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I was looking for info on
prohibition and came up with this- it may surprise you! (It sure did me, I
thought people started to use marijuana in the states in the 30's)
from: The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine, 1972
Marijuana and alcohol prohibition
It was a change in the laws rather than a change in the drug or in human
nature that stimulated the large-scale marketing of marijuana for
recreational use in the United States. Not until the Eighteenth Amendment
and the Volstead Act of 1920 raised the price of alcoholic beverages and
made them less convenient to secure and inferior in quality did a
substantial commercial trade in marijuana for recreational use spring up.
Evidence for such a trade comes from New York City, where marijuana
"tea pads" were established about 1920. They resembled opium dens
or speakeasies except that prices were very low; a man could get high for a
quarter on marijuana smoked in the pad, or for even less if he bought the
marijuana at the door and took it away to smoke. Most of the marijuana, it
was said, was harvested from supplies growing wild on Staten Island or in
New Jersey and other nearby states; marijuana and hashish imported from
North Africa were more potent and cost more. These tea pads were tolerated
by the city, much as alcohol speakeasies were tolerated. By the 1930s there
were said to be 500 of them in New York City alone. 1
In 1926 the New Orleans Item and Morning Tribune, two newspapers under
common ownership, published highly sensational expos's of the
"menace" of marijuana. 2 They reported that it was coming into
New Orleans from Havana, Tampico, and Vera Cruz in large quantities, plus
smaller amounts from Texas. "In one day, ten sailors were followed
from the time they left their ships until they delivered their respective
packages of the drug to a particular block in the Vieux Carre." 3 The
sailors, it was said, bought marijuana in the Mexican ports for $10 or $12
per kilogram (2.2 pounds) and sold it in the Vieux Carr for $35 to $50. 4
This was far more profitable than smuggling a comparable weight of whiskey.
Much of the smuggled marijuana was smoked in New Orleans; but some, it was
said, was shipped?? up the Mississippi and "found its way as far north
as Cleveland, Ohio, where a well-known physician said it was smoked in one
of the exclusive men's clubs." 5
In New Orleans, the reporters in 1926 laid particular stress on the smoking
of marijuana by children. "It was definitely ascertained that school
children of 44 schools (only a few of these were high schools) were smoking
'mootas.' Verifications came in by the hundreds from harassed parents,
teachers, neighborhood pastors, priests, welfare workers and club women....
The Waif's Home, at this time, was reputedly full of children, both white and
colored, who had been brought in under the influence of the drug. Marijuana
cigarettes could be bought almost as readily as sandwiches. Their cost was
two for a quarter. The children solved the problem of cost by pooling
pennies among the members of a group and then passing the cigarettes from
one to another, all the puffs being carefully counted." 6
A Louisiana law passed in 1927, after the newspaper expos, provided a
maximum penalty of a $500 fine or six months' imprisonment for possession
or sale of marijuana. * 7 There followed "a wholesale arrest of more
than 150 persons. Approximately one hundred underworld dives, soft drink
establishments, night clubs, grocery stores, and private homes were
searched in the police raids. Addicts, hardened criminals, gangsters, women
of the streets, sailors of all nationalities, bootleggers, boys and girls??
many flashily dressed in silks and furs, others in working clothes all were
rounded up in the net which Captain Smith and his squad had set." 8
The newspaper investigation, the new law, and the heavily publicized police
roundups did not, however, accomplish their purpose. On the contrary,
according to Commissioner of Public Safety Frank Gomila, during the next
few years New Orleans "experienced a crime wave which unquestionably
was greatly aggravated by the influence of this drug habit. Payroll and
bank guards were doubled, but this did not prevent some of the most
spectacular hold-ups in the history of the city. Youngsters known to be
'muggle-heads' fortified themselves with the narcotic and proceeded to
shoot down police, bank clerks and casual bystanders. Mr. Eugene Stanley,
at that time District Attorney, declared that many of the crimes in New
Orleans and the South were thus committed by criminals who relied on the
drug to give them a false courage and freedom from restraint. Dr. George
Roeling, Coroner, reported that of 450 prisoners investigated, 125 were
confirmed users of marihuana. Mr. W. B. Graham, State Narcotic Officer,
declared in 1936 that 60 percent of the crimes committed in New Orleans
were by marihuana users." 9
Intensive patrolling of the New Orleans harbor tended to curb imports; but
Louisianans were little inconvenienced by the smuggling curbs; they simply
began to grow their own marijuana. "The first large growing crop in
the city was found in 1930 and its value estimated at $35,000 to
$50,000.... In 1936 about 1,200 pounds of bulk weed were seized along with
considerable quantities of cigarettes. On one farm, 5-1/2 tons were
destroyed and other farms yielded cultivated areas of about 10 acres....
One resident of the city was found growing 100 large plants in his
backyard." 10 The net effect of eleven years of vigorous law
enforcement was summed up by Commissioner Gomila in 1938: "Cigarettes
are hard to get and are selling at 30 to 40 cents apiece, which is a
relatively high price and a particularly good indication of the
effectiveness of the present control." 11 Marijuana smoking, in short,
had become endemic in New Orleans?? and remains endemic today. What years
of law enforcement had accomplished was to raise the price from two for 25
cents to 30 cents or 40 cents apiece?? and even this increase might be
attributable in part to inflation.
