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The following article from the TULSA DAILY WORLD (Oklahoma) Dec. 14, 1934, is a pretty good example of the part Newspapers played in the dis-information campaign against Medical Marihuana during the Reefer Madness Era. While NOT an actual Gore file case, still many such articles found their way into Harry Anslinger's file cabinets at the Bureau of Narcotics.
TULSA DAILY WORLD (Oklahoma) Dec. 14, 1934
TULSA DAILY WORLD (Oklahoma) Dec. 14, 1934 page 1
“Thrill-Seeking Tulsa Youths Blamed for Marihuana Evils”
Centuries-Old Narcotic Here Under New name, Traffic Encouraged by Boys, Says Police Sergeant
A new Narcotic Evil, far more sinister than its more commonly known predecessors because the younger generation has come under its influence, has fastened itself upon Tulsa with a hold so far unbroken.
It is marihuana. It is the weed that makes possible the world’s cheapest jag. It is the dope that lulls its patron into a sense of false security. It is the stimulant that builds a super-superiority complex and excites sex instinct. It is the stuff upon which hijackers whet their nerves for robbery and murder. It is the drug that feeds on brain cells and ultimately transforms human beings into raving maniacs.
That is marihuana, the narcotic curse that has spanned oceans, continents and centuries to get a grip on Tulsa resulting in illicit traffic that has steadily increased here over the past four years to confound not only police, but also school officials.
This traffic in marihuana (it is pronounced ma-ri-wa-na) is probably causing less concern to police and school officials at this particular moment than it has for years. Events of the past two weeks---whether marihuana is involved with disclosures in the Kennamer case or not---have made the weed difficult for the novice to obtain and peddlers who made from six to 10 dollars a day have lost the aggressiveness with which they formerly plied their trade.
World Man Buys Weed.
But the Tulsa World sent an investigator out to look for marihuana and he bought enough for scores of cigarets without a great deal of difficulty. True enough, the sources he found were suspicious and more refused to sell than sold, but the point is that without being previously identified, he bought marihuana on the open market.
This is no reflection on the sole enforcement agency now empowered to deal with the marihuana evil---the police narcotic squad headed by Sergt. F. M. McMillen, who is widely recognized as an aggressive authority on marihuana. McMillen and his superior officers have long recognized their need of a larger force for the exclusive purpose of combating a new and steadily growing menace.
The thing grows so fast that the narcotic squad is unable to cope with it. But even go a year ago, six weeks ago, market conditions on marihuana were different here. (Continued on Page 7; Column 1)
MARIHUANA HABIT EVENTUALLY MAKES ADDICT A MANIAC
3 STATES IN 48 REGULATE WEED
Southwestern Officials Most Concerned With Dope Traffic
(Continued from Page One) Peddlers mostly Mexicans, some Negroes were so busy the narcotic division was swamped on marihuana work alone. The peddlers would camp near schools and prey upon young boys. Special attention was given to the high school angle, a principal of one of the lower schools discovered some of his students had or were using marihuana and the police even made an investigation at Tulsa university.
Southwest’s Biggest Problem.
Now city police, federal authorities, school officials and scientific sources agree that those four, melodious syllables of the word marihuana constitute the most serious moral problem with which southwestern society has to contend. By comparison beer parlors, slot machines and marble machines are secondary vices. From Kansas City to the Mexican border repute and statistics label the southwest as a section which is the heaviest consumer of narcotics, especially marihuana. There are several reasons.
There is no regulatory federal statute and as a result peddlers are more bold with marihuana. Compared with other narcotics the weed is much less expensive. Not being bulky it is easy to conceal and easy to handle. And by no means least sinister of marihuana’s characteristics is the fact that it is a two-headed monster. Its most common use is in the form of crude, hand-made cigarets. But its most potent, most destructive effects result from use of marihuana tea.
The Set-up in Tulsa.
The story of marihuana in Tulsa automatically falls into several subdivisions in answer to a series of questions. What is marihuana? Where does it come from? What are the market conditions here? How has it gotten into the hands of school children? What have school, police and federal authorities done to check the traffic?
