MEDICAL CANNABIS
A SHORT GRAPHICAL HISTORY
REEFER MADNESS


Harry Anslinger Lies Again
The Evil Mug-Wort Affair


THE FOLLOWING BITS AND PIECES TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM ONE OF OUR MUSEUM NEWSLETTERS:

Harry Anslinger Lies Again:
The Evil Mug-Wort Affair:

If your not a Buffy the Vampire fan, you may not get all of this, but, it looks like we caught Harry Anslinger (Americas first drug czar and originator of the anti-Medical Marihuana laws) lying yet again.   In his own words:
"There isn't any question about marijuana being a sexual stimulant. . . . . A classical example of amatory activities is contained in the article "Hashish Poisoning in England," from the London Police Journal of July 1934. In this remarkable case, a young man and his girlfriend planted seeds in their back yard and when the stalks matured, they crushed the flowering tops and smoked one cigarette and then engaged in such erotic activities that the neighbors called the police and they were taken to jail." ---Harry Anslinger Playboy Magazine Feb 1970 pg 72
It should also be noted that he had the article from the London Police Journal mimeographed (photo-copy machines did not exist than), and distributed as “proof” of how evil Medical Marihuana was. [--- A copy of which can still be found at the Harry Truman Presidential Library.]   In other words, it was an integrated part of his now infamous Gore File, which included (amoung others) axe murders, scantly clad co-eds jumping out of windows, child molesters etc, --- ALL acting under the influence of evil Medical Marihuana.

LondonPolice
London Police Journal - as per the Harry Truman Presidetial Library


Although touted as yet more proof of the evils of Medical Cannabis, the actual facts are quite different --- In fact one can say that the truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

  • I myself believe that it was the Lancet itself that began the whole thing by running the following:

      LANCET-London: (Annotations), Marijuana Cigarettes, Jan 5, 1935 pp 38.
      A NEW form of narcotic menace has lately been causing concern in the United States and in Canada. As is well known, the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa), . . . . as an intoxicating drink or smoked like tobacco, and its tendency to cause its addicts to "run amok" has added the word assassin to the vocabulary. C. sativa has now appeared in the new world in the form of marijuana cigarettes. According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal for last Nov. . . . in Detroit, in New York, and in Montreal and Ottawa these cigarettes, heavily charged with Indian hemp, are on sale in cabarets and night clubs and are even being hawked about to young boys and girls and are peddled in dance halls. . . .
    Be this article fact or fiction it seems to have started a mini-reefer madness campaign [UK style].

  • [Sept 1933] - An unemployed worker [no money for tobacco] noticed some plants growing in the garden of his rooming house.   Checking them over in an herbal book he tries to smoke one. YUCK!

  • According to the [USA] narc’s, he gives his girlfriend some of these funny little cigarettes.   She starts acting funny --- Sexually active --- Hmmmm! . . . . For whatever reason she’s taken to see a doctor.

  • Somehow, probably due to the Lancets article (above), the following was written for and published in the Lancet:
      LANCET London: “A Case of Cannabis Indica Intoxication”
      April 6, 1935 pp 811 By E. T. Baker-Bates, M.D. Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool;
      . . . A young man, having read about Indian hemp in the "Chemistry of Common Life," by T. F. W. Johnston which describes it as " an increaser of pleasure, the exciter of desire, the cementer of friendship, the laughter-mover, and the causer of the reeling gait," separated the hemp seeds from the parrot food and planted them in his garden during June. In September, when the plants were about four or five feet high and flowering, he plucked the leaves and tops, dried and chopped them and made them into cigarettes; these he smoked on several occasions and experienced mild symptoms of cannabis intoxication e.g., loss of sense of time and space, vivid dreams or hallucinations and subsequent drowsiness.

      Incredulous about his experiences, his fiancée, aged 22, smoked---and to some extent inhaled---about two-thirds of a cigarette, made from the top of a fruiting plant. This was at about 10.10 P.A. Soon afterwards she fell asleep and a few minutes later, on being disturbed, she awoke with a start and exhibited apprehension. The eyes were bright, the hands were twitching, and she appeared intoxicated; she asked where she was probably deceived by hallucinations---but seemed happy. At about 10.25 P.m. she was taken for a short walk, which was interrupted by outbursts of laughter and of affection; . . .

      She was transferred by police ambulance to the casualty department of the Liverpool Stanley Hospital where she arrived at 11 P.M. in a collapsed condition. Her symptoms at that time were loss of power in the legs and inability to stand; dizziness, dryness of the mouth, and palpitation; and lengthened estimation of the passage of time. She believed her condition had lasted many hours and, although fully conscious of her existence, she imagined she was " outside her own body " (a hallucination of dual personality), enclosed in a small space, and surrounded by a mist from which she could not escape . . . .

