Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present – Chapter 7: 1940 to 1950 – Assassin Of Youth

DML looks closely at the media from the 1940s: From the anti-pot side – more ignorance, racism and parental hysteria from newspaper reporters, book authors, cops and Hollywood film producers. On cannabis’s side, there was the US government film “Hemp For Victory,” a scientific report from NYC, a beautiful illustration from a children’s encyclopedia, a pot-loving jazz musician/author and the loyal fans of one particular persecuted Hollywood film star.

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. Chapter 6 can be found here.

“Now mark this significant fact: from that Arabic word ‘Hashishan’ we derive our English word ‘Assassin’! The present-day title, ‘Assassin of Youth,’ is therefore not without precedent when applied to marihuana. Those marauding bands of the tenth century, whose cruelty and indescribable atrocities made them famous over the known world as assassins, had much in common with the more refined, but none-the-less brutal murderers who prowl our streets and prey upon girls, women, and other innocent victims. The records of the FBI show that in a constantly increasing number of cases the motivating power is the same – whether called by its ancient name, ‘Hashish,’ or its modern name, ‘Killer Drug,’ marihuana.”

– ASSASSIN OF YOUTH! MARIHUANA, Robert James Devine, 1943 (1)

Image #1: “4 Jailed In Marihuana Raids,” The Miami Herald, Miami, Florida, March 19th, 1940, p. 9

As reefer madness propaganda goes, the 1940s kept the fast and furious pace began in the 1930s. Pot drove everyone into a murderous rage, or turned people into sex fiends, or at the very least led to very bad choices. Every arrest of a Mexican or African-American made reference to ethnicity, and every arrest of a white made no mention of ethnicity, indicating, of course, that the race of non-whites had much to do with their criminality and their drug use.

Image #2: “‘Reefer Madness’ At Northeast Harbor,” Ellsworth American, Ellsworth, Maine, August 14th, 1940, p. 4

Image #3: “NEGRO FACES MARIJUANA COUNT IN FEDERAL COURT,” Muskogee Times-Democrat, Muskogee, Oklahoma, September 13th, 1940, p. 8

So the newspapers filled up with thousands of stories about “negroes” and “Mexicans” being arrested for this weed crime or that weed crime, and dozens more stories accusing them of being under the influence of cannabis while committing other crimes. And this racist onslaught was justified to save school kids from harm, although there were few if any actually harmed-by-pot school kids to report on, so most if not all of these types of “harmed youth” stories were found in works of fiction – novels, cartoons, movies and comic strips. Meanwhile, Reefer Madness – the film – continued to play at theatres all over the country during this decade, under various names.

Image #4: Ad for the film Reefer Madness, Fitchburg Sentinel, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, October 5th, 1940, p. 5

Image #5: “Flint Negro Admits Marihuana Charge,” The Bay City Times, Bay City, Michigan, October 30th, 1940, p. 3

Image #6: “Scene from ‘Reefer Madness’,” The Courier News, Bridgewater, New Jersey, November 8th, 1940, p. 10

Image #7: “Criminal District Court Is Trying Marijuana Case,” Corpus Christi Times, Corpus Christi, Texas, November 12th, 1940, p. 5

The prohibitionists took a swing at the pot community in 1941 with a pulp fiction novel entitled simply Marihuana. Written by William Irish, with cover art by Bill Fleming and published by Dell Publishing, the story is of a young man named King Turner who had fallen under the spell of the evil herb:

“The point is he’s roaming the streets or holed-up some place right now, a menace, a living death, to anyone and everyone that happens to cross his path. For all practical purposes he’s a maniac, he’s all hopped-up with marihuana.” (2)

Image #8: Marihuana, 1941, William Irish (Cornell Woolrich)                                                         https://pleasuresofpasttimes.com/popt-shop/marihuana-by-william-irish-cornell-woolrich/

While the anti-pot campaign was in full swing, the great industrialist (and notorious Jew hater) Henry Ford had been working on a process for turning vegetable cellulose (from soy beans) into plastic, using fibres from plants such as hemp to strengthen the plastic, and then run the car off bio fuel, which Ford called the “fuel of the future.” (3)

Image #9: “WILL GROW OUR OWN FUEL SOME DAY, HENRY FORD SAYS,” Cedar County Republican and Stockton Journal, Stockton, Missouri, September 24, 1925, p.1

Ford did have his own biofuel processing plant next to his car making plant at his industrial site just a couple miles south of the town of Iron Mountain, Michigan. Built around 1925, it could use “anything of cellulose structure – sawdust, shavings, chips, bark, corncobs, even nut shells” and convert it into charcoal, acetate of lime, tar, oils, creosote, fuel gas, and methyl alcohol (4) the latter being a cleaner-burning fuel for vehicles than fossil fuels. (5) Hemp, of course, is the world’s best source of cellulose. More about that in chapter 12.

Image #10: “WOOD DISTILLATION PLANT TO BE BUILT,” The Edgerton Earth, Edgerton, Ohio, October 10th, 1924, p. 8

Some have argued – or speculated – that Ford ran his car on hemp fuel, (6) but it is difficult to find confirmation of this. Hemp ethanol wasn’t really being used as fuel for gas tanks back in the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s.

In March of 1941 Ford began to discuss his new vegetable plastic car with the press.

Image #11: “FORD’S PLASTIC CAR,” Wilmington Daily Press Journal, Wilmington, California, March 6th, 1941, p. 11

In the March 1941 issue of Popular Science, the press went into details about the composition of the plastic body of the car, mentioning (the now illegal-to-grow) hemp explicitly:

“Today, 21,375 tons of soy beans–grown in this country–go into plastics in each 1,000,000 Ford cars, the number turned out in an average year, and Ford operates one of the largest plastic-molding plants in the nation. And because of its many uses in other industries, the soy bean today ranks as our No. 4 cash grain crop. But because soy bean plastics are relatively brittle, they will not provide the material for plastic bodies. Still, Boyer’s experience with them put him in a position to head up the plastic body research for his employer. Slightly more than a year after he got his orders, he had installed on Mr. Ford’s personal car a rear trunk lid which he had made of plastics. To make it, he matted a mass of short and long fibers obtained from hemp, flax, and ramie. They are among the strongest fibers known. The matting was done in water. The water was extracted and a common phenol-resin compound similar to the raw materials of Bakelite was forced into them.” (7)

Image #12: “Henry Ford, at right, tells the author about his plastic-car plans. The cagelike object is a model of tubular framework proposed for cars.” “Henry Ford Demonstrates Plastic Bodies For Cars,” Popular Science, March 1941 Posted on October 26, 2011 by Geoff Hacker https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/henry-ford-demonstrates-plastic-bodies-for-cars-popular-science-march-1941/

Image #13: “Robert Boyer, directing plastic research for the Ford Motor Company, inspects a synthetic-resin trunk lid being tested on Mr. Ford’s car.” “Henry Ford Demonstrates Plastic Bodies For Cars,” Popular Science, March 1941 Posted on October 26, 2011 by Geoff Hacker https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/henry-ford-demonstrates-plastic-bodies-for-cars-popular-science-march-1941/

Image #14: “Here the plastic trunk that had been hit with a sledgehammer by Ford is compared to a metal trunk hit also for comparison. The damage is substantial on the metal trunk.” “Henry Ford Demonstrates Plastic Bodies For Cars,” Popular Science, March 1941 Posted on October 26, 2011 by Geoff Hacker https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/henry-ford-demonstrates-plastic-bodies-for-cars-popular-science-march-1941/

Image #15 “Plastic Fantastic!!! – The World’s First Plastic Automobile” Posted on January 12, 2010 by Geoff Hacker https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/plastic-fantastic-the-worlds-first-plastic-automobile/

Image #16: “Henry Ford Demonstrates Plastic Bodies For Cars,” Popular Science, March 1941 Posted on October 26, 2011 by Geoff Hacker https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/henry-ford-demonstrates-plastic-bodies-for-cars-popular-science-march-1941/

Image #17: “‘Straw and Soy Bean Stew’ – – – That’s New Plastic Auto,” Times Colonist, Victoria, BC, April 19th, 1941, p. 23

Image #18: “Plastic Fantastic!!! – The World’s First Plastic Automobile” Posted on January 12, 2010 by Geoff Hacker https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/plastic-fantastic-the-worlds-first-plastic-automobile/

Image #19: Robert A. Boyer on the left and Murray D. Van Wagoner (Governor of Michigan from January 1941 thru January 1943) on the right. https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/henry-ford-demonstrates-plastic-bodies-for-cars-popular-science-march-1941/

Numerous newspaper articles with photos of the plastic car mentioned that it would be made partly of hemp, as did another Popular Mechanics article in December of 1941.

Image #20: “Ford’s Plastic Car Gets Trial Dearborn Spin,” Detroit Evening Times, Detroit, Michigan, August 14th, 1941, p. 3

Image #21: “FORD SHOWS NEW ALL-PLASTIC MOTOR CAR BODY AT DEARBORN DAY CELEBRATION,” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, August 14th, 1941, p. 22

Image #22: “Ford’s Plastic Car, Not Ready for Production,” Sapulpa Herald, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, August 18th, 1941, p. 6

Image #23: “Henry Ford Displays New Plastic Auto,” The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Washington, August 22nd, 1941, p. 7

Image #24: “From Ford’s Plastic Car We Got Imitation Meat.” Blog, Hemmings.com, 2011/01/13

Image #25: “PINCH HITTERS for DEFENSE,” Popular Mechanics Magazine, December, 1941

Image #26: “PINCH HITTERS for DEFENSE,” Popular Mechanics Magazine, December, 1941, pp. 204, 207

Ford’s vision of crops becoming a more utilized resource in industry dates back to the mid-to-late 1920s, when he publicly shared his vision of US-sourced rubber and fuel with reporters, which happened to be immediately after he began to grow hemp.

Image #27: “HENRY FORD TO START HEMP FARM IN OHIO,” Springfield Weekly Republican, Springfield, Missouri, August 26th, 1926, p. 13

Image #28, “FINE HEMP CROP NEAR FOREST, ONT.” Niagra Falls Review, Niagra Falls, Ontario, September 2nd, 1926, p. 13

Image #29: “Ford Predicts Tires From Weeds, Alcohol For Fuel,” The Evening News, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, August 18th, 1928, p. 5

Ford predicted again (8) and again (9) in the first half of the 1940s that agriculture would become the main source of raw materials for industry.

Image #30: “Ford Foresees Prosperity After War.” The Pasadena Post, Pasadena, California, May 23rd, 1943, p. 1

There are two schools of thought as to why Ford’s predictions haven’t come true (yet). The first – unveiled in 1954, seven years after Ford’s death – was that Ford lied about being able to create vegetable plastics. (10) This seems unlikely, as others have succeeded in making hemp plastics – even hemp plastic cars.

Image #31: “Is Hemp Making a Comeback in Cars?” Nate HemmertJun 03, 2016 https://discovercbd.com/blogs/cbd-news/113009670-is-hemp-making-a-comeback-in-cars

Image #32: “Jay Leno drives a car made out of cannabis,” CNBC, Jonathan Blumberg, July 19, 2017 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jay-leno-drives-car-made-133000111.html

The second, a theory that arose by the late 1970s and early 1980s, was that “a corporate alliance” between DuPont (which controlled GM) and Standard Oil (now Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco, Arco, Esso, Amoco, American BP etc) suppressed Ford’s alcohol/gasoline engine. (11)

Image #33: Harrowsmith magazine, #35, Vol. 7, April/May 1981

Image #34: “The New Moonshiners,” Harrowsmith magazine, #35, Vol. 7, April/May 1981, p. 29

More than one researcher noted that Ford’s dream of a nation of plant-powered vehicles was “thwarted first by alcohol prohibition, then by hemp prohibition” (12) – in that US alcohol prohibition in 1920 eliminated all the legal alcohol-fuel refineries, and then alcohol relegalization in 1933 eliminated all the illegal alcohol-fuel refineries, and then hemp prohibition in 1937 eliminated the one fuel crop that could have provided the most energy efficient feedstock to kick-start the alcohol fuel economy again.

