enemy NO. 1” and a fictionalized novelette entitled “Walking on AIR.” The initial story – a review of all the illegal drugs currently plaguing society – called marihuana “the home-grown weed that drives girls and boys crazy.” The novelette was beautifully illustrated with over-the-top exaggerations and fanciful snippets like the following:

“They were creating a good market for it, all right. Kids went for it. Boys around high school. Easy pickings. Only trouble was they didn’t last long enough. Held up a store or bumped somebody off or went nuts.” (79)

Image #89: “Walking On Air,” Cosmopolitan, May, 1938, pp. 36-37

Image #90: “Walking On Air,” Cosmopolitan, May, 1938, pp. 38-39

The May 1938 issue of Nature – possibly the most prestigious science magazine in the English language (80) – was just as bad as any other magazine in its fraudulent representation of reality. The article was titled “Marihuana – The Mexican dope plant is the source of a social problem” – and the BS was piled high:

“A continued use of the drug is said to produce a deterioration of the mind, and a weakening of memory. In the last few years officials have been seriously concerned with the increased use of the drug. Medical men and scientists have disagreed about its properties, and the danger following its use. Some have a tendency to minimize the influence of marihuana, but the evidence is accumulating that it is a breeder of crime. The stimulation from smoking marihuana cigarets has led many individuals to take part in violent crimes. It apparently releases natural restraint and gives a false courage. The smoking of marihuana is spreading to people who hitherto have not been users of drugs. One of the worst features concerning it is the activity of peddlers in introducing it to high school students, with the resultant destruction of moral standards, in order to create new outlets for their nefarious trade.” (81)

Image #91: Nature Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 5. May 1938 – published by the American Nature Association. 1214 16th St. N.W., Washington DC

All the ingredients of the population control system are present: the parental hysteria (school children harmed), the white supremacy (the European terms “cannabis” and “hemp” are mentioned in the small print, while the “social problem” mentioned in the title is almost always attached to non-European names) and the junk science regarding inherent harmfulness (the destruction of restraint and moral standards)– the trifecta of the standard elements of pot prohibitionist propaganda.

Regardless of which scapegoat or which decade or what set of data was relied on, these elements are nearly always present: 1) Parental hysteria, 2) white supremacy, 3) junk science/pseudoscience. Scapegoaters aren’t very original – they go with what works.

An article titled “Fighting the Devil’s Weed to Safeguard the Holy Land” made it into various newspapers in August of 1938. The myth of the hashed-up assassins was used again – but this time to explain all the violence in the middle east:

“But the British authorities have at last discovered why this inter-racial conflict has become so merciless and so bloodthirsty. They are convinced that the ancient hatred between the Moslems and the Hebrews in Palestine is now being intensified and worked up to a more murderous and more fanatical pitch than ever before by a ring of hashish smugglers, who use the drug to incite terrorism in much the same way that it was used way back in the Eleventh Century by the organizer of a secret society of professional killers, called Hashishins, from which the English word ‘assassin’ is derived.” (82)

Image #92:“Fighting the Devil’s Weed to Safeguard the Holy Land,” The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, August 7th, 1938, p. 64

Image #93: “Fighting the Devil’s Weed to Safeguard the Holy Land,” The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, August 7th, 1938, p. 64

Image #94: “Fighting the Devil’s Weed to Safeguard the Holy Land,” The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, August 7th, 1938, p. 64

Image #95: “Fumeur de Haschish,” postcard, circa 1938

Prohibitionists (then and now) will use any example of violence to manufacture an imaginary link to cannabis use, and will use any example of cannabis use to manufacture an imaginary link to violence. Hashish didn’t incite terrorism in the 11th century, it didn’t incite racial hatred in 1930s Palestine, and it didn’t ever cause insanity.

Three months later, Look magazine published some photos of workers destroying fields of pot, an evil pot dealer in custody and a tough looking woman with the caption “Marijuana Smoking Made Me Kill” in an insane article titled “MARIJUANA . . . Becomes a Major American Problem”.

“Files of the federal narcotics commissioner are full of tragic cases in which boys and girls committed murder or suicide while under the influence of marijuana peddled to them by such criminals.”

