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Article Summary

Marijuana Becomes
a Problem

• The Literary Digest, 1938 •

"It Is estimated the Narcotic Bureau of the New York Police Department in 1936 alone destroyed almost 40,000 pounds of marijuana plants, found growing within the city limits. Because of its rapidly increasing use, Marijuana demands a price as high as $60 a pound."

"While city officials have destroyed hundreds of thousands of plants, those parasitic criminals who traffic in the drug, plant the seeds in open lots where it grows without the need of cultivation. Then under cover of darkness, the weed is harvested, dried and Its leaves made into cigarettes. These cigarettes are sometimes called reefers and are also known as "goof Butts," muggles," "Tea," or "gage." They are bootlegged at prices ranging from five to fifty cents."

"The drug is considered to be more dangerous than either cocaine or opium neither of which will grow in this country and must be smuggled in."

"While medical men and scientists have disagreed upon the properties of marijuana and some have been Inclined to minimize the harmfulness of this drug, records offer ample evidence that it has a disastrous effect upon many of Its users."

"Marijuana is the same as Indian hemp, hashish, cannabis, cannabis Americana, or cannabis sativa. Marijuana is the Mexican term. As far back as 1090 A.D. many acts of cruelty of the Sect, known as The Assassins, were reprinted in both Asia and Europe. The plant was known to the Greeks as "Nepenthe". Its use in Egypt has been common since ancient times and has continued down to the present. The natives of the Malay Peninsula while under its effect have been known to engage in violent and bloody deeds with complete disregard their personal safety. To run "amuck" Is synonymous with saying that one is under the influence of this drug."

"Smoking of the drug produces such a condition of drugged stupor that the user often commits horrible crimes, not only on strangers but on members of his own family. Habitual users of the drug become completely unaccountable for their actions and often are maniacal in their deeds."

"Prolonged use of the drug produces a complete mental deterioration. In a bulletin issued by the Federal Government it s reported that a man under the influence of marijuana attempted to shoot his wife but killed her grandmother instead and then committed suicide."

"Judge Hartshorne, the Chairman of our Commission, who is one of the Judges sitting here in Newark, recently tried a murder case, in which the defendant's intellect was so prostrate from smoking marihuana cigarettes that he committed an unspeakable brutal murder. The particular brutality of the murder was accounted for by a fact that the defendant had been smoking reefers."

Click here to read a 1930s magazine article about Mexican Dope smuggling.

Click here to read about the U.S. Border Patrol in 1940.

Click here to read about the 1944 U.S. Army study concerning weed...

     




Weed Surfer
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