Image #35: Alcohol Can Be A Gas! David Blume, International Institute For Ecological Agriculture, Santa Cruz, California, 2008, p. 13

Image #36: Henry Ford, Charles Kettering and the fuel of the future Bill Kovarik Automotive History Review, Spring 1998, No. 32, p. 7 – 27.                                                            https://environmentalhistory.org/people/henry-ford-charles-kettering-and-the-fuel-of-the-future/

Image #37: “EVEN ROCKEFELLER IS CONVINCED,” Daily News, New York, New York, June 8th, 1932, p. 186

There is some evidence of the oil industry both helping to criminalize alcohol and then helping to relegalize it. (13) Coincidence theorists speculate that all that was a coincidence, just as the suppression of the Schlichten decordicator (14) was a coincidence, and just like DuPont’s apparent engineering of the Marihuana Tax Act in spite of the AMA testifying against it (15) was a coincidence. Students of the history of elite deviance and conflicts of interest know otherwise.

Image #38: “The Fuel War.” Omaha World-Herald, Omaha, Nebraska, August 22nd, 1979, p. 3

Image #39: The Great Book Of Hemp, Rowan Robinson, Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1996, p. 150

Image #40: The Schlichten Papers, Compiled by Don Wirtshafter, First Draft Edition, May 1994

While Ford attempted to grow cars from the soil, the war against pot raged on. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) – an international organization founded in 1874 to combat the negative societal impacts of alcohol – came out swinging against marihuana in 1941, arguing it made users “temporarily” insane:

“Marihuana, known as Indian hemp, charas and hashish and smoked in reefers and muggles is a sinister weed of madness, murder, hallucinations, delusions and false notions, changing personality in split seconds from the humorous to the tragic, making user, temporarily, insane. . . . No totalitarian state can so completely convince its citizens of the truth of a lie as marihuana can its serfs. Morphine may be prescribed with great accuracy as to the exact results on a patient, whatever age, sex, or race but not so with marihuana, thus being useless.” (16)

The advantages of smoked cannabis – in that it allowed for self-titration (self dosing) – would not be recognized as even possible until 1973. (17) Cannabis itself wasn’t useless, but the medical establishment was useless at understanding cannabis. The medical establishment had not taken into account that smoking the raw, unprocessed herb was superior to orally-ingested products, because the onset of effects were much faster with smoked cannabis and thus more easy to measure the perfect dose. Doctors couldn’t prescribe the right dose with “great accuracy” – but cannabis smokers could figure their own particular dose out, by paying attention to the sensations provided by cannabis, and then stop smoking when the desired effects had been achieved. Or perhaps the medical establishment did understand this, but preferred creating medicines that were easy to patent instead of medicines that were easy to use (and easy to grow and supply oneself).

Image #41: “Two Mexicans Deny Marihuana Charges,” The Bay City Times, Bay City, Michigan, September 11th, 1941, p. 4

Image #42: “My Battle Against Our Deadly DOPE RACKET,” Times Herald, Washington, D.C., October 5th, 1941, p. 80

Image #43: “My Battle Against Our Deadly DOPE RACKET,” Times Herald, Washington, D.C., October 5th, 1941, p. 80

Image #44: “My Battle Against Our Deadly DOPE RACKET,” Times Herald, Washington, D.C., October 5th, 1941, p. 80

Image #45: “POLICE SEIZE 10 STUDENTS IN DOPE ROUND-UP,” The Chicago Defender, Chicago, Illinois, November 1st, 1941, p. 13

Image #46: “POLICE SEIZE 10 STUDENTS IN DOPE ROUND-UP,” The Chicago Defender, Chicago, Illinois, November 1st, 1941, p. 13

Image #47: “POLICE SEIZE 10 STUDENTS IN DOPE ROUND-UP,” The Chicago Defender, Chicago, Illinois, November 1st, 1941, p. 13

Image #48: “Two Mexicans Carry Marijuana From State to California,” The Butte Daily Post, Butte, Montana, November 27th, 1941, p. 4

Image #49: “TIP JAILS MEXICAN PAIR IN MARIHUANA CASE ARREST,” The Record, Stockton, California, December 30th, 1941, p. 13

The next year, a magazine called THE WOMAN: WITH WOMAN’S DIGEST published a similar over-the-top distortion of reality by the witch-hunters who dream up this stuff – in this case a writer named George Ford. He wrote;

“Peddlers do operate around high schools and colleges, but in most cases, the young ‘victims’ are not so innocent as they have been made out. . . . A youngster’s real innocence lies, not in his inability to recognize the drug, but in his ignorance of what its results may be. . . . Can marijuana cause insanity? In the United States, because of our strict narcotic enforcement, this cannot be said to be true. In Egypt, however, its widespread use is considered by some people to be one of the major causes of insanity.” (18)

In 1942 the film Devil’s Harvest came out. The synopsis begins like this:

“Across the street from the local high school, Oliver, the proprietor of a hot dog stand, sells marijuana to the vulnerable students.” (19)

Satan himself makes two appearances in the film – once when the drug first appears at the hot dog stand, and once after everybody goes crazy from the “LOCO WEED.” (20)

Image #50: Devil’s Harvest, movie poster, 1942 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157533/mediaviewer/rm1858317057/

Image #51: Devil’s Harvest, lobby card, ”Reefer Madness Art: 23 Scary Posters”                            https://www.northfieldneighbors.today/index.php/hidden-cannabiz/444-reefer-madness-art-23-scary-posters

Image #52: Devil’s Harvest, lobby card, 1948 re-release                                                                     https://posteritati.com/poster/43118/devils-harvest-original-r1948-us-scene-card

Image #53: Devil’s Harvest, lobby card, 1942                                                                                        https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157533/mediaviewer/rm2343505664/

Image #54: Ad for Devil’s Harvest, The Flint Journal, Flint, Michigan, September 17th, 1942, p. 16

Image #55: “Reefer Parties Depicted in Film,” The Daily Ardmoreite, Ardmore, Oklahoma, October 4th, 1942, p. 11

Image #56: Ad for Devil’s Harvest, The Altus Times-Democrat, Altus, Oklahoma, October 9th, 1942, p. 4

Image #57: Ad for Devil’s Harvest, The Vernon Daily Record, Vernon, Texas, February 3rd, 1945, p. 6

Image #58: “‘Devil’s Harvest’ Wins Civic Leaders’ Acclaim,” Nowata Daily Star, Nowata, Oklahoma, November 12th, 1942, p. 4

In 1942, some U.S. medical experts had lost patience with the media’s assault on cannabis, and began to fight back. In a report presented in February of 1942 and published later that November, Roger Adams, professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, wrote an article simply titled “MARIJUANA.” In it, Adams wrote;

“Barbiturates, cold showers and sweet candies were found to be efficacious in ameliorating any alarming physical or psychotic symptoms which developed following marihuana overdosage. … The observed psychiatric effects are (a) apprehension and anxiety, (b) euphoria, (c) loquaciousness, (d) lowering of inhibitions, (e) hunger and thirst, (f) feeling of being ‘high,’ (g) uncontrollable bursts of laughter or giggles, (h) drowsiness, languor, lassitude and a pleasant feeling of fatigue … Many of the unpleasant physical symptoms previously mentioned appear only as a result of the administration of excessive doses of drug.” (21)

Adams further noted that a study by his associates found “no discernible evidence of any permanent deleterious effects, either mental or physical” he speculated about “the possible therapeutic value of these substances” – namely to treat depression, stimulate appetite, and treat alcoholism and opiate addiction, and then went on to mention preliminary studies involving cannabis in the treatment of drug addicts looked promising. (22)

Image #59: “MARIHUANA,” Roger Adams, BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, NOVEMBER, 1942

Two other doctors working in the Bellevue hospital in New York City (the oldest public hospital in the United States) – famous for it’s psychiatric work – wrote an article titled “PSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS OF MARIHUANA INTOXICATION.” It was read at the ninety-eighth annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, held in Boston in May 1942, and published published by the American Journal of Psychiatry in September 1942. In it, Dr. Samuel Allentuck and Dr. Karl Bowman wrote;

“Marihuana will not produce a psychosis de novo (anew) in a well-integrated, stable person. … The user may speak and act more freely, is inclined to daydreaming, and experiences a feeling of calm and pleasurable relaxation. Marihuana, by virtue of its property of lowering inhibitions, accentuates all traits of personality, both those harmful and those beneficial. It does not impel its user to take spontaneous action, but may make his response to stimuli more emphatic than it normally would be. Increasingly larger doses of marihuana are not necessary in order that the long-term user may capture the original degree of pleasure. Marihuana, like alcohol, does not alter the basic personality, but by relaxing inhibitions may permit antisocial tendencies formerly suppressed to come to the fore. Marihuana does not of itself give rise to antisocial behavior. There is no evidence to suggest that the continued use of marihuana is a stepping-stone to the use of opiates. Prolonged use of the drug does not lead to physical, mental, or moral degeneration, nor have we observed any permanent deleterious effects from its continued use. Quite the contrary, marihuana and its derivatives and allied synthetics have potentially valuable therapeutic applications which merit future investigation.” (23)

Image #60: “Psychiatric Aspects of Marihuana Intoxication,” Samuel Allentuck, MD, & Karl Bowman, MD, American Journal of Psychiatry, September, 1942, reprinted in The Marihuana Papers, David Solomon, editor, Bobbs-Merrill Company, New York, 1966, p. 361

Image #61: “Much-Maligned Marihuana Seen Mental Ills’ Cure,” Courier-Post, Camden, New Jersey, June 15th, 1942, p. 21

1942 was also the year the US government made a pro-hemp movie called Hemp For Victory. Because the nylon rope production economy was far from up and running, and because the Japanese took over the Philippines and the manila hemp rope production there, the US had to return to domestic rope production using cannabis. The film was produced to encourage farmers to grow hemp.

Hemp For Victory never mentioned “marihuana” (other than depicting a marihuana tax stamp) or cannabis prohibition and put out the falsehood that hemp rope declined due to cheaper options rather than was put out of business by the dominant forces within the hemp-substitute economies. It also reinforced the idea that a hemp seed monopoly was legitimate, without bothering to explain why it existed in the first place:

“This is hemp seed. Be careful how you use it, for to grow hemp legally you must have a federal registration and tax stamp. This is provided for in your contract. Ask your Triple A Committee man, or your county agent about it. Don’t forget!” (24)

  Image #62: Hemp For Victory, USDA, 1942                                                                                             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_for_Victory

Image #63: “What about growing HEMP?” A. H. Wright, November, 1942, http://www.industrialhemp.net/pdf/What_about_growing_HEMP.pdf

The Nazis put out their own pro-hemp propaganda in 1942 – the Jolly Hemp Primer – with the cutest illustrated instructions on growing hemp you could ever imagine coming out of Nazi Germany – all the hemp plants and even the gardening tools had faces. (25)

Image #64: “A Jolly Hemp Primer,” German WW2 pro-hemp propaganda, 1942, from CANNABIS, Mathias Broeckers, The Hash Marihuana Hemp Museum, Amsterdam, 2002, p. 48

The next year Grolier’s published an illustrated list of “FIFTY PLANTS PRECIOUS TO MAN” within a children’s encyclopedia, who’s editors believed that “there is no other book now available which gives them all in their natural colors as shown here.” Hemp was number ten on the list of plants “valuable for food or clothing, beverages or medicines, or for use in industry.” (26)

Image #65: “FIFTY PLANTS PRECIOUS TO MAN,” The Book Of Knowledge, The Children’s Encyclopedia, The Grolier Society, London, Vol. 7, 1943, p. 2997

One could just imagine the editors envisioning the worst-case scenario arising from the world war that was currently in progress and which at the time had no clear outcome – a post-apocalyptic nightmare where, from out of the rubble, encyclopedias with lists such as that were to be used to create a new society out of the dying husks of the old. “Here you go, children. Recognize these plants, save their seeds and build a better world with them.”