Again, they pulled out the “assassin” myth and the myth of “a loss of moral sense,” and then used still photos from Tell Your Children/Reefer Madness to illustrate what would no doubt happen if you tried pot. (83)

Image #96: “Looking Over the ‘Reefer’ Weed, The Daily Reporter, White Plains, New York, September 27th, 1938, p, 1

Image #97: “WPA Workers Destroy a Field of Marijuana in Minnesota.” “MARIJUANA … Becomes a Major American Problem,” Look magazine, November 22nd, 1938, p. 23

The next year ON THE TRAIL OF MARIHUANA – THE WEED OF MADNESS, by Earl Albert Rowell and Robert Rowell was handed out to school children. Similar statements were made regarding the link between cannabis and insanity as the book this publishing company produced the previous year, but instead of cartoons, there were photographs. There was also a complete lie regarding the conclusions of the Indian Hemp Drug Commission (explored at the end of Chapter 2 and beginning of Chapter 3 in this series);

“Marihuana produces a temporary insanity; worse still, it is a short cut to permanent insanity. The impact is felt on the higher nerve centers, and its use, if heavy and if long continued, will permanently weaken the mind. In India an elaborate investigation concerning hashish and insanity was instituted by the British Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893-1894. After thorough investigation they concluded that there was a very direct relationship between insanity and the thing we call marihuana. They even went so far as to declare that it is more conducive to insanity than is opium. Asylums and hospitals in Cairo, Egypt, a country where the drug enjoys wide usage, report many cases of mental derangement due to hashish.” (84)

Image #98: Earl Albert Rowell, Robert Rowell, ON THE TRAIL OF MARIHUANA – THE WEED OF MADNESS, 1939, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, p. 22

Image #99: Earl Albert Rowell, Robert Rowell, ON THE TRAIL OF MARIHUANA – THE WEED OF MADNESS, 1939, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, p. 38

Image #100: Earl Albert Rowell, Robert Rowell, ON THE TRAIL OF MARIHUANA – THE WEED OF MADNESS, 1939, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, p. 62

Image #101: “EXPOSING the Marijuana drug evil in swing bands,” Radio Stars magazine, July 1938

The decade would end with the newspapers reporting on cannabis as they had for the last forty years or so – with reefer madness mythology firmly entrenched. The only difference would be the reporting in the late 1930s would often consist of an attempt to interpret the lyrics of popular jazz numbers from being pro-pot or informative and neutral to anti-pot, by undervaluing or ignoring the beneficial effects and exaggerating the problematic effects mentioned in the song, or just outright lying about what the lyrics meant. For one example, in a 1938 newspaper feature story entitled “THE BLACK SIDE OF SWING,” the author asserts the following:

“In the extreme stage of marijuana smoking, however, a mad feeling of jumping pervades the smoker. He wants to jump off high places. This has given to swing the famous phrase, ‘The joint is jumpin’.’ Marijuana has made its influence felt in many of the popular swing songs. Cab Calloway’s famous ‘That Funny Reefer Man’ refers to a marihuana salesman, and Don Redman’s theme song is ‘Chant of the Weed.’ Wingy Mannone features ‘I’m Goin’ Down to the Lighthouse and Light Up.’ Reginald Foresythe (who wrote ‘Serenade to a Wealthy Widow’ is responsible for ‘Garden of the Weed,’ and Red Norvo now has a song called ‘Tea Time.’ Does marihuana hurt musicians? This is a question that is argued pro and con in all the Harlem creep and pad joints (the secret hideaways where the swing musicians congregate to have their private jam sessions and to which the public is never invited). Although admitting that it is a sex stimulant, most of them maintain that ‘muggles’ are harmless. Marihuana is not habit-forming, they claim. But medical authorities say otherwise. In addition to the profound moral degeneration that occurs when marihuana is regularly smoked, they also note a mental deterioration.” (85)

Image #102: “THE BLACK SIDE OF SWING,” Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 19th, 1938, p. 16

Image #103: “THE BLACK SIDE OF SWING,” Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 19th, 1938, p. 16

For another example, reporter Madge Yohn of the Madison Wisconsin paper – The Capital Times – wrote about “the reefer man”:

