http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/people/anslinger/index.htm

STATEMENT OF H. J. ANSLINGER,
COMMISSIONER OF NARCOTICS, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS, DEPARTMENT OF THE
TREASURY

MR. ANSLINGER: Mr. Chairman, my name is H. J. Anslinger; I am Commissioner of Narcotics in the Bureau of Narcotics, in the Treasury Department.

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Ways and Means Committee, this traffic in marihuana is increasing to such an extent that it has come to the be cause for the greatest national concern.

This drug is as old as civilization itself. Homer wrote about, as a drug that made me forget their homes, and that turned them into swine. In Persia, a thousand years before Christ, there was a religious and military order founded which was called the Assassins and they derived their name from the drug called hashish which is now known in this country as marihuana. They were noted for their acts of cruelty, and the word "assassin" very aptly describes the drug.

The plant from which the drugs comes is a hardy annual, growing from 3 to 16 feet in height.

Marihuana is the same as Indian hemp, hashish. It is sometimes cultivated in backyards. Over here in Maryland some of it has been found, and last fall we discovered three acres of it in the Southwest.

As I say, marihuana is the same as Indian hemp, and is sometimes found as a residual weed, and sometimes as the result of a dissemination of birdseed. It is known as cannabin, cannabis Americana, or Cannabis Sativa. Marihuana is the Mexican term for cannabis indica. We seem to have adopted the Mexican terminology, and we call it marihuana, which means good feeling. In the underworld it is referred to by such colorful, colloquial names as reefer, muggles, Indian hay, hot hay, and weed. It is known in various countries by a variety of names.

MR. LEWIS: In literature it is known as hashish, is it not?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir. There is a great deal of use of it in Egypt, particularly. It was found years ago in Egypt. The traffic has grown so that something like 14 percent of the population are addicts. In India it is sold over the counter to the addicts, direct, and there it is known as bhang and ganja.

At the Geneva Convention is 1895 the term "cannabis" included only the dried flowering or fruiting top of the pistillate plant as the plant source of the dangerous resin, from which the resin had not been extracted. That designation was used in the uniform State act. "but research that has been made during the past few months has shown that this definition is not sufficient, because it has been found by experiment that the leaves of the pistillate plant as well as the leaves of the staminate plant contain the active principle up to 50 percent of the strength prescribed by the United States Pharmacopoeia.

So we have urged the States to revise their definition so as to include all parts of the plant, as it now seems that the seeds and portions other than the dried flowering tops contain positively dangerous substances.

We were anticipating a challenge in one of the States of that old definition. There was a case in Florida recently in which a defendant appealed to a higher court on the ground that the prosecution had not proven that this was the dried flowered top of the pistillate plant.

The higher court said:

"We are of the opinion, therefore, that the information was insufficient to clearly apprise accused of the nature and cause of the accusation against him because of the sale of cigarettes containing cannabis, from which the resin had not been extracted may relate to the resin of the staminate plant, the resin of which appears to be harmless."

As a matter of fact the staminate leaves are about as harmless as a rattlesnake.

So in this act it was necessary to make the definition all inclusive.

In medical schools, the physician-to-be is taught that without opium he would be like a one-armed man. That is true, because you cannot get along without opium.

But here we have drug that is not like opium. Opium has all of the good of Dr. Jekyll and all the evil of Mr. Hyde. This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.

I have here an excerpt from a report made to the League of Nations by the Council at its last session. It says:

Excerpt of League of Nations Document O.C. 1542 (O) Dated Geneva, February 17, 1937

Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, Sub-Committee on Cannabis

(Report by Dr. J. Bouquet, hospital pharmacist, Tunis, inspector of pharmacies, Tunis, containing answers to questionnaire submitted to the experts)

VII (P. 39)

(7) (A) Do any preparations of Indian hemp exist possessing a therapeutic value such that nothing else can take their place for medical purposes?

No.

(a) Indian hemp extract has been recommended for the preparation of corn cures products, that most often consist of a solution of salicylic acid in collodion; the action of the cannabis extract is nil.