Here are the answers:
Marihuana is the Mexican name for cannabis indica, the traditional opiate of India, the hashish of the masses. For centuries, in the form of tea, it was the generating force behind ceremonial Indian debauchery. For centuries it was not known outside of India. Then it became a problem there, and the government imposed upon its growth and cultivation a heavy tax.
As a result its cultivation was begun in Africa, Turkey and Turkestan and today it is grown, in addition to those countries named. In Asia Minor, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Mexico and the United States and is known and used in nearly every civilized nation for the weed has definite medicinal values. In England it is known as Indian hemp, the Germans call it indischer, hanf, it is chanvre del-inde to Frenchmen and in Spain it is canamo.
Grows Best in Warm Climate.
The weed is a rough, annual plant, attains heights of from four to 16 feet and will grow almost any place. That grown in southern parts of the United States or other warm climates, however, is much more potent than that produced in temperate climes. The southern variety according to a quotation from “Pharmacology and Therapeutics,” by Arthur c. Cushing, furnished by Dr. Ned R. Smith, “induces marked derangement of the central nervous system.”
But that according to an authority who has observed under practical conditions derangements in the human system brought about by marihuana is a conservative statement. Dr. Fred E. Woodson, federal jail physician, has made an extensive study of marihuana and has discussed it from a physiological viewpoint with many addicts.
One of the characteristics of a marihuana addict is dilation instead of contraction of the eye pupil. The weed increases nervous reflexes and sets up a high nervous tension by which it maintains sex passion. In various stages the user feels depressed, doubtful, secure or infinite superior. Many-crimes of both robbery and murder are committed under the influence of marihuana according to Sergeant McMillen of the narcotic division. And there is no doubt, according to Doctor Woodson, that the marihuana patron who follows the habit to its conclusive depths becomes a raving maniac.
Price has Gone Up.
Sergeant McMillen says that until recently the prevailing price on marihuana cigarets was three for 25 cents and it has been his observation that three cigarets are equivalent---in intoxicating effect---to one quart of whisky.
The World man commissioned to find and buy marihuana paid 20 cents for one cigaret which, incidentally, proved the medium of a cruel joke on the purchaser. To allay suspicion he was forced to smoke a part of it on the spot.
At one place he was offered three cigarets for 50 cents. It was admitted the price had jumped beyond ordinary reason, but it was explained that he was not known in this particular source and that just recently trafficking in the stuff had become increasingly dangerous.
Orchestra Bought Stock.
Suspected sources often refused to admit they had the weed available and sent The World man from one place to another and in his rounds he ended up on one occasion at the source he started from. But he established that for $4.50 to $5.-if he had that much money---he could buy a tobacco can full, enough for probably 60 cigarets. And for $2 he bought enough marihuana “tea” to make, it is estimated several gallons of liquid. He reached one source just too late---an orchestra had bought the dealer’s entire stock.
Some of the weed sold in Tulsa is grown within city limits, according to Sergeant McMillen, who has discovered and confiscated a number of crops. But the “better” grade is imported from Mexico. Detection of domestic “patches” is somewhat difficult because the weed looks just like a weed and because its odor, although distinctive, is faint.
In the course of his work on marihuana. Sergeant McMillen has made investigations at Central high school, Tulsa university and other schools. But he has never found evidence of an organization for the sale of marihuana within a Tulsa school. His efforts have been directed at peddlers who habitually posted themselves near schools, making their sales before or after classes.
Principal Eli Foster of Central high school cannot be sure that marihuana is or is not used by any of the students there. But he is positive the weed is not brought into the school building in any quantity and he is likewise positive it is not used on the premises.
“We have a registration of approximately 4,300,” said Foster, “and allowing for absences our daily attendance is about 4,000. Among 4,000 high school students the entire scale of human character is certain to be expressed, so I cannot say marihuana is not used by any high school student.
“However, we are aware that it has been used in the past by some students and we have taken every step within our power to stop the traffic. Students are supposed to be under control of the faculty only while in school, but we have gone beyond that.
“On one occasion, for weeks at a stretch, we had plain clothesmen posted inside the building at points of vantage where they could observe points outside where we suspected peddlers were operating. In this we had the co-operation of Sergeant McMillen.