“Marijuana is probably the most feared drug on the market today and one of the hardest to cope with. And speaking of selling marijuana cigarettes or ‘reefers,’ the song ‘HAVE YOU EVER MET THAT FUNNY REEFER MAN?’ by Andy Razaf and J. Russell Robinson, tells of a subtle way the reefer man, or marijuana saleman, had of approaching his client. All hopped up himself, ostensibly he was selling most anything . . .  but the marijuana was up his sleeve all the time . . . ready to pop out at a flicker of the eyelash . . . the right kid of a flicker, though. Everything was sub rosa. They say that Cab Calloway, colored band leader, rode to fame on the rhythm of ‘The Reefer Man.’” (86)

For yet another example, on the front page of the May 14^th, 1939 edition of the Kentucky newspaper, the Paducah Sun-Democrat, examined those same lyrics in that light:

“The words of one ran ‘Anytime he takes a notion he can walk across the ocean,’ and experts say that is an apt description of one of the effects of marijuana: it creates illusions as to time and space. A minute becomes an hour, a foot may seem a mile. A driver under its influence may crash into a car he thinks is blocks away. A case is on record where a girl, one of a party ‘high’ on reefers exclaimed that the 80-mile-an-hour pace of the car in which she was riding was too slow, and that she was going to get out and walk. She opened the door and stepped out. But it also crops out in murder, attack, and general madness, causing a user to turn suddenly on an innocent person at the least provocation. This is one of the reasons officials are clamping down more tightly than ever on the marihuana menace. But their principle reason for wiping it out is that peddlers have found that their reefers sell well to school children, especially those of high school age. Their usual procedure is to approach a high school youth and offer him a ‘new kind of cigarette.’ Experience has shown the peddler that a large percentage come back for more, these to be had at a price ranging from 25 cents to $1 each.” (87)

Image #104: “This Expose Started Campaign Against Traffic in Marihuana,” Harrisburg Telegraph, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, December 10th, 1938, p. 1

In the 1930s, the anti-pot forces relied more and more on experts for their propaganda: doctors, psychiatrists, insane asylum wardens – both domestically and abroad. In fact, the League of Nations assembled a team of experts between 1934 and 1939 to examine the problems surrounding hashish – or perhaps exaggerate them enough to justify the abuse of colonial subjects. An analysis of these experts and their examination led to the following conclusion by a modern-day researcher:

“Laurie Anderson reminds us that problems and experts are mutually constitutive: experts define the problems that requires their expertise. Here, colonial officers described hashish consumption as a problem and thus themselves as the ones qualified to address it.” (88)

Image #105: “Sheriff’s Men Seize Marihuana,” Buffalo Courier Express, Buffalo, New York, January 11th, 1939, p. 11

Image #.106: “Police Officers Inspect Cigarettes, Weed Taken In Raid,” The Lexington Herald, Lexington, Kentucky, December 4th, 1939, p. 1

Image #107: “The Plaza in Vancouver doubling down on the propaganda films showing both ‘Marihuana’ and ‘Assassin of Youth’.  Signs on theater read ‘Marijuana (Weed with Roots in Hell)’, ‘Reefer’, ‘Assassin of Youth’. Vancouver, Canada, July 22, 1938” https://www.thecannachronicles.com/marihuana-plaza-1938/

Image #108: Burning Question, circa 1939, lobby card, from the Ludlow Library.

Image #109: Tell Your Children, Evening Courier, Camden, New Jersey, December 12th, 1939, p.2

Image #110: Doped Youth, circa 1940, lobby card

Image #111: Reefer Madness (1936) Cult Classic | Full Movie | Subtitled, YouTube

Image #112: Reefer Madness, 1939, colorized, YouTube

Image #113: “Ralph is arrested for Jack’s murder.” Reefer Madness, 1936 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness

Image #114: Marijuana Madness (?) Unsure about which movie this actually is – probably Reefer Madness but who knows? Unable to find a pot movie called “Marijuana Madness” – “The Pace That Kills” is about cocaine. The World-News, Roanoke, Virginia, June 24th, 1939, p.5

Image #115: The Burning Question, The Record American, Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, May 7th, 1940, p.4

Image #116: Reefer Madness, Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, December 3rd, 1940, p.10

Clearly, in the 1930s, there were both pro-pot and anti-pot forces at work. But the anti-pot forces were better funded and employed much more accredited and esteemed sources and much more powerful and varied media than the pro-pot forces. This situation would remain the same until the 1960s, when a generation of baby boomers would create its own media, accumulate accreditation and esteem, and begin to tip the scales in the other direction. Many of the most powerful and influential pot activists of all time were born in the 1940s. And it was in the 1940s – the next chapter of our series – that the general public (not just musicians) begin to reject cannabis prohibition.