Image #66: Grow Hemp For the War Poster, USDA, 1943, “Hemp for Victory”                                           https://hashmuseum.com/en/collection/growing-hemp/hemp-for-victory/

Image #67: “A NERVOUS SYSTEM RAMPAGE WITH MARIHUANA,” Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, February 22nd, 1943, p. 14

Image #68: “Hemp Weed Becomes Vital War Crop,” The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa, July 4th, 1943, p. 35

The powers-that-be needed both the advantages of industrial hemp (for military purposes) and the advantages of the pot war (for dividing and conquering the domestic population purposes). The war on the poor, the young, the non-white cannabis users growers and dealers could not be maintained if hemp were legal . . . unless the medicinal elements within “hemp” could be separated from the rest of the plant. Attempts to breed out the psychoactive elements while retaining the desired industrial characteristics began in the 1940s, with Popular Science reporting the experiments with breeding taking place at the Cold Spring Harbor genetics laboratory:

“A Jekyll-and-Hyde plant, hemp provides twine and rope urgently needed for military purposes. But it also yields marijuana, a drug that makes depraved creatures of its addicts. What can be done to keep these enormous new supplies, from which there almost inevitably will be ‘leaks’, out of their twitching hands? ‘Drugless hemp’ is the bold proposal of the Department of Agriculture for solving the problem. In short, it is attempting to breed a strain of hemp of good fiber quality, but containing a negligible amount of the baneful marijuana drug.” (27)

Image #69: “Plant Wizards Fight Wartime Drug Peril,” POPULAR SCIENCE, September 1943, p. 62 https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/popularscience43.htm

Image #70: “Plant Wizards Fight Wartime Drug Peril,” POPULAR SCIENCE, September 1943, p. 63 https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/popularscience43.htm

The reefer madness propaganda continued unabated. In 1943, the book ASSASSIN OF YOUTH! MARIHUANA was published. Every type of “marihuana madness” imaginable was related in lurid detail. Take one of many examples:

“A recent letter from a distracted mother in one of our southern states is picked from my daily mail and published here as proof that such conditions actually exist. She writes: ‘In junior high school here the Parent-Teacher’s Association discovered that marihuana was being sold to the children, with the result that many of them had been indulging in NUDE dancing parties after school hours in a home where both the father and mother were employed, and where no older person was present before evening.’ Parents, please note: This was a JUNIOR High School!” (28)

Image #71: ASSASSIN of YOUTH! MARIHUANA, Robert James Devine, Illustrated by J. N. Curry, Northland Publishing House, 1943

The author, a Reverend and evangelical Christian, seemed pretty focused on pedophilic predators in a manner our modern-day 2025 society doesn’t so much associate with cannabis users or dealers as much as it does with the priests of various scandal-ridden Christian sects. In this example, the accusations made by the scapegoater are clearly more applicable to the scapegoater than those being scapegoated. (29)

1943 was also the year of the first really high-profile cannabis arrest – jazz drummer legend Gene Krupa, who on January 10^th, 1943, was arrested for “possession of marihuana ciagrets” (felony) and “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” (misdemeanor) – the minor in question being a 20-year-old named John Pateakos, who was acting as Krupa’s valet and gopher at the time. Krupa initially denied knowledge of the cigarettes, which were found on Pateakos, but then pleaded guilty on the advice of his lawyer. (30)

As it turns out, Krupa was framed, and reporters were tipped off ahead of time. The February 4^th, 1944 Pittsburgh Press reported that;

“John Pateakos, 20-year-old former valet to Drummer Gene Krupa, today denied that Krupa had sent him to obtain marijuana cigarets as Pateakos had testified before the drummer’s conviction on a narcotics charge. The denial allegedly was made in a nine-page letter prepared by John Gluskin, Krupa’s business manager, and signed by Pateakos, now an army private. In the letter the former valet stated that Federal Narcotics Agents had induced him to say Krupa had asked him to get the cigarets.” (31)

Image #72: “Jail Bandsman Krupa On Marijuana Count,” The Daily Tribune, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, May 18^th, 1943, p. 7

Image #73: “ORCHESTRA LEADER ON WAY TO JAIL,” The Philadelphia Enquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 19^th, 1943, p. 21

Image #74: “Star Burst” (1947) Gene Krupa – The story of his drug bust (and frame-up). https://swingandbeyond.com/2019/09/07/star-burst-1947-gene-krupa-the-story-of-his-drug-bust-and-frame-up/

Image #75: “Gene Krupa & John Pateakos,” “the Drug Bust”                                                             www.drummerman.net/drugbust.html

Image #76: From the magazine “Lowdown” – late 1940’s. “the Drug Bust”            www.drummerman.net/drugbust.html

A few months later, on May 31st, 1944, the California District Court of Appeals reversed Krupa’s possession charge using a “double jeopardy” argument. (32) Krupa would later go on to denigrate cannabis in the 1960s:

“He said when he listened to recordings of his playing while under the influence of the drug, he ‘found it was pretty bad.’” (33)

The question of whether or not cannabis is a performance-enhancing drugs was immediately addressed in the July 19, 1943 issue of Time magazine – with Krupa serving as both the stated inspiration for the article and the subject of a multi-exposure time-slow-effect “tracers” image to accompany the article. The article was a surprisingly reality-based, non-stigma piece titled “The Weed,” in which the author explored, amongst other topics, the time-dilation/performance-enhancement effects with a great amount of insight:

“Curious things happen to his perceptions of space and time. Objects a mile outside the window may seem within easy reach. A lazy minute may seem like an hour. Curiously, the power of mental concentration appears to increase rather than diminish. Some specialized workers find that marijuana stimulates their faculties. The association of marihuana with hot jazz is no accident. The drug’s power to slow the sense of time gives an improviser the illusion that he has all the time in the world in which to conceive his next phrases. And the drug also seems to heighten the hearing – so that, for instance, strange chord formations seem easier to analyze under marijuana.” (34)

Image #77: “GENE KRUPA, DRUMMING – Curious things happen to time.” “The Weed,” TIME, July 19^th, 1943, p. 54   https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/time432.htm

Image #78: “Gene Krupa”                                                                                                                          https://timenote.info/en/Gene-krupa

Image #79: FIBER PRODUCTION IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, Lyster H. Dewey, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION No. 518, August 1943 https://www.lysterdewey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/LH-Dewey-fiber-production-Pub518-1943.pdf

Image #80: “Negro Spouts Marihuana, Police Charge,” El Paso Times, E Paso, Texas, June 16th, 1943, p. 5

Image #81: MARIHUANA TAX STAMP, (Issued to Muhammad Ali’s father!) 1943                            https://sites.rutgers.edu/mat-coe/wp-content/uploads/sites/473/2022/01/Cannabis-CPC-22.01.24.pdf

Image #82: “POLICE ARREST NEGRO IN MARIJUANA CASE,” Evansville Courier and Press, Evansville, Indiana, October 9th, 1943, p. 10

In 1944, with the powers that be focused completely on winning WW2, the Mayor of New York, Fiorello H. La Guardia, issued a report entitled THE MARIHUANA PROBLEM IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. According to Wikipedia;

“The LaGuardia Committee was the first in-depth study into the effects of smoking cannabis (drug) in the United States. An earlier study, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, was conducted by the colonial authorities in British India in 1893-94. The reports systematically contradicted claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department that smoking marijuana results in insanity, deteriorates physical and mental health, assists in criminal behavior and juvenile delinquency, is physically addictive, and is a ‘gateway’ drug to more dangerous drugs. The report was prepared by the New York Academy of Medicine, on behalf of a commission appointed in 1939 by New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia who was a strong opponent of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. Released in 1944, the report infuriated Harry Anslinger, who was campaigning against marijuana. Anslinger condemned it as unscientific.” (35)

The testing done by the authors of the report was done with “marihuana concentrate” plus a variety of natural and synthetic cannabinoids. (36) The conclusions in the psychological section of the report bare repeating:

“1. Marihuana taken either in pill or in cigarette form has a transitory adverse effect on mental functioning. 2. The extent of intellectual impairment, the time of its onset, and its duration are all related to the amount of the drug taken. Small doses case only slight falling off in mental ability while larger doses result in greater impairment. The deleterious effect is measurable earlier with large doses than with small ones, and the impairment continues for a greater length of time with large doses than with small ones. 3. The degree of intellectual impairment resulting from the presence of marihuana in the system varies with the function tested. The more complex functions are more severely affected than the simpler ones. 4. In general, non-users experience greater intellectual impairment for longer periods of time than users do. This suggests the possibility of an habituation factor. 5. The falling off in ability which occurs when an individual has taken marihuana is due to a lost in both speed and accuracy. 6. Indulgence in marihuana does not appear to result in mental deterioration.” (37)

A summary of the report was found in the over-all concluding chapter:

“From the study as a whole, it is concluded that marihuana is not a drug of addiction, comparable to morphine, and that if tolerance is acquired, this is of a very limited degree. Furthermore, those who have been smoking marihuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug.” (38)

The report concluded by focusing not on the inflated harms, but rather the therapeutic possibilities that future research would provide.