At my request, experiments were made for several months in 1912 with different preparations of cannabis, without the addition of other synergetic substances (Profession Lannois' Service, Lyons Hospital). The conclusion reached was that in a few rare cases Indian hemp gives good results, but that in general it is not superior to other medicaments which can be used in therapeutics for the treatment of the same affliction.

To sum up, Indian hemp, like many other medicaments, has enjoyed for a time a vogue which is not justified by the results obtained. Therapeutics would not lose much if it were removed from the list of medicaments.

MR. DINGELL: I want to be certain what this is. Is this the same weed that grows wild in some of our Western States which is sometimes called the loco weed?

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir, that is another family.

MR. DINGELL: That is also a harmful drug-producing weed, is it not?

MR. ANSLINGER: Not to my knowledge. It is not used by humans.

THE CHAIRMAN: In what particular sections does this weed grow wild?

MR. ANSLINGER: In almost every state in the Union today.

MR. REED: What you are describing is a plant which has a rather large flower?

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir, a very small flower.

MR. REED: It is not Indian hemp?

MR. ANSLINGER: It is Indian hemp. We have some specimens here.

MR. VINSON: When was this brought to your attention as being a menace among our own people?

MR. ANSLINGER: About ten years ago.

MR. VINSON: Why did you wait until 1937 to bring in a recommendation of this kind?

MR. ANSLINGER: Ten years ago we only heard about it throughout the Southwest. It is only in the last few years that it has become a national menace. It has grown like wildfire, but it has only become a national menace in the last three years. It is only in the last two years that we have had to send reports about it to the League of Nations.

MR. VINSON: We did not have to have any convention adopted by the League of Nations in order to legislate on this subject?

MR. ANSLINGER: No; but it was covered in one of the conventions.

MR. VINSON: It seems to me you have been rather slow in getting to this legislation.

MR. FULLER. I do not think that is any defense for this measure.

MR. ANSLINGER: We have been urging uniform state legislation on the several States, and it was only last month that the last State legislature adopted such legislation.

MR. VINSON: You have not urged the passage of any legislation upon Congress.

MR. ANSLINGER: There is no law in the District. This uniform act has been urged upon the states for four or five years.

MR. VINSON: But you have not urged Congress to pass this act or anything that looks like it until now.

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir.

MR. FULLER: That is no defense, if it is a good measure.

MR. VINSON: I am not talking about their defense. It seems to me it has taken a long time to get this before Congress.

MR. FULLER: It took a hundred years to get the Harrison Narcotic Act.

MR. ANSLINGER: It is only in the last two years that we have a report of seizures anywhere but in the Southwest. Last year, New York State reported 195 tons seized, whereas before that I do not believe that New York could have reported one ton seized.

Let me quote from this report to the League of Nations:

This discussion disclosed that, from the medical point of view in some countries the use of Indian hemp in its various forms is regarded as in no way indispensable and that it is therefore possible that little objection would be raised to drafting limitations upon medical use of derivatives.

That is only last year.

Here is what Dr. J. Bouquet, hospital pharmacist at Tunis, and inspector of pharmacists at Tunis, says. He is the outstanding expert on cannabis in the world. He says:

To sum up, Indian hemp, like many other medicaments, has enjoyed for a time a vogue which is not justified by the results obtained. Therapeutics would not lose much if it were removed from the list of medicaments.

That comes from the greatest authority on cannabis in the world today.

MR. MCCORMACK: What are its first manifestations, a feeling of grandeur and self-exaltation, and things of that sort?

MR. ANSLINGER: It affects different individuals in different ways. Some individuals have a complete loss of sense of time or a sense of value. They lose their sense of place. That have an increased feeling of physical strength and power.

Some people will fly into a delirious rage, and they are temporarily irresponsible and may commit violent crimes. Other people will laugh uncontrollably. It is impossible to say what the effect will be on any individual. Those research men who have tried it have always been under control. They have always insisted upon that.

MR. MCCORMACK: Is it used by the criminal class?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, it is. It is dangerous to the mind and body, and particularly dangerous to the criminal type, because it releases all of the inhibitions.

I have here statements by the foremost expert in the world talking on this subject, and by Dr. Cutter a noted and distinguished medical man in this country.