Citations:

1) “The imposition of an occupational tax enables the Government constitutionally to make it illegal to engage in the occupation without payment of the tax. Thus, unless the Congress in this bill imposes an occupational tax on the producer of the hemp, Congress cannot make the production of hemp for illicit purposes illegal. Hence, if the occupational tax is not imposed upon producers, marihuana may be legally produced for illicit purposes. Furthermore, the imposition of an occupational tax enables the Government to require the taxpayer to furnish information in connection with the business taxed. This would permit the Government to ascertain where the legitimate production of hemp is being carried on, and having this information, it can stamp out the illicit production more effectively. Obviously, therefore, the legitimate producers of hemp cannot be further exempted from the provisions of the bill. Otherwise, the bill cannot be enforced. Aside from the reasons stated as to why it is believed to be impossible to further exempt the producers of hemp from the provisions of the bill, attention is invited to the fact that the primary purpose of this legislation is to raise revenue. That completes my statement, and we have witnesses present.” SENATOR DAVIS: “Do I understand you to say that the primary purpose of the bill is to raise revenue?” MR. HESTER: “The primary purpose of this legislation must be to raise revenue, because we are resorting to the taxing clause of the Constitution and the rule is that if on the face of the fill it appears to be a revenue bill, the courts will not inquire into any other motives that the Congress may have had in enacting this legislation. This bill is modeled on the Harrison Narcotics Act and the National Firearms Act. The Harrison Narcotics Act has been sustained by the Supreme Court, the first time by a 5-to-4 decision, and a second time by a 6-to-3 decision. The Supreme Court in March of this year sustained the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act, insofar as it related to the occupational tax.” Statement of Clinton M. Hester, Assistant General Counsel, Treasury Department https://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t2.htm

Note: When the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was first discussed in 1910, Taft’s State Department attempted to include “cannabis” as a prohibited drug. That failed, so in 1937 the U.S. Treasury Department used the word “marihuana” instead of “cannabis” and the deception worked:

“The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required that any quantity of cannabis, as well as several other dangerous substances, be clearly marked on the label of any drug or food sold to the public.1 Early drafts of federal antinarcotic legislation which finally emerged as the Harrison Act in 1914 also repeatedly listed the drug along with opiates and cocaine (for example, H.R. 25,241 61st Cong., 2nd Sess. [1910] which was prepared and endorsed by the State Department and introduced April 30, 1910).” The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn. Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972 https://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/hemp/history/mustomj1.html

Also note: The Harrison Narcotics Tax of 1914 was proposed by Francis Burton Harrison, a member of the Skull & Bones fraternity. The Harrison Narcotics Act was upheld by the 1927 Supreme Court, led by William Howard Taft, also a member of Skull & Bones. For more information on the connection between various members of Skull & Bones and the creation of the global war on drugs, please check out these articles here:

Killed Over Pot Part 2: Why Was Kentrail Small Killed?

George H.W. Bush: Biggest. Drug Lord. Ever.

2) “During the Third Reich, the verminization of religious and ethnic minorities went hand in hand with Rauschgiftbekämpfung, the ‘combating of drugs’ to promote racial hygiene. Nazi racialist policies and the demonization of marijuana by Anslinger and Hearst were parallel historical phenomena—both exploited fear and hatred of the Other.” Martin Lee, Smoke Signals, 2012, Scribner, NY, p. 51                    See also: “The War on Drugs during the Third Reich, Rauschgiftbekämpfung, was a policy coordinated by the Reich Health Service within the Ministry of the Interior. It was part of the same bureaucratic labyrinth that included the departments of hereditary science and racial hygiene, and much of its policy-making was conducted by Nazi physicians. An unholy alliance of Nazi eugenics and American prohibition, Rauschgiftbekämpfung unsuccessfully attempted to undo centuries of traditional social behavior.” From ‘Rausch’ to Rebellion: Walter Benjamin’s On Hashish & The Aesthetic Dimensions of Prohibitionist Realism By Scott J. Thompson, The Journal of Cognitive Liberties This article is from Vol. 1, Issue No. 2 pages 21-42 (Spring/Summer 2000) © 2000 CENTER FOR COGNITIVE LIBERTY AND ETHICS  https://www.cognitiveliberty.org/ccle1/2jcl/2JCL21.htm