Image #83: The Marihuana Problem In The City Of New York – 1944; 1973 Edition, Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/TheMarihuanaProblemInTheCityOfNewYork-19441973Edition/page/n15/mode/2up?view=theater

Image #84: “Former Army Man Held In Narcotic Raid,” Buffalo Courier Express, Buffalo, New York, March 15th, 1944, p. 11

Image #85: Mug shot of Phyllis Stalnaker, “weedhead, tramp,” San Diego PD, April 1944                   https://i.imgur.com/AM4rSTd.jpg

Image #86: New Yorker, June 17^th, 1944                                                                                                 https://condenaststore.com/featured/new-yorker-june-17-1944-garrett-price.html

Image #87: “Two Men Found Guilty On Marihuana Charges,” Evening Star, Washington, D.C., June 21st, 1944,, p. 19

Image #88: Negro Is Charged in Marihuana Case, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas, December 30th, 1944, p. 7

Image #89: “Lorna Gray and Duke Taylor arrested in marihuana raid,” Daily News, Los Angeles, California, March 5th, 1945, p. 2

Image #90: “Actress Exonerated,” The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, California, March 7th, 1945, p. 1

Image #91: “MARIHUANA HABIT – Organized Gangs Up Drug Use,” The Salt Late Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah, September 2nd, 1945, p. 47

Image #92: “Negro With Marijuana Arrested by Deputy,” Corpus Christi Times, Corpus Christi, Texas, November 21st, 1945, p. 10

Image #93: MARIHUANA TAX STAMP, July 1945                           https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_for_Victory#

Image #94: Flyer for DOPED YOUTH, circa 1945                                                                                       https://www.walterfilm.com/shop/select-by-size/pressbook-program-press-kit/doped-youth-reefer-madness-1936-reissue-ca-1945/

The Second World War ended in 1945, and for that year at least, it appears that writers took a break from the subject of pot. But 1946 then arrived, and the debate began anew, as both sides made efforts worthy of note that year. The most striking composition must be said to be the very official looking pamphlet produced by the pharmaceutical corporation Ciba pharmaceuticals, a member of the Dual Cartel formed in 1929 from the main Swiss pharmaceutical giants (Ciba, Geigy and Sandoz) called “Basel AG” and the German pharmaceutical cartel (mainly Bayer, Hoechst and BASF) called “IG Farben.” (39)

In 1946, many members of the IG Farben executive were awaiting trial for such crimes as “Planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression and invasions of other countries” and “plunder,” “enslavement,” and “murder,” amongst other charges. A few were found guilty, but all were let off with a slap on the wrist. (40)

One could view the production of a pamphlet designed to reveal all the science surrounding the world’s most versatile and useful (and maligned) herbal medicine – cannabis – as a type of penance – as if to say, “in spite of our unethical activities such as putting the Nazis into power (41) and profiting from their global war of conquest directly, we pharmaceutical companies can do constructive and helpful things too.”

The pamphlet consisted of the most amazing cover – a botanical illustration of the plant next to a hookah, and from within the smoke arising from the bowl of the hookah came all the delights that pot provided: the enjoyment of music in the form of notes and iconic images of beauty – peacock feathers, dancing girls, nature, the stars and the planets. Their magazine, Ciba Symposia, usually took on different themes of medicine, but never one that ran so contrary to a major scapegoating effort of the day.

Image #95: “HASHISH,” Ciba Symposia, VOLUME 8, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1946, NUMBERS 5/6, CIBA PHARMACETICAL PRODUCTS, INC., LAFAYETTE PARK, SUMMIT, N. J.                           https://www.stressedanddepressed.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CIBAHash-Complete-Sm.pdf

The content was even more based in reality and devoid of stigma. It consisted of three well-illustrated essays by Victor Robinson, M.D. (taken from his 1912 book An Essay on Hashish, which was reprinted in 1925 and again in 1930), and another by a layperson; W. Reininger. In his essays, Robinson argued that hasheesh was a tool to explore dreams and as a sacrament in religion (42) and dispelled the myth regarding the assassins using hashish to poison or to inspire violence, instead correctly identifying it’s use by this Islamic sect as a non-toxic sedative in the recruitment process. (43)

Also notable is Robinson’s summary of the medical applications of cannabis;

“In medicinal doses Cannabis has been used as an aphrodisiac, for neuralgia, to quiet maniacs, for the cure of chronic alcoholism and morphine and chloral addiction for mental depression, hysteria, softening of the brain, nervous vomiting, for distressing cough, for St. Vitus’ dance, and for the falling sickness so successfully simulated by Kipling’s Sleary – epileptic fits of a most appalling kind. It is used in spasm of the bladder, in migraine, and when the dreaded Bacillus tetanus makes the muscles rigid. It is a uterine tonic, and a remedy in the headaches and hemorrhages occurring at the final cessation of the menses. It has been pressed into the service of the diseases that mankind has named in honor of Venus. According to Osler, Cannabis is sometimes useful in locomotor ataxia. Christison reports a case in which Cannabis entirely cured the intense itching of eczema, while the patient was enjoying the delightful slumber which the hemp induced. It is sometimes employed as a hypnotic in those cases where opium, because of long-continued use, has lost it’s efficacy. As a specific in hydrophobia it was once claimed to be marvelous, for Dr. J. W. Palmer wrote that he himself had seen a sepoy, an hour before furiously hydrophobic, under the influence of cannabis drinking water freely and pleasantly washing his face and hands!” (44)

The above list of possible therapeutic applications sound like a whole lot of anti-psychosis activity of various kinds. The 1946 Ciba Symposia Hashish issue was the most informed opinion on the topic of cannabis medicine of all the publications up until that time, aside from the Indian Hemp Drug Commission of 1895. And it’s interesting that, in order to find accurate information about cannabis, they had to resort to a book first published way back in 1912, because nearly everything written about it by “the (political and legal) authorities” since that time (aside from reports such as the 1944 La Guardia Committee Report) had been misinformation and hate-mongering.

Image #96: An Essay On Hasheesh, Victor Robinson, 1930, ebay.com

Image #97: An Essay On Hasheesh, Victor Robinson, 1930, ebay.com

Image #98: Victor Robinson, “Essays on history of medicine in honor of Victor Robinson on his sixtieth birthday,” August 16. 1946. Froben, New York, 1948 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Robinson_(physician)

1946 was also the year the comic strip Kerry Drake did a series of strips on the topic of “MARIHUANA!” The visual depictions of being high (multiple panels of the smoker floating on clouds and hallucinating) along with the following revealing quotes from protagonist Kerry Drake, which follow closely the standard bogus Reefer Madness narrative;

“Of all the slimy, contemptible rackets, Gabby, this is the lowest! Making Marihuana addicts out of kids! . . . If I ever nail the rat behind it!” (45)

“So, to make a few dirty dollars you peddle a poison that causes insanity, crime and wrecked lives! An innocent looking weed that can turn a nice kid like Curly Hutton into a homicidal maniac!” (46)

Image #99: “KERRY DRAKE,” The Nevada Herald, Nevada, Missouri, November 6th, 1947, p. 6

The description of the effects of cannabis in the comic strips, pulp novels, newspapers, movies and other corporate media seemed to tell one tale about pot, while a pharmaceutical journal, a Time magazine writer, jazz musicians and a report commissioned by a big city Mayor told a totally different story altogether. There weren’t a variety of views on cannabis – there were just two: 1) “it caused madness, recklessness and violence” or 2) “it made you happy, hungry, relaxed, focused and if you took lots things got trippy.” Most media corporations anticipated the needs of their fellow corporations in the hemp-substitute industries and joined in a smear campaign against this natural medicine. And musicians, journalists, scientists and relatively left-wing politicians joined in an effort to resist that smear campaign. And it continued, with ebb and flow in prominence for both sides.

Image #100: “Addicts Held in Knight Death Go Before Coroner’s Jury,” The Washington Daily News, Washington, D.C., May 20th, 1946, p. 5

Image #101: “‘GOT TO HITTIN’ IT TOO HARD’ – Negro Says Marijuana Drove Him To Kill Four,” San Angelo Standard-Times, San Angelo, Texas, October 28th, 1946, p. 2

The next person of prominence to share their perspective on pot was Louis Armstrong’s pot dealer and clarinet-player extraordinaire, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow. In 1946 he released his biography, which he co-authored with Bernard Wolfe. Titled Really The Blues, it read as an epic first-hand, front-row-seat history of the early jazz world, and a code-breaker for the hip language that arose not only from this new jazz scene, but also from the new underground pot-dealing scene – so much so that it came with its own 10 page small-font glossary of new terms. The following passage from Chapter 6 is the most quoted chapter, and can be seen as a poetic description of the actual effects of cannabis as an anti-depressant and performance-enhancer for his generation. The passage is long, but deserves to be quoted in full;

“It’s a funny thing about marihuana – when you first begin smoking it you see things in a wonderful soothing, easygoing new light. All of a sudden the world is stripped of its dirty gray shrouds and becomes one big belly full of giggles, a spherical laugh, bathed in brilliant, sparkling colors that hit you like a heatwave. Nothing leaves you cold anymore; there’s a humorous tickle and great meaning in the least little thing, the twitch of somebody’s little finger or the click of a beer glass. All your pores open like funnels, your nerve-ends stretch their mouths wide, hungry and thirsty for new sights and sounds and sensations; and every sensation, when it comes, is the most exciting one you’ve ever had. You can’t get enough of anything – you want to gobble up the whole goddamned universe just for an appetizer. Them first kicks are a killer, Jim.

Suppose you’re the critical and analytical type, always ripping things to pieces, tearing the covers off and being disgusted by what you find under the sheet. Well, under the influence of muta you don’t lose your surgical touch exactly, but you don’t come up evil and grimy about it. You still see what you saw before but in a different, more tolerant way, through rose-colored glasses, and things that would have irritated you before just tickle you. Everything is good for a laugh; the wrinkles get ironed out of your face and you forget what a frown is, you just want to hold on to your belly and roar till the tears come. Some women especially, instead of being nasty and mean just go off bellowing until hysteria comes on. All the larceny kind of dissolves out of them – they relax and grin from ear to ear, and get right on the ground floor with you. Maybe no power on earth can work out a lasting armistice in that eternal battle of the sexes, but muggles are the one thing I know that can even bring about an overnight order to ‘Cease firing.’

Tea puts a musician in a real masterly sphere, and that’s why so many jazzmen have used it. You look down on the other members of the band like an old mother hen surveying her brood of chicks; if one of them hits a sour note or comes up with a bad modulation, you just smile tolerantly and figure, oh well, he’ll learn, it’ll be better next time, give the guy a chance. Pretty soon you find yourself helping him out, trying to put him on the right track. The most terrific thing is this, that all the while you’re playing, really getting off, your own accompaniments keeps flashing through your head, just like you were a one man-band. You hear the basic tones of the theme and keep up your pattern of improvisation without ever getting tangled up, giving out with a uniform sequence all the way. Nothing can mess you up. You hear everything at once and you hear it right. When you get that feeling of power and sureness, you’re in a solid groove.

You know how jittery, got-to-be-moving people in the city always get up in the subway train two minutes before they arrive at the station? Their nerves are on edge; they’re watching the clock, thinking about schedules, full of that high-powered mile-a-minute jive. Well, when you’ve picked up on some gauge that clock just stretches its arms, yawns, and dozes off. The whole world slows down and gets drowsy. You wait until the train stops dead and the doors slide open, then you get up and stroll out in slow motion, like a sleepwalker with a long night ahead of him and no appointments to keep. You’ve got all the time in the world. What’s the rush, buddy? Take-it-easy, that’s the play, it’s bound to sweeten it all the way.” (47)

Image #102: Really The Blues, Mezz Mezzrow & Bernard Wolf, uncensored first edition, Random House, New York, October, 1946

This passage – three pages in total – were missing from Chapter 6 of the paperback edition. (48) Even the title of the chapter was altered: the hardcover’s Chapter 6 title was “THEM FIRST KICKS ARE A KILLER,” and the paperback’s Chapter 6 title was “YOU GET THAT GOOD FEELING.” Harry J. Anslinger, who followed the jazz/pot connection very closely, (according to one drug book archivist) felt that it was a “glorification of marijuana smoking” (49) – as if that was a bad thing. It’s unknown who at Dell Publishing removed the destigmatizing passages from the softcover edition, but one can speculate as to why with probable accuracy. Bibliophiles speculate that the paperback edition was published circa 1950, in spite of the 1946 copyright date given. (50)

Image #103: Really The Blues, Mezz Mezzrow & Bernard Wolf, censored second edition, Dell Publishing Company Inc., New York, 1946

Image #104: “Books In The News,” “Really The Blues,” Daily News, Los Angeles, California, November 30th, 1946, p. 4

Image #105: “Books In The News,” “Really The Blues,” Daily News, Los Angeles, California, November 30th, 1946, p. 4

Image #106: “Doped Cigarettes Convict Musician,” The Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, January 31st, 1941, p. 23

Image #107: “Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, Jacques Bureau, Lucille Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong and Stephane Grappelli in Nice, France, 1948,” Deborah Roldan-Dixon, Facebook.com

Image #108: “Louis Armstrong, 1960,” High Times of Louis Armstrong                                                https://louisarmstrongfellowsblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/high-times-of-louis-armstrong/

Mezzrow died in 1972 – he outlived his friend Louis Armstrong by one year – and was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, along with US poet Jim Morrison (who had just been buried there one year earlier) and Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The Wikimedia photo of his gravesite has rolling papers stuck on his tomb. (51)

Image #109: Rolling papers stuck to Mezzrow’s tomb at Père-Lachaise Cemetery.                             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezz_Mezzrow

In a newspaper article entitled “The ‘Hay Burners’” (52) from the Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, a writer reviewed the Indian Hemp Drug Commission, the 1933 Panama report, the 1944 La Guardia Committee, and other reports, indicating there was no major problem with it. Regarding the La Guardia report released just two years earlier;

“The 72 subjects closely investigated claimed an increased feeling of relaxation, a loss of inhibitions and a gain in self-confidence after the use of the drug. The investigators concluded that the use of the drug is not physiologically habit forming and is not a direct causal factor in sexual and criminal misconduct. Other investigations carried out on a group of 35 confirmed marihuana smokers in an American army camp, the results of which were also published last year, seem to point in the same direction.”