(The statements referred to are as follows:)

(From the report by Dr. J. Bouquet, Tunis, to the League of Nations)

Does Indian hemp (Cannabis Sativa) in its various forms give rise to drug addiction?

The use of cannabis, whether smoked or ingested in its various form, undoubtedly gives rise to a form of addiction, which has serious social consequences (abandonment of work, propensity to theft and crime, disappearance of reproductive power).

From the Washington Post, Nov. 23, 1936

TODAY'S HEALTH TALK

By Dr. Irving S. Cutter

A Dangerous Intoxicant

Ever since the world began man has been searching for chemicals or charms that would relieve pain. Out of the East came Indian hemp, and it is surprising how rapidly its properties were recognized and how widespread became its use.

History relates that in the eleventh century a remarkable sect of Mohammedans established themselves as a powerful military unit under the leadership of a sheik who led his marauding band to victory while under the influence of hemp. In South Africa the Hottentots smoked the drug under the name of dagga.

The plant was originally native in Persia and India, but because of the desirability of its fiber it is now cultivated in all parts of the world. For the last few years marihuana, as it is commonly called, has been sold in the United States and Canada, chiefly in the form of cigarettes, which are peddled frequently in dance halls. Much of the raw material comes from Mexico or the West Indies, and occasionally press dispatches will report that the weed had been grown even within prison walls.

As a stimulant to crime the drug is probably as important as cocaine, certainly far more so than opium or any of its derivatives, and narcotic-control agencies will be put to a severe test in routing out this traffic.

As a rule the addict passes into a dreamy state in which judgment is lost and imagination runs riot. Fantasies arise which are limitless and extravagant. Scenes pass before the mind's eye in kaleidoscopic confusion and there is no sense of the passing of time.

Under relatively large doses consciousness does not leave entirely, even though actions and movements are out of control. As the influence of the drug persists there may be periods of stupor from which, however, the patient can be aroused. In most individuals there is no succeeding nausea and the thrill seeker finds inhibitions destroyed and, abandoning his normal sense of propriety, he may do and say things quite foreign to his makeup.

Cannabis indica is the medicinal preparation known to physicians. But the potent resin produced chiefly by the top of the female plant is as much sought after in certain quarters as is opium. Its legitimate use in the field of medicine is relatively limited, as other drugs more accurate and dependable as to effects have largely taken its place.

Cases of fatal poisoning rarely if ever occur. Nevertheless, it is one of the dangerous drugs that should be known only to be shunned--an intoxicant with the most vicious propensities.

Copyright, 1936, by the Chicago-Tribune, New York Times Syndicate, Inc.

I will give you gentleman just a few outstanding evidences of crimes that have been committed as a result of the use of marihuana.

MR. REED: The testimony before the committee of which I was formerly chairman in reference to heroin said in reference to the effect of it that it made men feel fearless, and that a great majority of the crimes of great violence that were committed were committed by addicts, and one man stated that it would make a rabbit fight a bulldog. Does this drug have a similar effect?

MR. ANSLINGER: Here is a gang of seven young men, all seven of them, young men under 21 years of age. They terrorized central Ohio for more than two months, and they were responsible for 38 stick-ups. They all boast they did those crimes while under the influence of marihuana.

MR. LEWIS: Was that as an excuse, or a defense?

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir.

MR. LEWIS: Does it strengthen the criminal will; does it operate as whisky might, to provoke recklessness?

MR. ANSLINGER: I think it makes them irresponsible. A man does not know what he is doing. It has not been recognized as a defense by the courts, although it has been used as a defense.

MR. LEWIS: Probably the word "excuse" or "mitigation" would be better than defense, I think.

MR. ANSLINGER: Here is one of the worst cases I have seen. The district attorney told me the defendant in this case pleaded that he was under the influence of marihuana when he committed that crime, but that has not been recognized.

We have several cases of that kind. There was one town in Ohio where a young man went into a hotel and held up the clerk and killed him, and his defense was that he had been affected by the use of marihuana.

MR. FULLER: The only question was whether or not he knew what he was doing, whether he was insane. That is always a defense, whether or not a man is in such a state of mind that he does not know good from evil. The question is whether or not his mind is right, whether he is responsible.