3) “Anslinger’s wife, Margaret, was distantly related to Andrew William Mellon by the marriage of her aunt and her uncle into the Negley family. Margaret’s aunt, Sarah Gerst (1872-1954), married Edward Cox Negley (1874-1942). Edward Cox Negley was the great-grandson of John Jacob Negley. Margaret’s uncle, Eugene Gerst (1864-1942), married Kate Edna Negley (1871-1940). Kate Edna Negley was the great-granddaughter of John Jacob Negley. In other words, Margaret’s aunt and uncle married Negley cousins.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHarry_J._Anslinger#Mrs._Harry_J._Anslinger_-_Mellon_connection?

4) David Malmo-Levine, “Recent History,” The Pot Book – A Complete Guide to Cannabis, edited by Julie Holland, 2010, Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, pp. 31-32

See also: “The Mellons had in the past been political and business allies of the Du Ponts, who held large blocks of stock in Alcoa, Gulf, and Mellon National Bank.”  Gerard Colby, Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain, Forbidden Bookshelf, Open Road, New York, 1984, p. 611

https://archive.org/details/DuPontDynastyBehindTheNylonCurtainForbiddenBookshelfNodrm/page/n15/mode/2up?view=theater

https://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/history/conspiracy_toc.htm

5) “At the moment corn is the number one energy crop in the United States – but only because corn is so heavily subsidized, and hemp is so heavily over-regulated. . . . One estimate states that corn has a 34 percent energy gain, while hemp has a 540 percent energy gain. This means hemp is nearly 16 times as efficient an energy crop as corn!”                                                                                                                                       “Hemp Can Still Save the World,” David Malmo-Levine, January 29, 2020  https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2020/01/29/hemp-can-still-save-the-world/

6) Chapter 4: The Last Legal Days of Cannabis in The Emperor Wears no Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save the World by Jack Herer, 11^th edition, 2000, pp. 25-33, see also: Recent History by David Malmo-Levine in The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis edited by Dr. Julie Holland (2010) pp. 30-32

7) Herer, 11th edition, pp. 26-27

8) “The Hashish Smugglers,” The Illustrated London News, May, 1930, pp. 774-775

9) Don Redman Orch. “Chant of the Weed” (June 1932) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x1ebJEf92E

https://www.discogs.com/release/11426760-Don-Redman-And-His-Orchestra-Shakin-The-Africann-Chant-Of-The-Weeds/image/SW1hZ2U6MzIyNTgyNDg=

10) “Muggles” Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra with Earl Hines (1929) Zutty Singleton, classic jazz ’20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPMjVN7ZZV8

See also: “LOUIS ARMSTRONG – World’s champion cornetist and record star, who was arraigned in a California court last week on charges of possessing dope. Armstrong had been featured at Sebastian’s Cotton Club, Culver City.” “HELD ON SERIOUS CHARGE,” The Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, December 6^th, 1930, p. 18

11) Terry Teachout, Pops: A Life Of Louis Armstrong, Houghton Miffin Harcourt, NY, 2009, pp. 157-158

See also: “Louis Armstrong, reputed to be the world’s best cornet player, was sentenced to serve 30-days in the county jail on charges of violation of the state poison act March 10^th by the judge of the department 26. Armstrong was convicted of the charge of having a quantity of marihuana in his possession.” “‘KING OF TRUMPET’ GETS 30 DAYS IN JAIL,” California Eagle, Los Angeles, California, March 13^th 1931, p. 1

“On charges growing out of violation of the state poison act, Louis Armstrong, world famous trumpet artist and radio broadcaster, was sentenced in department 26 to serve six months in prison.” “SENTENCE TRUMPET KING,” The Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 21^st, 1931, p. 1

12) James Lincoln Collier, Louis Armstrong: An American Genius, Oxford University Press, 1983, NY, p. 221

13) Louis Armstrong, Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words, Oxford University Press, NY, 1999, pp. 113-114