According to this writer, the men in the American army camp

“. . . showed signs of intoxication and made open demands on their superior officers that they be allowed to go out for supplies of the drug. They showed signs of definite superiority complex and were divided on the score of increased sexual activity. They had no sense of guilt or remorse like some alcoholics and tried to persuade doctors and other ‘squares’ or non-users to try it, because it was ‘the greatest thing in life’.”

As it can be said that a strong case can be made for cannabis as our co-evolutionary plant partner, this author would say the test subjects probably had insights into the value of the cannabis high that those conducting the study missed entirely. In this case, the squares should really have taken the advice of the soldiers.

Nevertheless, the writer brought up the AMA’s condemnation of the La Guardia’s report, and ended the article mentioning some “tests” done on “twelve healthy white patients all serving prison sentences for violation of the Marihuana Tax Act.” The last paragraph read:

“The results showed that after taking the drug there was no improvement in the capability of the subjects and actually in most cases a deterioration. The subjective reports indicated the degree of self-deception connected with the use of the drug: eight of the patients felt sure that they had improved mentally, three felt they were the same, and one couldn’t say.”

It’s unclear whether the tests in the study were conducted with quality cannabis, shwag cannabis, or an inferior synthetic cannabinoid. But it is clear to this author that the most “self-deceived” members of this study were those who commissioned and conducted it. Keep this study on prisoners trapped in little cages – and the effects of those cages on the test results – in mind when the section on “Rat Park” is explored in the early 1980s.

From the “Hay Burners” we move our focus over to the softcover edition of IT AIN’T HAY – which answered the much-asked question of the day, “Are people actually smoking hay or is that just some of that jazz talk by the remorseless hay-burners?”

This pulp novel definitely has one of this author’s favorite covers, because of the beautiful smoke lady arising from the massive reefer on the back of death’s rowboat – the lady is as sexy as the premise is ridiculous. You’d have to be pretty high to see sexy ladies in the smoke. This author has a strong suspicion that the sensationalism and sexuality that the cautionary cannabis pulp fiction novel covers and magazine covers and movie posters did more to entice the more adventurous sector of the public to try the stuff than any other factor. The inside had the obligatory scare tactics and genocidal hysteria, but the outside was meant to sell books, and the side effect was to contextualize pot as an aphrodisiac for independent people who liked sex and jazz – which was a lot of people by 1946. The writer, David Dodge, took 22 pages to get around to saying what he was trying to say;

“Whit said, ‘Is he loopy, John?’

‘What do you mean, loopy?’

‘Insane.’

‘Its hard to say. Insane is a legal term. When he isn’t doped up, he’s probably a fairly normal man with a mild persecution complex about ‘them’ – the ‘them’ he was babbling about to you, Mrs. Whitney. I suppose he isn’t very clear in his own mind who ‘they’ are. After smoking one or two of those reefers I took out of his hat, he might reach the stage where he thinks he’s God. That’s how he felt when he came in here tonight. You heard about the millions of dollars and what he was going to do to ‘them.’ He was quite happy then. A moment later, when Marko broke up his dream, he was a murderous maniac, completely unbalanced. He might as easily have burst into tears. If he continues to use the drug, ultimately his nervous centers will become affected and he’ll develop a permanent psychosis. A court might hold him insane then.” (53)

It Ain’t Hay was published by Dell – the same publisher that published Marihuana in 1941 and that would go on to censor Really the Blues in 1950.

Image #110: IT AIN’T HAY, David Dodge, Dell Publishing Company Inc., New York, 1946

Image #111: “Marijuana ‘Kingpin’ Nabbed Here, The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Arizona, January 31st, 1947, p. 1

Image #112: “$250,000 Marijuana Ring Smashed by Arrests Here,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, March 3rd, 1947, p. 3

Image #113: “$250,000 Marijuana Ring Smashed by Arrests Here,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, March 3rd, 1947, p. 3

Image #114: “$250,000 Marijuana Ring Smashed by Arrests Here,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, March 3rd, 1947, p. 3

Image #115: “Police Arrest Negro In Marijuana Probe,” The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, March 30th, 1947, p. 8

The May, 1947 issue of Leading Detective Cases – one of many “true crime” magazines that were popular at the time – had a story entitled “CRACKING THE REEFER RACKET” by David Carver. The illustration that accompanied the beginning of the story had all the tropes of the establishment’s view of the black market – an old man offering a free reefer to a bunch of young school children in a back alley. The story is that of Vincent Pellicer:

“Spanish, about 50 years old, 5’4” in height, weighs 175 pounds, is dark, with black hair receding at the temples. He walks with a slight limp, as his left leg is shorter than his right. . . . His Capture is important because death and destruction and crime follow the trail of the dope peddler. A few months ago there was some controversy in the newspapers about the effects of marijuana, and misstatements were made that ought to be corrected. The authority of Narcotics Commissioner H. L. Anslinger is beyond question for the following facts about the effects of marijuana: The medical profession, says Commissioner Anslinger, has long since abandoned the use of Cannabis Sativa as being unpredictable and variable in its effects. Some persons are depressed after its use; others are stimulated. It turns wrong into right. It incites to violence. It distorts speech, vision, hearing. Under the influence of marijuana, a man loses all sense of space and time. Marijuana destroys the brain. Insanity often results from its continued use. Youths who experiment with the drug ought to remember this about it: Long ago, in the 11^th century, one Hassan Ben Sabbah gathered about him a gang of vicious punks to overthrow a rival chieftain. They prepared for all their murderous attacks by eating hashish, a variety of marijuana. They became known as hashshashin – eaters of hashish – and from this word ‘assassin’ was derived. It killed the eaters as effectively as they killed their victims.” (54)

Image #116: “CRACKING THE REEFER RACKET,” LEADING DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, May 1947, p. 22 http://reefermadnessmuseum.org/chap04/NewJersey/NJ_Vincent%20Pellicer.htm

Detective World published a similar article, also in 1947. The title of the piece – “Marihuana, The Evil Weed” – was accompanied by a photo of the author, a “Judge Carl F. Diffenbach, Jr. of Guttenberg, N.J.”, along with an illustration of a big snake and some Asian-looking fellow smoking a jazz cigarette. After the standard canard confusing the knock-out drug of the Order of Assassins recruitment ritual for a drug who’s effects were “cruelty and murder,” and after assuming it was cannabis rather than the much more probable culprit – henbane (or some other similarly powerful entheogenic botanical or combination of such herbs) (55) – that Circe used on Odysseus’ men in order to transform them into swine, the Judge went on to say this:

“It was hashish which caused the Moros and Malayans to ‘run amok’ and engage in violent and bloody deeds. Although an ancient drug, the menace of marihuana is comparatively new in the United States. A score and a half years ago the marihuana file of the United States Narcotics Bureau was practically empty; today the bureau’s reports crowd countless large cabinets. Commonly, marihuana is called ‘Mary Warners,’ ‘sticks,’ ‘the weed,’ ‘muggles,’ and ‘reefers’; but by any name at all its ultimate effect is the same. There is only one end for the confirmed marihuana user – and that is insanity.” (56)

Image #117: “POLICE NAB MARIHUANA,” El Paso Herald-Post, El Paso, Texas, June 11th, 1947, p. 1

Image #118: “Negro Marihuana Grower Is Jailed,” The Huntsville Times, Huntsville, Alabama, October 23rd, 1947, p. 2

Image #119: “This man was a victim of the ‘sex drug’,” The Daily Telegraph, Sidney, Australia, November 16th, 1947, p. 23

Image #120: “BALL EXPECTED TO LAY KILLING TO MARIJUANA,” The Times Herald, Port Huron, Michigan, February 19th, 1948, p. 1

Image #121: “$25,000 in Marijuana Seized During Delta Raid,” The Sacramento-Union, Sacramento, California, March 13th, 1948, p. 9

Image #122: “Influx of Mexican Workers Poses Problem for Michigan,” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, June 1st, 1948, p. 11

Image #123: “Influx of Mexican Workers Poses Problem for Michigan,” Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, June 1st, 1948, p. 11

1948 turned out to be the year of the biggest Hollywood reefer bust of all time: Robert Mitchum – along with his friends Robin Ford, Vicki Evans and Lila Leeds. Photos from the arrest were in nearly every newspaper in the country the following day – most on the front page. The photos depicted a handsome Mitchum juxtaposed with two blonde bombshell/starlet pot pals (neither of which were his wife) and a similarly handsome real estate agent chum. All this attention made pot smoking look hip and sexy to the American public. Overnight, pot users were no longer maniacs. Pot users were fun.

Image #124: “NARCOTICS ARREST SMASHES FILM CAREER, SAYS MITCHUM,” The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, September 2^nd, 1948, p. 1

An accurate description of the night of their arrest could be found in: Robert Mitchum – The Unauthorized Biography:

“Then on August 31, after Mitchum and Ford had spent part of the day looking at available canyon houses, they went to Oak Glen Drive and proceeded to consume a fifth of Scotch. At some point Ford decided to check his exchange and was told there was a message to call Lila. He did so and she invited him and Mitchum to come up and see the house she and her roommate had rented. At first Mitchum refused, saying he had a script he had to read. But after several more calls Mitchum and Ford arrived at Lila’s new Laurel Canyon abode, shortly after midnight. Fifteen minutes later Mitchum found himself handcuffed in a police car headed for the Los Angeles county jail. There, he and Ford were booked, mugged, fingerprinted and held for smoking marijuana. Talking freely, Mitchum told reporters, ‘Well, this is the bitter end of everything – my career, my home and my marriage.’” (57)

The newspaper coverage of the arrests – which quickly got nationwide attention – started out snarky:

“The screen leading man and Ford, also 31, were cast in the unglamourous roles of marijuana smokers by arresting officers. Det. Sgts. A. M. Barr and J. B. McKinnon of the Los Angeles narcotics detail said that both men were smoking reefers (marijuana-containing cigarettes) when the officers broke into the home. Mitchum surrendered a package containing 13 more of the cigarettes, Sgt. Barr said, and Miss Leeds, a blond film hopeful, gave up several.”