MR. ANSLINGER: As to these young men I was telling you about, one of them said if he had killed somebody on the spot he would not have known it.

In Florida a 21-year-old boy under the influence of this drug killed his parents and his brothers and sisters. The evidence showed that he had smoked marihuana.

In Chicago recently two boys murdered a policeman while under the influence of marihuana. Not long ago we found a 15-year-old boy going insane because, the doctor told the enforcement officers, he thought the boy was smoking marihuana cigarettes. They traced the sale to some man who had been growing marihuana and selling it to these boys all under 15 years of age, on a playground there.

MR. JENKINS: In my home town just recently two boys were sent to the penitentiary for life for killing a man, and their defense was built upon the fact that they had used a drug. I do not believe it was this drug.

MR. ANSLINGER: There have been a number of cases in Ohio recently.

MR. JENKINS: The defense was made for them by a very successful lawyer.

MR. REED: Is there any cure for a person who becomes an addict?

MR. ANSLINGER: I do not think there is such a thing as not being able to cure an addict. Marihuana addicts my go to a Federal narcotic farm. But I have not seen many addicts who could not be cured. An addict could drop it and he will not experience any ill effects.

One of these boys I referred to went insane, and they stopped it. Here in Colorado -- and Colorado seems to have had a lot of cases of violence recently -- in Alamosa County, and in Huerfano County the sheriff was killed as the result of the action of a man under the influence of marihuana. Recently in Baltimore a young man was sent to the electric chair for having raped a girl while under the influence of marihuana.

I will show you how this traffic is increasing.

MR. MCCORMACK: Have you completed your statement in reference to the criminal cases?

MR. ANSLINGER: I have a number of cases here.

MR. MCCORMACK: Are you acquainted with the report of the public prosecutor at New Orleans in 1931?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir.

MR. MCCORMACK: I think that would be valuable. That was a case where 125 our of 450 prisoners were found to be marihuana addicts, and slightly less than one-half of the murderers were marihuana addicts, and about 20 percent of them were charged with being addicts of what they call "merry wonder".

MR. ANSLINGER: That is the same thing.

MR. MCCORMACK: You are acquainted with that?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, I have that report.

MR. MCCORMACK: There was a report from other cities also.

MR. ANSLINGER: That is one of the finest reports that has been written on marihuana by that district attorney. He had daily contact with the problem and saw its effect on crime in that city.

I might say in that connection, that he said this-- and this is the report of Eugene Stanley -- in which he has said:

Inasmuch as the harmful effects of the use of the drug is becoming more widely known each day, and it has been classed as a narcotic by the statutory laws of 17 American states -- Since that time we have that in every State--- England and Mexico, and persons addicted to its use have been made eligible for treatment in the United States narcotic farms, the United States Government, unquestionably, will be compelled to adopt a consistent attitude toward the drug, and include it in the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Law, so as to give Federal aid to the States in their effort to suppress a traffic as deadly and as destructive to society as the traffic in the other forms of narcotics now prohibited by the Harrison Act.

This drug is not being used by those who have been using heroin and morphine. It is being used by a different class, by a mostly younger group of people. The age of the morphine and heroin addict is increasing all the time, whereas the marihuana smoker is quite young.

MR. DINGELL: I am just wondering whether the marihuana addict graduates into a heroin, an opium, or a cocaine user.

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir; I have not heard of a case of that kind. I think it is an entirely different class. The marihuana addict does not go in that direction.

MR. DINGELL: And the hardened narcotic user does not fall back on marihuana.

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir: he would not touch that. Dr. Walter Bromberger, a distinguished psychiatrist in New York has made this statement:

Young men between the ages of 16 and 25 are frequent smokers of marihuana; even boys of 10 to 14 are initiated (frequently in school groups); to them as other; marijuana holds out the thrill. Since the economic depression the number of marihuana smokers has increased by vagrant youths coming into contact with older psychopaths.

MR. LEWIS: Do they make their own cigarettes?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir. The cigarette is usually rolled by the peddler. It is crudely rolled cigarette.