14) “He said ‘I’m ready I’m ready so help me I’m ready!’ And when he said that the folks just roared. And the band laughed too. And he was ready. Pops was really ready.”  Zilner Randolph describing how Armstrong would come off the intermission really high from the muggles. High Society – Pot and Jazz [2of3]

“It seems incontrovertible, too, that Armstrong’s improvisatory genius was at least partly inspired by drug use. Another tune he recorded around this time, Muggles, actually celebrates marijuana, given that ‘muggles’ is a jazz word for ‘weed’. Armstrong also reportedly preferred fellow musicians to be ‘stoned’, while recording and even claimed that songs like West End Blues sounded different than the earliest records he made with his legendary Hot Five band, before he was introduced to marijuana, which he used for the rest of his life. Satchmo himself was certainly often ‘stoned’ on stage, most noticeably, according to his band members, when he’d exclaim: ‘I’m ready, I’m ready, so help me I’m ready’ and then take flight on a solo.” “A glimpse into the soul of Satchmo,” Dec 30 1998

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/a-glimpse-into-the-soul-of-satchmo-1.229669

15)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Colors_(musical)

Larry Adler – Smoking Reefers 1938

16) Larry Adler – Smokin’ Reefers (1938)

17) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_You_Ever_Met_That_Funny_Reefer_Man

https://riffipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Minnie_The_Moocher_/_Reefer_Man

18) Don Redman & His Orchestra – Reefer Man From The Album Reefer Blues: Vintage Songs About Marijuana Volume 1, Recorded New York June 17th 1932.

19) http://mondo70.blogspot.com/2011/12/pre-code-parade-jewel-robbery-1932.html

20) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121587/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

Narcotic (1933)

“Directed by Vival Sodar’t. Narcotic is loosely based upon the life of William Davies, an opium-addicted snake oil salesman who was also producer Hildagarde Esper’s uncle. This film follows his downward spiral as an idealistic medical student whose fall from grace leads him to opium dens, a carnival freakshow and swanky drug parties. The film illustrates themes that explicitly violated the Motion Picture Production Code.” http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/mrcvault/videographies/narcotic-1933 Narcotic (1933) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpGSK3R6-ys

21) “CRAZED YOUTH KILLS FIVE OF FAMILY WITH AX IN TAMPA HOME,” The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, October 18^th, 1933, p. 1

22) “LOGAN TO WAR ON MARIJUANA TRAFFIC HERE,” Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, October 18^th, 1933, p. 8

23)  “Marajuana Joints and Dealers Listed For Clean-up Drive By Law Agencies,” Tampa Times, Tampa, Florida, October 18^th, 1933, p. 2

24) “Stamp Out This Weed Of Flaming Murder,” Tampa Times, Tampa, Florida, October 18^th, 1933, p. 6

25) “Rewards for Marijuana Convictions Announced,” Tampa Times, Tampa, Florida, October 19^th, 1933, p. 2

26) “Stop This Murderous ‘Smoke’,” The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, October 20^th, 1933, p. 6

27) “Slayer of Five?” Sapulpa Herald, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, October 30^th, 1933, p. 6

28) “ALIENIST SAYS LICATA INSANE,” Tampa Times, Tampa Florida, November 2^nd, 1933, p. 5

29) “VICTOR LICATA, AX SLAYER, IS JUDGED INSANE,” The Tampa Tribune, Tampa Florida, November 3^rd, 1933, p. 7

30) “Tampa Axe-Slayer Recaptured,” The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, August 15^th, 1950, p. 10

31) “Vic Licata, Mad Slayer, Kills Himself,” Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, December 7^th, 1950, p. 2

32) “VICTOR LICATA A RUSH TO JUDGEMENT: MAIN INDEX”

http://reefermadnessmuseum.org/VictorLIcata/Chap00_Index.htm

See also: “VICTOR LICATA – A RUSH TO JUDGEMENT: INSIDE DETECTIVE MAGAZINE (July 1938)”

https://www.ukcia.org/culture/history/Licata10.php

“OUT OF THE PAST: Victor Licata: The Marijuana Maniac,” Feb 25, 2020 https://brookemicheller.wixsite.com/mysite/post/out-of-the-past