But in the first reporting of the story, they afforded Mitchum the rare opportunity of the last word, and he showed no fear and no shame, which may have helped him in the long run:

“(Barr said Mitchum dropped his cigarette on the floor and said ‘Might as well admit it. Sure, I’ve been using the stuff since I was a kid.’ the United Press reported.)” (58)

Image #125: “GIRLS HELD WITH MITCHUM IN HOLLYWOOD DOPE RAID,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 2^nd, 1948, p. 3

Image #126: “Movie Star Mitchum, Starlet in Dope Raid,” The News-Herald, Franklin, Pennsylvania, September 2^nd, 1948, p. 1

Image #127: “HELD ON NARCOTICS CHARGE,” Press-Telegram, Long Beach, California, September 1st, 1948, p. 1

Image #128: “STARLET CAUGHT IN RAID,” Press-Telegram, Long Beach, California, September 1st, 1948, p. 1

Image #129: “‘Reefer’ Habit Growing,” Elmira Star-Gazette, Elmira, New York, September 7th, 1948, p. 8

In a way, Robert Mitchum and his pot pals provided the public their first chance to respond to the Marijuana Tax Act – if only by voting for the actor with their movie ticket dollars. The first film of Mitchum’s to be released post-arrest was a movie called Rachel and the Stranger. Mitchum’s biographer captured the significance of Mitchum’s post-arrest success with the film:

“In the face of all the controversy RKO management apparently felt in had nothing to lose by releasing Rachel and the Stranger. And it didn’t. Box-office reports of the grosses amply demonstrated how out of touch with their readers newspaper editorial and feature writers were. Everywhere crowds lined up for Rachel and the Stranger. In Los Angeles sustained, lusty applause greeted Mitchum’s first appearance in the movie. In Minneapolis audiences applauded the film at the end of each showing. In New York, Denver, Providence, Chicago, Omaha, Cincinnati, Kansas City – from border to border and coast to coast – Rachel and the Stranger was a robust hit. It was even held over in conservative Boston.” (59)

Image #130: Ad for “Rachel and the Stranger,” The Calgary Albertan, Calgary, Alberta, October 15th, 1948, p. 7

Image #131: “Drug arrest did not hurt Mitchum’s films,” The Houston Chronicle, Houston, Texas, July 17th, 1984, p. 58

Rachel and the Stranger was RKO’s biggest picture that year. (60) The public’s reaction to the Mitchum pot arrest meant Hollywood stars that smoked pot no longer had to worry about an arrest automatically ending a career. The anti-pot propaganda failed to have the desired effect. The movie community – or perhaps a few actors and the majority of theater-goers within that community – now joined with the jazz community in open rebellion against the cannabiphobic scapegoating campaign.

Image #132: “Pair arrested in new L.A. dope raid,” Daily News, Los Angeles, California, October 19th, 1948, p. 3

Image #133: “Dope hearings slated for Dead End Kid,” Daily News, Los Angeles, California, October 29th, 1948, p. 3

Image #134: “Jail Dead End Kid On Reefer Count,” Des Moines Tribune, Des Moines, Iowa, October 29th, 1948, p. 1

Image #135: “Dead End Kid In Dope Case,” Times Herald, Port Huron, Michigan, October 30th, 1948, p. 3

Image #136: “Held in Dope Raid,” The San Francisco Call Bulletin, San Francisco, California, November 5th, 1948, p. 29

Image #137: “MARIHUANA RAID TRAPS WOMAN AND TWO MEN,” The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, November 5th, 1948, p. 5

Image #138: “Dope Raid Traps Rich Executive,” Los Angeles Mirror, Los Angeles, California, December 18th, 1948, p. 8

Image #139: “Dope Raid Traps Rich Executive,” Los Angeles Mirror, Los Angeles, California, December 18th, 1948, p. 8

While Mitchum’s tough-guy no-shame attitude in the face of persecution helped – rather than hurt – his career (even going so far as to result in a 8 page Tijuana Bible titled “GOOF BUTTS” in his honor), Lila Leeds wasn’t so lucky. Hollywood producers, eager to cash in on her new notoriety, got Leeds to star in a semi-autobiographical picture called She Shoulda Said No! (also known as Wild Weed; The Devil’s Weed; Marijuana, the Devil’s Weed; and The Story of Lila Leeds and Her Exposé of the Marijuana Racket). The film was unremarkable and filled with nonsense. The opening crawl text called cannabis “‘tea’ – – or ‘tomatoes’ – – the kind millions thru ignorance, have been induced to smoke.” and the closing crawl text had a similar message:

“Millions have lived this story, but, unlike Anne Lester, most of them ended up mental and physical wrecks. It is high time the public – – old and young alike – – know the whole Truth . . . the full Truth, about Marihuana (sometimes spelled marijuana). Ignorance is a sin. Knowledge is power! Only boys and girls who are fully informed can be expected to resist the Markeys of today – – and tomorrow. Best authorities estimate the world has over 200,000,000 ‘dope addicts’ today – – boys and girls, men and women – – who are victims of their own ignorance. Government narcotic experts reveal that over 75 percent of all new Marihuana smokers are ‘Teen-agers.’ Tomorrow’s list could include your youngster! No one seeing this film could be easily tempted to so-wreck their mind and body. But millions won’t see it. To enlighten them – – is your job. Cooperate fully with government authorities in stamping out ignorance. Make your nation a better place in which to live and raise a family.” (61)

Image #140: She SHOULDS SAID NO! movie poster, 1949 https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/She_Shoulda_Said_No!

Image #141: “She Shoulda Said ‘No’! released as The Devil’s Weed” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Shoulda_Said_No!

Image #142: “H.P. Roadshow Organization To Be Doubled – ‘Deil’s Weed’ To Be Distributed During 1950,” News Journal, Wilmington, Ohio, December 3rd, 1949, p. 6

Image #143: “H.P. Roadshow Organization To Be Doubled – ‘Deil’s Weed’ To Be Distributed During 1950,” News Journal, Wilmington, Ohio, December 3rd, 1949, p. 6

Image #144: Wild Weed (1949) Lila Leeds, Alan Baxter, Cult Cinema Classics                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY2mmoPWjPk

Image #145: Wild Weed (1949) Lila Leeds, Alan Baxter, Cult Cinema Classics                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY2mmoPWjPk

Image #146: The Times Recorder, Zanesville, Ohio, May 25th, 1950, p. 11

Image #147: “‘Devil’s Weed’ Is Put Under Ban,” The Expositor, Brantford, Ontario, June 9th, 1950, p. 16

Image #148: Ad for The Devil’s Weed, Martinsville Bulletin, Martinsville, Virginia, October 17th, 1950, p. 10

Image #149: Ad for The Devil’s Weed, Martinsville Bulletin, Martinsville, Virginia, October 18th, 1950, p. 10

Image #150: Ad for The Devil’s Weed, The Sun, Jonesboro, Arkansas, November 24th, 1950, p. 6

On April 18^th it was reported that Leeds got into a car accident – she and another young actress rammed the rear end of another car. (62) That, combined with another incident reported on June 7^th about another separate drunk driving charge, (63) and Leeds was forced to leave California for five years at the end of 1949, bringing about an end to her short acting career. (64) In hindsight, she actually “shoulda said no” to the anti-weed exploitation films and the alcoholic beverages.

Image #151: “Crash Hurts Lila Leeds,” The Oregon Daily Journal, Portland, Oregon, April 15th, 1949, p. 16

Image #152: “Lila Leeds Injured,” The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Washington, April 21st, 1949, p. 11

For the next few years, Mitchum and Leeds – and to a lesser extent Gene Krupa – would serve as the poster-children for pot prohibition. Any time a scare story needed a photo of a “typical pot junkie” – even to accompany a story that didn’t have anything to do with Mitchum, Leeds and Krupa (65) – they went with a photo of one or more of those three. But the plan, if there was one, backfired horribly. Mitchum and Leeds and Krupa were young and beautiful and talented . . . the messaging no longer fit the story, and the disconnect was apparent to anyone who was on the receiving end and who had tried smoking marijuana under pleasant circumstances.

Image #153: “Marijuana Smokers,” Sir, December, 1948                                                                         https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/sirdec483.htm

Image #154: “Marijuana Smokers,” Sir, December, 1948                                                                         https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/sirdec483.htm

Image #155: “REEFER PARTY – ACTUAL PHOTOS,” WHISPER THRU The KEYHOLE, Vol. 2, #2, January 1949 https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/whisper492.htm

Image #156: “MITCHUM FOUND GUILTY IN DOPE TRIAL,” Linton Daily Citizen, Linton, Indiana, January 11th, 1949, p. 1

Image #157: “JAIL DOOR OPENING FOR MITCHUM AND BLONDE ACTRESS,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 10th, 1949

Image #158: “Robert Mitchum gets busted for ‘reefers,’ making weed seem hip to middle America,” Paul Gallagher, 9 June 2015                                                                                                    https://dangerousminds.net/comments/robert_mitchum_gets_busted_for_reefers/

Image #159: “ONE OF FIVE,” The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey, February 17th, 1949, p. 2

Image #160: “IN TROUBLE,” The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey, February 17th, 1949, p. 2

Image #161: “MARIJUANA I SOLD HOLLYWOOD STARS,” DETECTIVE WORLD, FEBRUARY, 1949

Image #162: “2 Entertainers Nabbed Here by Dope Raiders,” The Oakland Post Enquirer, Oakland, California, March 7th, 1949, p. 1

Image #163: “FEW MORE DAYS – THEN OUT – Mitchum Returns From Outdoors to Serve Rest of Sentence in Jail,” L.A. Times, Los Angeles, California, March 25th, 1949, p. 17

Image #164: “Movie Star Sees Light in Jail,” Record Herald, Washington Court House, Ohio, March 31st, 1949, p. 11

Image #165: Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 19th, 1949, p. 2

While all of this was happening, the anti-pot propaganda people were also making inroads in the world of comic books. In 1948 the “demonize the hashish users” version of the Assassins story made its way into comic book form.

In the second issue of Killers (by Magazine Enterprises, who also published the golden age Ghost Rider, the Kerry Drake detective comics and various other pre-code non-superhero offerings) (66) hashish was used primarily as a hallucinogen and a drug of self-delusion.  The key passage – where and how cannabis was used by the assassins – was written thusly:

“But in the cold grey dawn of morning . . .”

“Not paradise! No flowers . . . no music . . . no dancing girls . . . only . . . this herb . . . that brings dreams and visions . . . hashish!”

“HASHISH – the drug which is to make Hassan Ibn Sabah the “Old Man Of The Mountains” Most feared ruler in all the world! Hashish! . . . It brings dreams, visions, illusions. In its spell, a man becomes a part of whatever will make him happy . . .” (67)

It’s written as if “becoming a part of whatever will make you happy” is a bad thing.