MR. MCCORMACK: Is not Dr. Bromberger the senior psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir.

MR. MCCORMACK: What did he say in reference to crime?

MR. ANSLINGER: He argued one way and then he argued another way. His conclusions were based on a study made of those men who had been sentenced to prison. But that is not a fair conclusion because at the present time we have so many in prison in the several states sent up as a result of using marihuana.

I think in some states today that study would show a fairer conclusion than he arrived at, although in one part of his article he did say he believed that this excited to crime a man who would be less likely to commit a crime.

MR. MCCORMACK: He did admit that it was a drug?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir. I think he realized, and his article indicated that he realized, the danger of it.

Last year several states made 338 seizures of marihuana that we know of. In most of those we participated, because we are cooperating with the states in carrying out the uniform State legislation. We have also assisted several states by sending chemists to the local police to show them how to identify this drug, and we have conducted chemical research here.

Most of the complaints about this drug have been coming to the Federal office, and because time is of the essence we would like to have this legislation enacted very much, so we can step into the situation where it is highly desirable that we do so.

I will refer you to the case of a man in one of the Southern States. One of our good friends gave us information to indicate that this man had about a ton of these high explosives stored in his barn. There was no Federal law and no State law. We took up the matter with the attorney general of that state, and we had to wait until the state had its act enacted, before we could take any action.

THE CHAIRMAN: How many states have laws in reference to marihuana?

MR. ANSLINGER: Every state, except the District of Columbia.

THE CHAIRMAN: You said there was no state law.

MR. ANSLINGER: In that particular state at that time there was no state law.

THE CHAIRMAN: The states now all do cooperate?

MR. ANSLINGER: Every one of them, yes, sir. But they do not all have central enforcement agencies.

MR. MCCORMACK: You say every state has a law, and there are about 35 of the states that have the uniform state act?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir. The uniform state act has been adopted by 35 states.

THE CHAIRMAN: With this uniform state legislation, why can they not stamp this out? What progress are they making?

MR. ANSLINGER: They are making some progress, as is indicated by the 338 seizures made last year. Last year the state of Pennsylvania destroyed 200,000 pounds.

MR. LEWIS: Under the uniform state act the growth and distribution is prohibited. Is that correct?

MR. ANSLINGER: That is true in most of the states.

MR. LEWIS: What would the effect be in this case of our imposing an act under which we would be collecting revenue, and making the growth and distribution legitimate from the standpoint of the Federal Government.

MR. ANSLINGER: The state acts provide for that. They provide for legitimate distribution and for licensing of the grower under certain conditions.

MR. LEWIS: Does this act require the licensing of the grower?

MR. ANSLINGER: It requires registration.

MR. LEWIS: What is the legitimate distribution of this drug? You spoke of the industries.

MR. ANSLINGER: There is its use in medicine. Then the hemp product is used in some parts of Kentucky, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. It is grown for hemp purposes. It makes very fine cordage, and this legislation exempts the mature stalk when it is grown for hemp purposes.

MR. MCCORMACK: There are other commercial purposes:

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes.

MR. MCCORMACK: There is fiber out of which hats are made?

MR. ANSLINGER: That is not done so much in this country.

MR. MCCORMACK: There is some of that.

MR. ANSLINGER: Just a little.

MR. MCCORMACK: Then is not the seed used for paints and oil?

MR. ANSLINGER: They import all their seed from Manchuria.

MR. MCCORMACK: And it is also used as a constituent of commercial bird seed?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes.

MR. MCCORMACK: Mr. Lewis asked you a question about the commercial purposes.

MR. ANSLINGER: Those are the only commercial purposes that I know of.

MR. JENKINS: Mr. Hester said that he thought the commercial purposes were practically negligible . I understand you to say that most of the products that are made from the seed are made from imported seed.

MR. ANSLINGER: That is for oil.

MR. JENKINS: You say that 35 of the states have adopted uniform legislation. Where do they get that uniformity from?

MR. ANSLINGER: That is from the commissioners on uniform state laws. They were adopted by the American Bar Association and approved by the American Medical Association and some of the drug trade.

MR. JENKINS: If each state has a law on this subject I wonder why that does not reach it.