33) Martin Lee, Smoke Signals, 2012, Scribner, NY, p. 49

34) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_H._Hays

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code

https://marymiley.wordpress.com/tag/hays-code

35) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_After_Midnight

36) “Release date May 21, 1934” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_at_the_Vanities

37) https://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/s/sweetmarijuana.html

38) “1934 LA CUCARACHA – Steffi Duna – Early Technicolor short”   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYbsB8yrPds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cucaracha_(1934_film)

39) “La Fiesta de Santa Barbara,” 1935  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027616/

“August 1935: 13 year old Judy Garland’s final appearance with her sisters, as “The Garland Sisters,” and her first appearance in Technicolor.  La Fiesta De Santa Barbara”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joc_SbY6Pcs

40) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cucaracha#Revolutionary_lyrics

41) https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/stuff-smith-and-his-onyx-club-boys/youre-a-viper-88

42) “Blame Films In Wider Use of Dope Fags,” The Windsor Star, Windsor, Ontario, November 20^th, 1934, p. 22

43) “League Experts Says Canadian Soldiers Were Dope Fiends,” Star-Phoenix, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, December 28^th, 1934, p. 13

44) “EVILS OF THE MEXICAN BORDER HOT SPOTS,” Arizona Republic, September 8^th, 1935, p. 32

45) William Wolf, “Uncle Sam Fights a New Drug Menace … MARIJUANA,” Popular Science Monthly, May 1936, pp. 14-15, 119-120

46) “In 1936 or 1938, Tell Your Children was financed by a church group who intended that it be shown to parents to teach them about the supposed dangers of cannabis. It was originally produced by George Hirliman; however, some time after the film was made, it was purchased by exploitation film maker Dwain Esper, who inserted salacious shots. In 1938 or 1939, Esper began distributing it on the exploitation circuit where it was originally released in at least four territories, each with its own title: the first territory to screen it was the South, where it went by Tell Your Children (1938 or 1939). West of Denver, Colorado, the film was generally known as Doped Youth (1940). In New England, it was known as Reefer Madness (1940 or 1947), while in the Pennsylvania/West Virginia territory it was called The Burning Question (1940). The film was then screened all over the country during the 1940s under these various titles and Albert Dezel of Detroit eventually bought all rights in 1951 for use in roadshow screenings throughout the 1950s.”                       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness

47) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness

See also: Reefer Madness (1936) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQlcMHhF3w

48) https://www.imdb.com/search/title?companies=co0046718&sort=boxoffice_gross_us,desc

49) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp2KvVHx5r8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin_of_Youth

50) “Marijuana: Assassin Of Youth,” Harry Anslinger, The American Magazine, July, 1937, pp. 18-19

51) “People could legally sell cannabis as long as they purchased a marihuana tax stamp. There were only two catches. First, you had to show up with your cannabis in order to purchase the stamp, which would trigger an arrest on illegal possession charges. Second, nobody really knew if the stamps existed or where you could buy them.”

“Marijuana Prohibition Began With These Arrests in 1937,” Daniel Glick, October 2, 2017

https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/drug-war-prisoners-1-2-true-story-moses-sam-two-denver-drifters-became-cannabis-pioneers

52) Lionel Calhoun Moise, “Marijuana … Sex-Crazing Drug Menace,” Physical Culture, February, 1937, pp. 18-19, 87

53) http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/taxact.htm

54) Conference on Cannabis Sativa L., January 14, 1937 — Room 81 Treasury Building, 10:30 AM http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/canncon.htm

55) Statement of Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Counsel, American Medical Association, Chicago, Ill., TAXATION OF MARIHUANA, Tuesday, May 4, 1937, House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Washington, D.C. http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/woodward.htm

56) Ibid.

57) https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/drug-war-prisoners-1-2-true-story-moses-sam-two-denver-drifters-became-cannabis-pioneers

58) https://www.rootsvinylguide.com/ebay_items/when-i-get-low-i-get-high-chick-webb-o-w-ella-fitzgerald-decca-1123-e-1937

https://genius.com/Ella-fitzgerald-when-i-get-low-i-get-high-lyrics

59) https://genius.com/The-cats-and-the-fiddle-killin-jive-lyrics

60) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Duke_Is_Tops

The Duke Is Tops (1938) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzpksQRVY3A

61) “Marjorie Benton, who is ‘just a kid,’ dreams of an office job, but works at the Pacific Laundry and is the only breadwinner for a family of coarsely-spoken strikers and loafers. She finally goes on a night out with Florence, one of the other laundry workers, to a seedy nightclub. At the nightclub they watch some impromptu acts and Marjorie drinks alcohol and tries marijuana, which Florence does not approve of.”       