Image #166: Killers #2, 1948                                                                                                                        https://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2011/02/number-890-ghastly-killers-gather-round.html

Image #167: Killers #2, 1948                                                                                                                        https://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2011/02/number-890-ghastly-killers-gather-round.html

Three magazine articles written at the end of the forties which referenced the Mitchum bust stood out from the rest: “Marijuana Addicts,” Sir magazine, December, 1948, “Reefer Party-Actual Photos,” Whisper magazine, January 1949, and “Exploding the Myths About MARIJUANA,” Mechanix Illustrated magazine, April 1949.  The Sir and Whisper articles are pretty silly stuff written to accompany nudie pics, but the Mechanix Illustrated article – written in the first person by a user of the reefers – is worth quoting:

“It takes 20 minutes to finish the first stick. I start to feel it. A soft languor envelops me. I’m beginning to float. My troubles are left behind me as I rise from my easy chair beyond their clutch. I smoke a second reefer. Now I get a feeling of supreme strength. I can do anything. But, strangely, I’m content just to float above my chair. Now I feel good. My joy is delirious. I start giggling. I laugh loudly when a companion merely asks me for a match. It’s silly – but I can’t help it. The world is swirling with lights and fun. Now a third smoke … a fourth. This time my hands feel huge, my feet miles away. I’m afraid to step out of the chair. A small downward step is like a deep plunge into a dark abyss. That’s the danger point. I wish I could stop smoking, but I can’t. Suddenly, I feel I’m soaring around the room. I spot a small base and plunge into it. I swim around. Then I’m choking and frantically fight my way up for air. Finally I crawl out, gasping. A portrait on the wall comes to life, the girl in the picture stretches out her hands, grasps my throat. I scream . . . At this point a smoker who has a minor neurosis – and who hasn’t – can be shocked into insanity by a terrifying hallucination. So far, I’ve escaped, but I live in fear of weird, mind-shattering delusions.” (68)

Image #168: “Exploding the Myths About MARIJUANA,” MECHANIX ILLUSTRATED – APRIL 1949 https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/mechanix504.htm

In the same article, it was revealed that one of the things that led to being enslaved by this murderous habit was reading the LaGuardia Commission report:

:“Listen to what the powerful American Medical Association has to say about that report: ‘. . . The report draws sweepingly inadequate conclusions which minimize the harmfulness of marijuana. The A.M.A. cites a report by six noted physicians who made a similar study and found a direct link between crime and marijuana. These doctors point to the case of a 16-year-old boy who began smoking after he read the LaGuardia Commission report. In a short time the lad’s mind began failing him. Dr. Walter Bromberg, physician in charge of the psychiatric clinic in the New York City General Sessions Court, also helps explode that myth about marijuana having no effect on the mind: ‘Thirty-two cases of mental disease are traceable directly to marijuana.’ Every law-enforcement official in the country, including district attorneys and Federal narcotics agents, right down to local police officers, has insisted that there is a definite link to crime. They say reefer peddlers operate where school children gather. They make countless arrests each year, for crimes ranging from pickpocketing to murder, and the police record always states that the criminals were under the influence of marijuana. The Federal Narcotics Bureau warns: ‘There can be no compromise with those who are enslaving our youngsters to a habit which results in swift deterioration of mind and morals and that has been exacting daily toll in murders, thefts and excesses of all kinds.’” (69)

The youngsters were being enslaved, all right – but not to marijuana. They were being enslaved into a form of bio-pharmacological livestock by the state’s denial of human herbal autonomy. The powers that be could sometimes stifle the truth – as it did with the censorship of Really The Blues or the spin it put on the LaGuardia report – but it could not silence it completely.

Image #169: “Seek Evidence of Narcotics Ring In Bremerton,” Baraboo News Republic, Baraboo, Wisconsin, May 24th, 1949, p. 7

Image #170: “Negro Marijuana Dope Ring May Be Broken Up,” Holdrege Daily Citizen, Holdrege, Nebraska, June 3rd, 1949, p. 1

Image #171: “Woman Seized With Four Men in Dope Raid,” The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, July 29th, 1949, p. 2

Image #172: “Jail Woman, Four Youths in Dope Raid,” Daily News, Los Angeles, California, July 29th, 1949, p. 19

Image #173: “Officers Arrest Helpful Negro in Marijuana Case,” The Houston Chronicle, Houston, Texas, August 19th, 1949, p. 47

Image #174: “Negro Had Marihuana,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas, September 20th, 1949, p. 7

Image #175: “Jury Aquits Negro on Marijuana Charge,” The Tulsa Tribune, Tulsa, Oklahoma, October 13th, 1949, p. 24

Image #176: “$150,000 Dope Raid Smashes Ring Here,” The Oakland Post Enquirer, Oakland, California, November 4th, 1949, p. 1

Image #177: “$150,000 Dope Raid Smashes Ring Here,” The Oakland Post Enquirer, Oakland, California, November 4th, 1949, p. 1

Image #178: “Huron Ranch Hand Blames Marijuana, Liquor In Baby’s Brutal Sex Slaying,” The Fresno Bee, Fresno, California, November 22nd, 1949, p. 1

Image #179: “Mission District Marijuana Syndicate – Nab 11 In Area Dope Raids,” The San Francisco Call Bulletin, San Francisco, California, November 26th, 1949, p. 21

It is a shame that World War 2 didn’t leave the entire world immune from scapegoating. For a few years after the holocaust, scapegoating the religiously autonomous fell out of fashion – but scapegoating the herbally autonomous went on as usual. The connection between the two types of scapegoating wouldn’t be made in a systematic manner until the book Ceremonial Chemistry by Thomas Szasz was published in 1974 – nearly 30 years after the end of WW2.

One final pot story would find its way into the 1940s. Dr. Jean P. Davis of the University of Utah medical college got some press in May of 1949 when she created some synthetic versions of cannabinol – including Trimethadione – to treat epilepsy. (70) This, by the way, was 15 years before Raphael Mechoulam and Yechiel Gaoni isolated THC. (71) The one drawback to Trimethadione was that, in 1977, it was found to cause birth defects (72) just like another cannabis substitute (a sedative) did in 1961 – Thalidomide. (73) Trimethadione also causes suicidal thoughts and other undesirable side effects in some users, (74) just like the synthetic inverse agonist for the cannabinoid receptor CB1 – “Rimonabant” (75) – which is as good a reason as any to avoid synthetic cannabinoids altogether, as the only advantage they seem to provide over natural cannabis is to create somewhat exclusive production rights to the producer.

Image #180: “U. Researcher Reports – Marijuana Leaf Plays Epilepsy Cure Role,” Salt Lake Telegram, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20th, 1949, p. 21

It’s a shame that Henry Ford never realized the truth. There was a group of evil men conspiring to rule the world, enrich their fortunes and enslave humanity, manipulating the public through their control of the mass media. They looked down on other races and other classes with contempt, and made sure that people who didn’t share their physical traits and their money suffered most from their evil plans. But it wasn’t “the Jews”. It was the oil companies, the chemical companies and big pharma. It was the hemp-substitute industries.

Citations:

