3. What We Do and Don’t Know About Early Cannabis Prohibition in the U.S.
Citations:
For the full version including citations, see my “Mexicans and the Origins of Marijuana Prohibition.”
Chas. G. Pease, M.D., “The Effects of Narcotics,” New York Times, Dec. 22, 1911. Caffeine was also mentioned in the 1911 “Foster Bill” hearings that looked at prohibiting the opiates and cocaine. See page 98.
Adam was a student of mine in the Master’s Program at the University of Cincinnati before he went on to do his PhD at Boston College. I was not formally on his dissertation committee, but I did read and comment on his work throughout the process.
Sarah Brady Siff, “Targeted Marijuana Law Enforcement in Los Angeles, 1914-1959,” Fordham Urban Law Journal, 49, no. 3 (2022): 643-74. Brady Siff argues that “the purpose [of California’s 1913 marijuana prohibition] amendment was unhidden,” and cites evidence that, on its own, is pretty convincing—two October 1911 newspaper pieces from Los Angeles reporting that Fred C. Boden, an inspector from the State Board of Pharmacy, had “sent a request to the state authorities, asking that marihuana, or loco weed, be placed on the list of prohibited narcotics. The reason for the action is the increased use of the weed among Mexican laborers.” (645). The piece in the Los Angeles Times (My thanks to Brady Siff for sharing it) elaborated, noting that Mexico’s anti-marijuana laws would be copied, while going on to confuse the drug with “locoweed” (one of various forms of Astragalus). This certainly does suggest that concern about Mexican immigrants using the drug was the main motivation. But it also contradicts Gieringer’s earlier and equally compelling finding that, a few months before those newspaper articles, Henry Finger, architect of much of California’s early drug legislation and prominent member of the Board of Pharmacy, had argued that cannabis was becoming a problem in California because “Within the last year we in California have been getting a large influx of Hindoos and they have in turn started quite a demand for cannabis indica; they are a very undesirable lot and the habit is growing in California very fast; the fear is now that it is not being confined to the Hindoos alone but that they are initiating our whites into the habit.” “Origins,” 251. When Gieringer published his piece in 1999, he was not aware of the 1910 Los Angeles newspaper articles later cited by Brady Siff. He cited a version of one of the them that had been reprinted in 1913, but that version does not include the pointed references to Mexican immigrants and simply reiterates the information about copying the Mexican laws, the wicked reputation of the drug in Mexico (accurate enough), and some inaccuracies about the drug’s use being widespread south of the border among all classes (marijuana was a decidedly lower class drug whose use was confined mostly to prisons and soldiers’ barracks). We thus have two competing versions of the inspiration for this 1913 law.
One final note on this. Gieringer notes that the origins of Finger’s comments are a bit mysterious since there are few if any other sources remarking on “Hindoos” in California using the drug. But during our research here we came upon an article that may have inspired Finger’s comments. Originally published in 1910, but reprinted many times around the country, that article opens with the following: “In California and down through Central America and the West Indies, the practice of smoking ganjah, or Indian hemp, has been introduced within recent years. A rubber planter from British Honduras, who is familiar with the Pacific coast and all tropical America, described the practice and some of its effects the other day. “‘Ganjah smoking,’ he said, ‘follows the Hindu.’”
See “Ganjah Smoking,” Arizona Republican, March 26, 1910, p 7.
See my Home Grown, especially Ch. 9.
For example, in the 1910 Los Angeles Times piece cited by Sarah Brady Siff (see note 4 above), the paper not only notes the drug’s wicked reputation in Mexico, but explains that, “Little is known of the origin of marihuano (sic) in the western hemisphere, although for ages a similar plant has been used in Oriental countries under the name hasheesh or cannabis indica, as it is designated by the botanists. In this country, a certain species of the plant long has been recognized by stock men under the name of ‘loco’ weed owing to its peculiar effects on stock.” “Would Prohibit Sale of Weed,” Los Angeles Sunday Times, Oct. 19, 1911, 16. Brady Siff argues that cannabis was also confused for datura at times, which is plausible (in Mexico both datura and marihuana were considered “weeds of madness”), though I strongly disagree with her argument that this by itself explains the reputation of marijuana for causing madness and violence. Such stories appeared around the world and Mexicans were hardly unfamiliar with the difference between the two plants. Furthermore, it essentializes intoxicant effects, ignoring the importance of set and setting in drug use outcomes. I described the confluence of these various discourses in the early twentieth century United States in Chapter 9 of my book. On global discourses and the importance of set and setting, see Chapter 1.