Sluths Watch Staff.
“On another occasion we brought in three investigators who spent three weeks inside the building between the hours when school was dismissed and the hour the building closed. At the end of those three weeks those three investigators had nothing in the way of suspicion that could be pinned on any of the 150 adult employees of the school.”
“Further than that,” Foster related, “we have a staff of three people who spend the day, between classes, searching any suspected lockers and poking into odd corners here and there in the building. The duty of this trio is to detect anything out of the ordinary that takes place.
These three people and others of the faculty and staff know what marihuana is and are capable of detecting its odor. We had a meeting for the purpose and burned a marihuana cigaret, obtained from Sergeant McMillen, so that the proper people would be equipped for the job. “No,” said Foster, “marihuana could not be used in this building without being detected. Furthermore, we have a large number of students who would be of valuable voluntary assistance if anything like that was going on.”
Ridiculous Rumors.
In concussion Foster openly recognized that stories of wild conduct, not only by high school students, but within the building, are circulating in Tulsa.
“I have run down any number of these stories,” said the principal, “and they are all just about as ridiculous as the one that was circulated to the effect that anyone who wanted it could buy liquor on the third floor of the high school building. And I want to say, he added with some heat, “that although I have heard any number of such stories I have yet to find anyone who can offer one iota of proof of any of the fanciful rumors that have been circulated.”
Dean R. I. Langenheim, acting president of the University of Tulsa, recalled that Sergeant McMillen’s investigation there was made last spring. The sergeant suspected outside sources of selling marihuana to certain university students, Dean Langenheim said, and this was confirmed by McMillen, who explained that when arrests of peddlers were made near the high school, those suspected at the university closed up shop and vanished. Since that time Dean Langenheim has found no necessity for precautionary steps, he said.
Principal B.C. Manley of Horace Mann junior high school, questioned as to the import of a recent bulletin urging parents to more closely supervise the leisure time of children, admitted that the marihuana evil had, on one occasion in the past, reared its head at his school. On that occasion, however, suspicion was fastened upon two-older boys, “who are not now pupils here,” Mantey added.
No Problem, Says French.
Doctor Will French, superintendent of schools, affirms there is no widespread marihuana problem facing the public schools of Tulsa. He indicated an opinion that cases where students have been suspected are isolated. Meanwhile, ability to check the marihuana evil in Tulsa rests almost exclusively with Sergeant McMillen’s police narcotic squad, for although there is a state law aimed at the traffic and providing stringent penalties, no state enforcement group is on duty.
According to Sergent McMillen, three states out of 48---Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas---have laws inspired by marihuana traffic. This he believes, is principally due to the fact that the traffic has worked its way up into the southwest out of Mexico and has not become such a problem elsewhere.
But the most lamentable fact, authorities point out is the lack of an adequate United States statute on marihuana. For while federal officers are veritable trail hounds in relation to other and more established narcotic vices they are practically powerless to act on a marihuana case unless the circumstances dovetail into some other criminal suspect covered by United States laws.
Flaw May Be Remedied.
That flaw in the law enforcement machinery may be remedied, however, in the immediate future. The necessity of a United States statute on marihuana is one of the important pieces of business scheduled for the crime conference now being held in Washington by Atty. Gen. Homer S. Cummings. United States marshal John Logan is there with an abundance of information and will join other interested officials in asking that congress enact the necessary law. Until that is done Marshal Logan and H.E. Whitely, United States narcotic agent stationed here, can do little to break up the marihuana traffic.
Why is there no federal statute? Well, marihuana is a comparatively new evil. Ten years ago it was almost unheard of this side of Mexico. Then came the depression and compared with other dope, marihuana was cheap. For many addicts it took the place temporarily at least, of other forms of “hop” and as a consequence its popularity grew.
Marihuana really became a problem however, when peddlers began to find a new market among young men. That is Sergeant McMillen’s theory. He says this development began to make his job more complicated four years ago. Young men and boys looking for a new expression for modern youth hysteria---a new thrill---that says the sergeant, is the big problem.
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