1. ASSASSIN OF YOUTH! MARIHUANA, Robert James Devine, 1943, Northland Publishing House, Saint Paul, Minnesota, p. 54
2. Marihuana, William Irish, 1941, Dell Publishing (first appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly), p. 26 [WOOLRICH, Cornell (Cornell George Hopley), 1903-1968] – IRISH, William, MARIHUANA. New York: Dell Publishing Co., [1951]. First separate edition. “‘A cheap and evil girl sets a hopped-up killer against a city’ – a celebrated tale from the master of noir, here writing under his William Irish pseudonym – with one of the most famous of all pulp fiction covers – Bill Fleming’s haunting image of a drug-crazed green face smoking a reefer over the body of a green-eyed brunette in a clinging magenta gown. Originally published in ‘Detective Fiction Weekly’ in 1941 and here issued as No. 11 in the short-lived series of Dell Dime novellas.” https://www.ashrare.com/dell_pulp.html
3. “WILL GROW OUR OWN FUEL SOME DAY, HENRY FORD SAYS,” Cedar County Republican and Stockton Journal, Stockton, Missouri, September 24, 1925, p.1
4. “WOOD DISTILLATION PLANT TO BE BUILT,” The Edgerton Earth, Edgerton, Ohio, October 10th, 1924, p. 8
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
6. Rowan Robinson, The Great Book of Hemp: The Complete Guide to the Environmental, Commercial, and Medicinal Uses of the World’s Most Extraordinary Plant, Inner Traditions, Bear & Co, 1996, p. 139. See also “Henry Ford even grew marijuana on his estate after 1937, possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain.” (my emphasis) Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 1992 edition, HEMP publishing, Van Nuys, California, p. 43
7. “Henry Ford Demonstrates Plastic Bodies for Cars – Mr. Ford Tells of Plans for Stronger Cars Popular Science, March, 1941 By Schuyler Van Duyne”  Reprinted on October 26, 2011 by Geoff Hacker              https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/henry-ford-demonstrates-plastic-bodies-for-cars-popular-science-march-1941/
8. “Ford Foresees Prosperity After War.” The Pasadena Post, Pasadena, California, May 23rd, 1943, p. 1
9. “Ford stressed the importance of agriculture also and said the farms, schools and industry were becoming more closely linked. ‘This goal,’ he added, ‘must be achieved.;” “Ford, 82, Predicts Great Prosperity,” July 30th,, 1945, p. 6
10. “Ford Empire Quirk – Soybean Car Dream Goes Awry – It’s Cream,” Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 8th, 1954, p. 17
11. “The Fuel War.” Omaha World-Herald, Omaha, Nebraska, August 22nd, 1979, p. 3; “The New Moonshiners,” Harrowsmith magazine, #35, Vol. 7, April/May 1981, pp. 25-33; The Great Book Of Hemp, Rowan Robinson, Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, 1996, p. 149-151; Alcohol Can Be A Gas! David Blume, International Institute For Ecological Agriculture, Santa Cruz, California, 2008, pp. 11-21
12. “Hemp – Lifeline to the Future”, Chris Conrad, Creative Xpressions Publications, Los Angeles, California, 1994, p. 99; “Fuel of the Future? The Economics, History and Politics of Hemp Fuels,” David Malmo-Levine, 2008 https://hemp-ethanol.blogspot.com/2008/
13. “Major oil companies or their associates had already quietly taken over ownership oof the major distilleries. These distilleries put up almost no significant fight when Rockefeller funded Prohibition initiatives – first in states and finally at the federal level – that threatened their existence. Scores of pre-Prohibition letters from brewery owners beseeched Ford to buy their plants – or, more commonly, begged in as dignified a way possible for the information the breweries desperately needed to make their beer, which was about to become illegal, into distilled fuel (essentially whiskey). But that distillation information was carefully guarded expertise that now resided largely in the oil industry, which had hired all the top distillery engineers to work it its refineries.” Alcohol Can Be A Gas! David Blume, International Institute For Ecological Agriculture, Santa Cruz, California, 2008, p.12 “In a celebrated letter to Nicholas Murray Butler in June 1932, subsequently printed on the front page of The New York Times, Rockefeller, a lifelong teetotaler, argued against the continuation of the Eighteenth Amendment on the principal grounds of an increase in disrespect for the law. This letter became an important event in pushing the nation to repeal Prohibition.[16]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller_Jr.                                                                                     “In 1937, the farm chemurgy movement finds backers for the Agrol ethanol fuel plant, created at Atchison, Kansas. For two years, ethanol blends were sold at around 2,000 service stations in the U.S. Midwest. Agrol plant managers complained of sabotage and bitter infighting by the oil industry, and the cheaper price of gasoline. Agrol sold for 17 cents per gallon, while leaded gasoline sold for 16 cents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_alcohol_fuel
14. The Schlichten Papers, Compiled by Don Wirtshafter, First Draft Edition, May 1994
15. “Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present – Chapter 6: 1930-1940 – Incurable Insanity,” David Malmo-Levine, September 15, 2025                          https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2025/09/15/reefer-madness-1895-to-the-present-chapter-6-1930-1940-incurable-insanity/
16. “W.C.T.U. Tells of Marihuana,” The Indiana Gazette, Sept. 30^th, 1941, p. 10
17. Cappell, H., Kuchar, E. & Webster, C.D. Some correlates of marihuana self-administration in man: A study of titration of intake as a function of drug potency. Psychopharmacologia 29, 177–184 (1973).    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00414031 That paper was skeptical that self-titration was occurring. It took another 50 years (82 years total) for academics to generally acknowledge that self-titration was actually occurring: Xiao KB, Grennell E, Ngoy A, George TP, Le Foll B, Hendershot CS, Sloan ME. Cannabis self-administration in the human laboratory: a scoping review of ad libitum studies. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2023 Jul;240(7):1393-1415.                                                                     https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10272254/
18. “WHAT MARIJUANA CAN DO TO YOU,” THE WOMAN: WITH WOMAN’S DIGEST, George Ford, 1942, Ferrell publishing, Chicago, pp. 20, 22
19. Continental Pictures, Inc., care of Turner Classic Movies database: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/555703/Devil-s-Harvest/
20. Devil’s Harvest, 1942 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQK3XlY8Nk4 @ 2:06, 13:13 – “LOCO WEED” at 15:32 https://archive.org/details/DevilsHarvestApril201942
21. “MARIHUANA,” ROGER ADAMS, Professor of Chemistry, University of Illinois Harvey Lecture, February 19, 1942, BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE NOVEMBER, 1942, pp. 722-723
22. Ibid, pp. 726-729
23. PSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS OF MARIHUANA INTOXICATION Samuel Allentuck, MD, and Karl Bowman, MD, American Journal of Psychiatry, September 1942, reprinted in The Marihuana Papers, David Solomon, editor, 1966, Bobbs-Merrill Company, New York, pp. 361-366
24. Hemp For Victory, 1942, @2:49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3rolyiTPr0                                   See also: “What about growing HEMP?” Nov. 1942, A. H. Wright, Extension Service of the Collage of Agriculture, The University of Wisconsin, Madison: http://www.truthabouthemp.org/images/GrowingHemp.pdf.                                                                    See also: Project Gutenberg’s USDA Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1935: Hemp, by B. B. Robinson                        https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59625/59625-h/59625-h.htm
25. Mathias Broeckers, Cannabis, 2002, The Hash Marijuana Hemp Museum, Amsterdam, pp. 48, 192
26. “FIFTY PLANTS PRECIOUS TO MAN,” The Book of Knowledge, The Children’s Encyclopedia, Volume 7 & 8, 1943, The Grolier Society, LTD, Toronto, p. 2997
27. “Plant Wizards Fight Wartime Drug Peril,” Popular Science, September, 1943, pp. 62-63
28. ASSASSIN OF YOUTH! MARIHUANA, Robert James Devine, 1943, Northland Publishing House, Saint Paul, Minnesota, p. 35
29. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-30/catholic-church-joins-national-redress-for-child-abuse-victims/9816742                   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases_by_country    https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17767744/catholic-child-clerical-sex-abuse-priest-pope-francis-crisis-explained                                                                             https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/whats-the-state-of-the-churchs-child-abuse-crisis/ https://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/un-issues-scathing-report-on-vatican-handling-of-sex-abuse/777/
30. “Krupa Marijuana Hearing Date Set,” Minneapolis Star, April 20^th, 1943, p. 10
31. “Krupa’s Ex-Valet Changes His Story,” Pittsburgh Press, February 4^th, 1944, p.12 http://www.drummerman.net/drugbust.html
32. “Conviction of Gene Krupa Reversed by Appeal Court,” Oakland Tribune, May 31^st, 1944, p.1
33. “Krupa Warns New Generation Against Drugs,” Denver Reporter, Nov. 22, 1969, p. 12
34. “The Weed,” Time Magazine, July 19^th, 1943, pp. 54, 56
35. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Guardia_Committee
36. https://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/lag/lagmenu.htm                                                  THE MARIHUANA PROBLEM IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK – Sociological, Medical, Psychological and Pharmacological Studies, 1944, quoted from The Marijuana Papers, Edited by David Solomon, The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc., New York, 1966, p. 357 https://rodneybarnett.net/PDF/Laguardia%20Report%201944.pdf
37. Ibid, p. 312
38. Ibid, p. 358
39. http://www.company-histories.com/Novartis-AG-Company-History.html                                                Law reports of trials of war criminals https://www.loc.gov/item/2011525464/ https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/ciba-geigy-ltd                                                                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer                                           https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben_Trial
40. Borkin, Joseph, The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben, The Free Press, division of Macmillan Publishing Co., New York & London, 1978, p. 71, https://archive.org/details/crimepunishmento0000bork                                                                              See also: Richard Sasuly, IG Farben, Boni & Gaer, New York, 1947, p. 66
41. https://archive.org/details/ig-farben-richard-sasuly/page/n3/mode/2up Josiah DuBois, The Devil’s Chemists—24 Conspirators of the International Farben Cartel Who Manufacture Wars, Beacon Press, Boston, 1952 http://arcticbeacon.com/books/The_Devils_Chemists_Josiah_DuBois%281952%29.pdf
42. “Hashish,” Ciba Symposia, Vol. 8, August-September, 1946, Number 5/6, p. 377 See also: An Essay on Hasheesh Historical and Experimental, Victor Robinson, E.H. Ringer Publisher, New York, 1925, 92 pp. https://www.samorini.it/doc1/alt_aut/lr/robinson.pdf
43. Ibid, p. 384
44. Ibid, pp. 386, 404
45. Kerry Drake, Book #5, 1987, p. 4
46. Ibid, p. 6
47. Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really The Blues, 1946, NY: Random House, 1946, 1st Ed, pp. 73-75
48. Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really The Blues, circa 1950 (publishing date of 1946), Dell Publishing Company INC., p. 77, 80
49. Peter Watts, Altered States: The Library of Julio Santo Domingo, Brooklyn, NY, Anthology Editions, 2017, p. 88 of the trade edition (p. 168 of the complementary edition)
50. https://www.etsy.com/listing/577980477/really-the-blues-mezz-mezzrow-and
51. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Grave_of_Mezzrow_(P%C3%A8re-Lachaise,_division_87)
52. Jeffrey J. Wilkinson, “The ‘Hay Burners’,” Sydney Morning Herald, November 2^nd, 1946, p. 6
53. David Dodge, IT AIN’T HAY, 1946, Dell, reprinted by arrangement with Simon and Shuster, NY NY, pp. 22-23
54. “CRACKING THE REEFER RACKET,” David Carver, Leading Detective Cases, May, 1947, pp. 22-23
55. The actual translation of Homer and Ovid’s stories of Circe only mentions “magical herbs.”            “Wine before Swine: Circe’s Anticholinergic Potion,” Anesthesiology, August 2014, Vol. 121, 259. https://pubs.asahq.org/anesthesiology/article/121/2/259/11959/Wine-before-Swine-Circe-s-Anticholinergic-Potion                                                                                                                                    “Witch’s garden,” Stan Czolowski, November 1, 1999 https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/1999/11/01/78/
56. “Marihuana – The Evil Weed,” Detective World, December 1947, published by Detective World Incorporated, NY NY, p. 5                                            https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/detectiveworld.htm
57. George Fells, Robert Mitchum: The Unauthorized Biography, 1985, Jove Books, New York, p.104
58. “Seize Mitchum In Dope Raid,” The News, Patterson, New Jersey, September 1^st, 1948, pp. 1, 16
59. Robert Mitchum: The Unauthorized Biography, p. 111 See also: “She Shoulda Said ‘NO’! is inspired by a real scandal and stars one of the persons involved in that incident. In September 1948, Robert Mitchum was busted for marijuana possession at the home of starlet-girlfriend Lila Leeds. They both received six-month jail sentences. Mitchum, already a major star with a ‘bad boy’ reputation, quickly went back to work, the scandal only cementing his persona as a tough guy, a jailbird, a rebel. The Blu-ray’s informative and sympathetic commentary by scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas relates pertinent anecdotes about Mitchum. She reports that studio execs were ‘gobsmacked’ when Mitchum’s image in the trailer for Rachel and the Stranger (1948, Norman Foster) was greeted by cheers from the audience after his arrest, causing them to move up the release. She also states that RKO boss Howard Hughes visited Mitchum in jail (bringing him vitamins!) and assured him he’d still be able to work.”                                                                                                                                           “ADDICTED TO DRUG DRAMAS: ‘SHE SHOULDA SAID NO!’ AND ‘THE DEVIL’S SLEEP:’ Films by Sam Newfield and W. Merle Connell in Kino Lorber’s Forbidden Fruit series show how exploitation films are blueprints for mainstream cinema.” Michael Barrett / 3 September 2020 https://www.popmatters.com/exploitation-films-newfield-connell-2647431658.html
60. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_and_the_Stranger
61. She Shoulda Said “No”! (1949) AKA Wild Weed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfDEjmspotU
62. “LILA LEEDS HURT IN AUTO CRASH,” The Bradford Era, April 18^th, 1949, p. 3
63. “Lila Leeds Jailed as Drunk; Calls Stagger a Ballet Step,” Daily News, New York, New York, June 8^th, 1949, p. 350
64. “Actress Ordered From California,” Calgary Herald, November 10^th, 1949, p. 5
65. “Marijuana Addicts,” Sir!, December 1948; “Reefer Party-Actual Photos,” Whisper magazine, January, 1949
66. “The Killers #2 (Universal, 1948) Drug use stories. Hanging cover by Ogden Whitney. Whitney and Graham Ingels art. Overstreet lists as ‘scarce.’ Overstreet 2008 VG 4.0 value = $186.” https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/crime/the-killers-2-universal-1948-condition-vg-/a/19022-12244.s.                                            
67. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_Enterprises#Crime     https://www.druglibrary.org/mags/AApicture/Comix/killers.htm http://reefermadnessmuseum.org/chap08/TheKillers.htm
68. “Exploding the Myths About MARIJUANA,” Mechanix Illustrated, April, 1949, pp. 59-61, 151-152
69. Ibid.
70. “Marijuana Leaf Plays Epilepsy Cure Role,” Salt Lake Telegram, Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20^th, 1949, p. 21 See also: http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap03/Epilepsy/Epilepsy-P1.htm http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap03/Epilepsy/Epilepsy-P2.htm http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap03/Epilepsy/Epilepsy-P3.htm http://weedfinder.com/dash/news/censored-1947-cannabis-study-on-epilepsy/ https://medium.com/@annie_78051/nearly-century-old-research-proves-cannabis-effectiveness-in-battling-epilepsy-migraines-asthma-3cf9f11324a9            https://www.southerncannabis.org/remember-when/marijuana-leaf-plays-epilepsy-cure-role/
71. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol#History
72. December 1977 The Fetal Trimethadione Syndrome Report of an Additional Family and Further Delineation of This Syndrome Gerald L. Feldman, MS; David D. Weaver, MD; Everett W. Lovrien, MD https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/507776
73. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide#History
74. https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a601127.html
75. “Rimonabant was submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval in the United States in 2005; in 2007, the FDA’s Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC) concluded that Sanofi-Aventis failed to demonstrate the safety of rimonabant and voted against recommending the anti-obesity treatment for approval[8] and two weeks later the company withdrew the application. The drug was approved in Brazil in April 2007. In October 2008, the European Medicines Agency recommended the suspension of Acomplia after the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) had determined that the risks of Acomplia outweighed its benefits due to the risk of serious psychiatric problems, including suicide.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant