The Reader's Digest February 1938
Marijuana --- Assassin of Youth (Condensed from The American
magazine)
H.F.Anslinger U.S. commissioner of Narcotics with Courtney Ryley
cooper
Not long ago the body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk
after a
plunge from a Chicago apartment window. Everyone called it suicide,
but
actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic known to America
as
marijuana, and to history as hashish. Used in the form of cigarettes,
it is
comparatively new to the United States and as a coiled rattlesnake.
How many murders, suicides, robberies and maniacal deeds it
causes each year,
especially among the young, can only be conjectured. In numerous
communities
it thrives almost unmolested, largely because of official ignorance
of its
effects.
Marijuana is the unknown quantity among narcotics. No one knows,
when he
smokes it, whether he will become a philosopher, a joyous reveler,
a mad
insensate, or a murderer.
The young girlís story is typical. She had heard the
whisper which has gone
the rounds of American youth about a new thrill, a cigarette with
a ìreal
kickî which gave wonderful reactions and no harmful aftereffects.
With some
friends she experimented at an evening smoking party.
The results were weird. Some of the party went into paroxysms
of laughter;
others of mediocre musical ability became almost expert; the piano
dinned
constantly. Still others found themselves discussing weighty problems
with
remarkable clarity. The girl danced without fatigue throughout
a night of
inexplicable exhilaration.
Other parties followed. Finally there came a gathering at a
time when the
girl was behind in her studies and greatly worried. Suddenly,
as she was
smoking, she thought of a solution to her school problems. Without
hesitancy
she walked to a window and leaped to her death. Thus madly can
marijuana
solve one's difficulties. It gives few warnings of what it intends
to do to
the human brain.
Last year a young marijuana addict was hanged in Baltimore
for criminal
assault on a ten-year old girl. In Chicago, two marijuana-smoking
boys
murdered a policeman. In Florida, police found a youth ñ
staggering about in
a human slaughterhouse. With an ax he had killed his father, mother,
two
brothers, and a sister. He had no recollection of having committed
this
multiple crime. Ordinarily a sane, rather quiet young man, he
had become
crazed from smoking marijuana. In at least two dozen comparatively
recent
cases of murder or degenerate sex attacks, marijuana proved to
be a
contributing cause.
In Ohio a gang of seven addicts, all less than 20, were caught
after a series
of 38 holdups. The boysí story was typical of conditions
in many cities. One
of them said they had first learned about ìreefersî
in high school, buying the
cigarettes at hamburger stands, and from peddlers who hung around
the school.
He told of ìbooth jointsî where you could get a cigarette
and a sandwich for a
quarter, and of the shabby apartments of women who provided the
cigarettes and
rooms where boys and girls might smoke them.
His recollection of the crimes he had committed was hazy. When
you get to
floating, it's hard to keep track of things. If I had killed somebody
on
one of those jobs, I'd never have known it. Sometimes it was over
before I
realized that I'd even been out of my room.
It is the useless destruction of youth which is so heartbreaking
to all of us
who labor in the field of narcotic suppression. The drug acts
as an almost
overpowering stimulant upon the immature brain. There are numerous
cases on
record like that of an Atlanta boy who robbed his father's safe
of thousands
of dollars in jewelry and cash. Of high school age, this boy apparently
had
been headed for an honest career. Gradually, however, his father
noticed in
him spells of shakiness, succeeded by periods when the boy would
assume a
grandiose manner and engage in excessive laughter and extravagant
conversation. When these actions finally were climaxed by robbery
the father
went at his son's problem in earnest and found the cause of it
in a
marijuana peddler who catered to school children.
In Los Angeles a boy of 17 killed a policeman who had been
his great friend.
A girl of 15 ran away from home and was picked up with five young
men in a
marijuana den in Detroit. A Chicago mother, watching her daughter
die as an
indirect result of marijuana addiction, told officers that at
least 50 of the
girlís friends were slaves of the narcotic. The same sort
of report comes in
from cities all over the country. In New Orleans, of 437 persons
of varying
ages arrested for a wide range of crimes, 125 were addicts. Of
37 murderers,
17 used marijuana.
The weed was known to the ancient Greeks. Homer wrote that
it made men forget
their homes and turned them into swine. In Persia in 1090 was
founded the
military and religious order of the Assassins, whose history is
one of cruelty
and murder. Its members are confirmed users of hashish, taking
their name
from the Arabic basbsbasbin. It is hashish which causes Moros
and Malays to
run amok and engage in violent and bloody deeds.
Although an ancient drug, the menace of marijuana is comparatively
new to the
United States. It came in from Mexico, and swept across the country
with
incredible speed. In 1931, the marijuana file of the United states
narcotic
Bureau was less than two inches thick. The trafficís most
rapid growth came
in 1935 and 1936, and today our reports crowd many large cabinets.
They
indicate that high school students particularly are the prey of
the reefer
peddlers.
Among those who first spread its use were musicians. They brought
the habit
northward with the surge of ìhotî music demanding
players of exceptional
ability, especially in improvisation. Along the Mexican border
and in
southern seaport cities it had long been known that the drug has
a strangely
exhilarating effect upon the musical sensibilities. The musician
who uses it
finds that the musical beat seemingly comes to him quite slowly,
thus allowing
him to interpolate improvised notes with comparative ease. He
does not
realize that he is tapping the keys with a furious speed impossible
for one in
a normal state.
Soon a song was written about the drug. Perhaps you remember:
Have you seen
That funny reefer man?
He says he swam to China;
Any time he takes a notion.
He can walk across the ocean.
It sounded funny. Dancing girls and boys pondered about reefers
and learned
that these cigarettes could make one accomplish the impossible.
Sadly enough,
they can ñ in the imagination. The girl who decided suddenly
to elope with a
boy she did not even know a few hours before, does so with the
confident
belief that this is a thoroughly logical action without the slightest
possibility of disastrous consequences. Command a person high
on mu or
muggles to crawl on the floor and bark like a dog, and he will
do it without
a thought of the idiocy of the action. Everything, no matter how
insane,
becomes plausible.
Reports from various sections indicate that the sale of marijuana
has not yet
passed into the hands of gangster syndicates. The supply is so
vast that
gangsters have found it difficult to dominate the source. It is
to be hoped
that the menace can be wiped out before they are able to do so.
A big hardy weed, of the Indian hemp family, with serrated
sword like leaves
topped by bunchy small blooms, it grows wild in the West, and
is cultivated in
practically every state, in fields, gardens, vacant lots. In New
York State
alone, 200 tons of the growing weed were destroyed in 1936. A
raid near La
Fitte, Louisiana, resulted in the destruction of 500,000 plants.
Similar
raids have been conducted in Texas, New Jersey, Mississippi, Michigan
and
elsewhere.
Every state except one has laws to cope with the traffic, but
unfortunately
there is no federal law dealing with it. Hence there is need for
unceasing
watchfulness by every local police department and by every civic
organization.
There should be campaigns of education in every school, so that
children will
not be deceived by the wiles of peddlers, but will know of the
insanity, the
disgrace, the horror which marijuana can bring to its victim.
There must be
constant enforcement and constant education against this enemy,
which has a
record of murder and terror running through the centuries.
Copywrite 1937, The Crowell Pub. Co., 250 Park Ave., N.Y.C. (The American
Magazine, July, 37)