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Sin_(1938_film)

Wages Of Sin Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVkTRCx7B5g&t=25s

62) “Blame Is Laid On Marihuana By Girl Killer,” The Montgomery Advertiser, February 11^th, 1938, p. 1

63) The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School, A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference  http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

64) “BUS KILLER BLAMES MARIHUANA SMOKE – State Seeks to Shatter Girl’s Claim She Couldn’t Distinguish Right,” Courier-Post, Camden, New Jersey, February 12^th, 1938, p. 2

65) “The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States,” Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School, A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

66) “Gungirls Dazed by Snickers at Trial,” New York Daily News, February 13^th, 1938, p. 171

67) “Growing Menace to Schoolchildren of the ‘Devil’s Weed’ –  New Federal and State Legislation Aimed at Stamping Out the Wicked Marijuana Traffic That Drives Its Smokers Into Murderous Outbreaks and Destroys the Mind,” The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee, April 3^rd, 1938, p. 55

68) “A DOCTOR TRIES MARIHUANA – DEVIL WEED DELIRIUM,” Atlanta Constitution, May 15^th, 1938, p. 51

69) “KING OF THE ROYAL MOUNTED,” Delaware County Daily Times, Chester, Pennsylvania, May 25^th, 1938, p. 31

70) “WEED OR LOCO WEED?” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 28^th, 1938, p. 2

71) “Marihuana Plant, Used in Making Cigarettes to Debauch Children, Is Grown Locally to Help Police,” The Central New Jersey Home News, July 17^th, 1938, p. 27

“What ‘Loco Weed’ Looks Like,” The Herald-News, Passaic, New Jersey, July 23^rd, 1938, p. 3

“Loco Weed,” The Courier-News, Bridgewater, New Jersey, July 26^th, 1938, p. 3

72) “Find Marijuana Plants in Lansford Flower Garden,” The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, July 30^th, 1938, p. 10

73) https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/thumb.htm

74)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Press_Publishing_Association

75) https://www.adventist.org/en/utility/search/sr/marijuana/2/

76) Dr. George Thomason, SCIENCE SPEAKS TO YOUNG MEN ON LIQUOR, TOBACCO, NARCOTICS AND MARIJUANA, 1938, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, p. 9

77) Ibid, p. 14

78) “New Billion Dollar Crop,” Popular Mechanics, February, 1938, pp. 238-239, 144A

79) “Walking On Air,” Cosmopolitan, May, 1938, p. 106

Immediately before the story, there was a news report on cannabis and opium production (pp. 34-35) which mentioned “Marihuana, the home-grown weed that drives girls and boys crazy . . .”

80) “The most influential journals: Impact Factor and Eigenfactor,” Alan Fersht, PNAS, April 28, 2009

https://www.pnas.org/content/106/17/6883

81) “Marihuana – The Mexican dope plant is the source of a social problem,” Nature Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 5. May 1938 – published by the American Nature Association. 1214 16th St. N.W., Washington DC, pp. 271-272

82) “Fighting the Devil’s Weed to Safeguard the Holy Land,” The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, August 7th, 1938, p. 64

83) “MARIJUANA – Becomes a Major American Problem,” Look, Vol. 3, No. 24, Nov. 22, 1938, pp. 1, 23-25

84) Earl Albert Rowell, Robert Rowell, ON THE TRAIL OF MARIHUANA – THE WEED OF MADNESS, 1939, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, pp. 50-51

85) “THE BLACK SIDE OF SWING,” Albuquerque Journal, June 19, 1938, p. 16

86) Madge Yohn, “All Around the Town,” The Capital Times, March 2^nd, 1939, p. 10

87) “The Sun – Glass,” The Paducah Sun-Democrat, May 14^th, 1939, p. 1

88) Liat Kozma, “The League of Nations and the Debate over Cannabis Prohibition,” History Compass, 2011, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

https://www.academia.edu/902462/The_League_of_Nations_and_the_Debate_over_Cannabis_Prohibition