      . . . Pharmacologists recognize great variation in the activity of cannabis indica . . . . a distance. There may be sexual excitement, but this is dependent on the psychology of the individual. . . . Frequent indulgence in cannabis, which is as prevalent as the hashish habit in the East and latterly in Mexico and South America, results in loss of judgment and restraint and is accountable not only for cases where natives "run amok," but also for various types of insanity. . . [more]
  • Apparently based on the this story, the Liverpool Echo [exact date unknown], then wrote a sensational story about the incident -- Something about "Girls Throughout ALL of England Must be Protected from the Weed of Madness.   Evil Medical Marihuana MUST be stopped etc. . .

  • Medical bulleting boards in the area start talking about the incident.   Ha, Ha, Ho Ho etc.

  • The story show-balls, the "London Police Journal" [July/Sept 1934] carries an article based on the story.   Calls escalate to STOP this great evil;  How can we save ALL British Girlhood from this evil weed?   Soon there will be all Hell to pay.

  • Anslinger and his gang of thugs (Americans Drug Police) get a whole of the story and run wild with it.   Proof that Medical Cannabis must be outlawed.

  • June 1, 1935 -- For the narc’s total Horror brakes out.   The following article is published in the Lancet:
      A CASE OF CANNABIS INDICA INTOXICATION
      June 1, 1935 pp 1301
      To the Editor of THE LANCET

      SIR,----In the issue of THE LANCET dated April 6th, page 811, a clinical note under this title appeared, written by Dr. E. T. Baker-Bates, assistant honorary physician to the Royal Southern Hospital, Liverpool. The circumstances of the case made a popular appeal. In particular an article appeared in the Liverpool Echo with sensational cross-headings based upon the story as told in the columns of THE LANCET.

      This patient was seen by me on Sept. 28th, 1933. She was admitted to the Stanley Hospital, Liverpool, at my request, and detained there for not more than 24 hours, where Dr. Baker-Bates was then on the staff. The original investigation of the case was conducted by me, and at first the police in Liverpool held the view that the plant, the smoking of whose leaves had caused the intoxication, was
      NOT CANNABIS INDICA BUT MUGWORT, and I was subjected to some " leg-pulling " by the police until an examination by Prof. Walter Dilling proved my diagnosis correct. . . .

      After the publication of the account of the case by Dr. Baker-Bates in THE LANCET of April 6th, 1935 and the long comment on it in the Liverpool Echo: I received tile following letter from the chief constable of the Liverpool City Police, Mr. A.K. Wilson: " I read the other evening in the Liverpool Echo, and subsequently in THE LANCET, an article purporting to emanate from Dr. E. T. Baker-Bates respecting a case of cannabis indica poisoning in Liverpool. As the only case the police of this city have on record is that of Miss -----, of -----, Liverpool, which occurred on Sept. 28th, 1933, and which you investigated, I should like to know if the reports in the Liverpool Echo and THE LANCET refer to your case, or whether another case has arisen which has not been brought to the notice of tile police. I observe so striking a similarity between the article in THE LANCET and the article written in the Police Journal of July September, 1934, by my assistant, Mr. H. Winstanley, that I am forced to the conclusion that the same case is referred to. I did not know that Dr. Baker-Bates took any part in your investigation, but perhaps you will let me know in your reply if he did so. With regard to the Liverpool Echo report, I think you will agree with me that it is definitely not in the public interest that a case of this nature should be reported in the popular press."

      The chief constable enclosed a copy of the article which appeared in the Police Journal, July-September, 1934, and the similarity of the facts as stated in that article with those given in the article in THE LANCET is striking. . . .

      I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
      Wallasey, May 18th. - W. A. J. FLEMING.

    Which is another way of saying that the whole thing never had anything to do with Medical Cannabis in the first place.   Oh Evil MUGWORT.


    Skull
    EVIL MUGWORT
    It Does Look a Little Like Cannabis


    REEFER MADNESS NOTES: ---- If anyone is still foolish enough to believe that Anslinger and his narc’s were “Simply doing their job.”   That they were sincere in their beliefs; simply acting with the best knowledge available to them at the time, etc., or that NO anti-hemp conspiracy of any kind was taking place.   To those I ask --- How would it have been possible for Anslinger and his thugs NOT to have known the truth.   And wouldn’t it have required a small mini-conspiracy just to have silenced the truth?




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