In Colorado, the Denver News launched a similar series of sensational
marijuana expos's following the pattern set in New Orleans. 12 Mexican
laborers imported to till the Colorado beet-sugar fields, it seems, had
found Prohibition alcohol very expensive and so had resorted instead to
marijuana, bringing their supplies north with them. A Colorado law against
marijuana was duly passed in 1929.
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in 1920 The U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a pamphlet
urging Americans to grow cannabis (marijuana) as a profitable
undertaking. [David F. Musto, An historical perspective on
legal and medical responses to substance abuse, *Villanova
Law Review*, 18:808-817 (May), 1973; p. 816]
So in the early 20's marijauna was cheap, legal and easy to obtain, unlike
liquor. It would have been at it's most popular among musicians and their
crowd, probably the bohemians and artists as well.
In 1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a Cannabis base are
available. Hashish available in Persian pharmacies.
Marijuana was listed in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942
and was prescribed for various conditions including labor pains, nausea,
and rheumatism. Its use as an intoxicant was also commonplace from the
1850s to the 1930s.
It's quite possible a person suffering from rheumatism or some other
nagging pain would carry tincture of marijuana for relief.
In the 12th Century Cannabis was introduced in Egypt during the reign of
the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic
devotees coming from Syria. It has already been in use for 7 centuries.
In the 1920s Hashish is being smuggled into Egypt from Greece, Syria,
Lebanon, Turkey, and Central Asia.
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Other drugs in our period.(1921)
In Egypt, it is quite possible to run into someone who smokes opium, but
you likely won't see them doing it unless you go into a den yourself. Arabs
are barred alcohol by the Koran, so hashish and opium use are prevalent and
widespread.
The UK had earlier become committed to a more extensive system than the
U.S. of domestic control over narcotic drugs when it signed the
International Opium Convention at The Hague in 1912 . The 1912 Convention
obliged the Government to take effective measures for the prevention of the
traffic in, and abuse of, dangerous drugs. The term 'dangerous drugs' was
used in all relevant domestic legislation until the Misuse of Drugs Act
1971 (MDA 1971), after which time such drugs were usually described as
'controlled drugs'. It was not until after the First World War that the
Government was able to give effect to its obligations under the 1912
Convention (and, by then, also Article 29 of the Treaty of Peace) by the
passage of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 (the 1920 Act).
Opium, Morphine and Heroin are illegal in the U.S. following the dangerous
drug act of 1920 which bars all opiates. The 1920 Act prohibited the
importation and exportation of certain dangerous drugs (which included
opium, cocaine, morphine and diamorphine) save under licence granted by the
Secretary of State (in practice, the Home Secretary) However, they still
manufacture fancy little "injection cases" containing a
hypodermic syringe, needles and packets of heroin. Heroin was thought to be
the cure for morphine addiction (isn't that WEIRD?) and it was first
manufactured by the Bayer Company of Germany. (You know, makers of
asparin?)
However, despite the laws you can still obtain these drugs for medical use
in most countries without too much trouble.
Incidentally, Coca Cola has only been without cocaine for seventeen years
now.
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In Egypt in the 1920's, an unrestricted supply of cocaine and heroin
created an epidemic that eventually resulted in the strict prosecution of
all addicts.
Before the first World War, there had been no drastic narcotic regulations
in Egypt. The maximum penalty was 7 days' imprisonment or a fine of LE
1.[39] There had been no need for stronger measures. When it became evident
that the heroin habit had become a serious problem, a new law was enacted
which became effective in 1925. This new law made the trafficking in and
the possession of narcotics illegal, classifying the offence as a
"d?lit"with a maximum penalty of 1 year's imprisonment and LE 100
fine. During the first twelve months after the enactment of the new law,
5,600 prosecutions were made under it in Cairo alone. Within the year the
maximum penalties were increased to 5 years' imprisonment and LE 1,000
fine. The new law made the drug traffic much more difficult in Egypt, but
wholesale smuggling of the heroin began and increased in intensity until
1929. It is interesting to compare the number of seized heroin samples with
the other narcotics in Egypt after the narcotic law in 1925. The number of
seizures is a good indication of the traffic in narcotics. It seems from
the table that the addiction to heroin in Egypt reached its peak in 1929
and from then on it dropped rapidly.
More:http://www.unodc.org/unodc/bulletin/bulletin_1953-01-01_2_page004.html
Cigarettes? They're everywhere, you say?
1921- Cigarettes are illegal in fourteen states, and ninety-two
anti-cigarette bills are pending in twenty-eight states.Young women are
expelled from college for smoking cigarettes.
[Brecher et al., op. cit. p. 492]
Yes, actually they are, but many people abhor them- it is not quite as
socially acceptable as it will be in only 5 years. The "talkies"
popularize smoking and make it more acceptable for women to smoke. Damn
those movies.
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For more info, and magazine articles on drug use and abuse in the 1920's
try this page:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/1920.htm
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