MR. ANSLINGER: It does reach it, but in spite of the act, we get requests from public officials from different states, and I will name particularly the states of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Oklahoma that have urged Federal legislation for the purpose of enabling us to cooperate with the several states.

MR. JENKINS: It seems to me if the states have taken such action on this subject so far, and if we are going to take any action at all, we ought to be able to stamp it out.

MR. ANSLINGER: I think this bill will do that.

MR. JENKINS: If you are going to temporize with them and say as it seems you say here "No, we can not stamp it out; we will encourage its growth. it is all right to grow it." I do not see how you will stamp it out.

MR. ANSLINGER: We do not do that for hemp production, and we recognize the fact that it is grown, that the farmers in some of these states grow it for hemp purposes. I think about 10,000 acres cover that. Dr. Dewey can tell you about that. He has been with this problem for 30 years, and I would defer to his judgment, particularly as to legitimate uses.

MR. MCCORMACK: There are state laws in reference to other drugs?

MR. ANSLINGER: The uniform state act covers opium and its derivatives, coca leaf and its derivatives, but there is a twilight zone there that the peddler breaks right through if the state has not taken action.

MR. MCCORMACK: This is a tax measure and we might as well get the revenue out of it that enables the Federal government to cooperate with the states in connection with the state activities.

MR. ANSLINGER: And you get a certain uniformity. You also get to help the local police, and the always want it. You also get to help the state police, and the always ask for this help. Whenever they find marihuana the first place on which they call for help is the Federal narcotic office, so that they can take a man along who is a specialist on narcotic matters.

The have 35 states under the uniform act, and we have Federal legislation dealing with opium and coca leaves.

With this legislation we will make a drive on this traffic, and bend every effort to stamp it out, and it will not cost very much.

I say that advisedly because we have men throughout the country at the present time who are dealing with the narcotic problem. But the use of marihuana is increasing.

I want to show you one more thing and that is in reference to the international side of this problem. Canada made some seizures over here last year and they pointed the finger of scorn at us and said, "Why do you not do something about this?" We had to admit that we did not have any legislation.

There is some evidence that this drug is being smuggled to China today. We have always pointed the finger of scorn at China, and now marihuana is being smuggled out to China, by sailors.

We are far ahead of any government when it comes to the 1912 Hague Convention, and the 1931 convention, but we are behind on the 1925 convention. We are not signatories to it, but we cooperate with them.

We were in a curious position only a few months ago when an exporter sent a lot of cannabis to a British firm. It was a legitimate shipment, but the British law demanded an export certificate, and we had to tell the British government that we did not have a law to compel that exporter to stop the shipment of cannabis. He will probably do so, as a matter of cooperation. But we had to warn him to stop violating British law, and that goes for practically every government on the face of the earth, except the United States. Over 50 nations have national legislation on this problem, and it is very humiliating to have to say to these people when they trace the matter right to our shore, to tell them that we have no legislation to deal with that problem:

MR. LEWIS: You spoke about the District of Columbia having no law. How about the Territories?

MR. ANSLINGER: Hawaii has a law. I cannot tell you about Alaska. Puerto Rico does have a law. The only place I am not sure about is Alaska.

MR. LEWIS: You are sure about the District of Columbia?

MR. ANSLINGER: Not having a law?

MR. LEWIS: Yes.

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; because last year there were 15 dealers arrested here for peddling marihuana, and they had to be prosecuted for practicing pharmacy without a license.

MR. BUCK: Have you suggested the enactment of such a law to the Committee on the District of Columbia?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; they have had a proposed uniform state laws for 3 or 4 years.

MR. BUCK: Have they taken action on it at all?

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir.

MR. THOMPSON: What is the price of marihuana?

MR. ANSLINGER: The addict pays anywhere from 10 to 25 cents per cigarette. It will be sold by the cigarette. In illicit traffic the bulk price would be around $20 per pound. Legitimately, the bulk is around $2 per pound.

MR. THOMPSON: How does that compare with the price of opium or morphine? Do the class of people who use this drug use it because it is cheaper than the other kinds?

MR. ANSLINGER: That is one reason, yes, sir. To be a morphine or heroin addict it would cost you from $5 to $8 a day to maintain your supply. But if you want to smoke a cigarette you pay 10 cents.

MR. BOERNE: Just one of them will knock the socks off of you.

MR. ANSLINGER: One of them can do it.

MR. MCCORMACK: Some of those cigarettes are sold much cheaper that 10 cents, are they not? In other words, it is a low-priced cigarette, and that is one of the reasons for the tremendous increases in its use.

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes; it is low enough in price for school children to buy it.

MR. MCCORMACK: And they have parties in different parts of the country that they call "reefer parties".

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; we have heard of them, and know of them.

MR. FULLER: Another thing is that they will not be able to get other kinds of dope, but they do have an opportunity to get this marihuana, which causes it to be so much sought after and used in the community.

MR. ANSLINGER: That is true, and the effect is just passed by word of mouth and everybody wants to try it.

MR. WOODRUFF: Have you put into the record a statement showing the names of the different states in which this drug plant is grown?

MR. ANSLINGER: It is grown in practically all states. I have a statement in reference to the seizures, which I will put in the record.

MR. THOMPSON: I would like to know whether or not these marihuana cigarettes move through legitimate channels. Are there manufacturing concerns that make them, or are they rolled in the kitchens and cellars like illicit liquor used to be made?

MR. ANSLINGER: It is 100 percent illicit.

MR. THOMPSON: No concerns make it legitimately?

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir.

MR. MCCORMACK: As a matter of fact, I understand they found that some were grown in one of our Federal prisons.

MR. ANSLINGER: They found some marihuana growing in one of the prisons. We heard of that.

There was a seizure made in the Colorado State Reformatory for boys not long ago.

MR. MCCORMACK: Was there not one made at San Quentin?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir.

MR. BUCK. Mr. Hester testified that there were about 11,000 acres in cultivation in the country. Is that legitimate cultivation?

MR. ANSLINGER: That would be legitimate cultivation. Dr. Dewey of the Department of Agriculture can give you that exact information.

MR. REED: Mr. Anslinger, you have been interrupted in your statement from time to time, and I am wondering if you have not some statement that would give the general information to the committee on this subject which you might like to put in the record.

MR. ANSLINGER: I would like to put in the record the statement of the district attorney that I referred to. I also have a statement showing the seizures of marihuana during the calendar year 1936 in the various states.

THE CHAIRMAN: Without objection, you may extend your statement in the record by inserting such information as you think would be helpful to the committee.

=-=-=-=-=-

The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937

Transcripts of Congressional Hearings

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF H. J. ANSLINGER, COMMISSIONER OF NARCOTICS

(The following statements were submitted by Mr. Anslinger)

ORIGIN

The origin of this drug is very ancient. In the year 1090 A.D., the religious and military order or sect of the Assassins was founded in Persia and the numerous acts of cruelty of this sect were known not only in Asia, but in Europe as well. This branch of the Shiite sect, known as Ismalites, was called Hashishan, derived from hashish, of the confection of hemp leaves "marihuana". In fact, from the Arabic Hasishan we have the English word "assassin."

The plant was known by the Greeks as "nepenthe" and was lauded in the immortal Odyssey of Homer. It was known in ancient times to the Egyptians, and its use in Egypt at the present time is widespread. Its effect upon the Malays has been terrific and the natives of the Malay Peninsula have been known, while under its influence, to rush out and engage in violent and bloody deeds, with complete disregard for their personal safety, of the odds arrayed against them. To run "amok" in the Malay Peninsula is synonomous with saying one is under the influence of this drug.

DESCRIPTION:

Indian hemp is a rough, annual plant, and grows to varying heights, from about 3 to 16 feet. Its stem is erect, branching and angular; the leaves are alternate or opposite and coarsely serrated. Marihuana is the same as Indian hemp, hashish, cannabin, cannabis Americana, or cannabis sativa. Marihuana is the Mexican term for cannabis indica. In the argot of the underworld it has colloquial, colorful names such as reefer, muggles, Indian hay, hot hay, and weed. The drug is known in many countries by a variety of different names. In India it is known as bhang and ganja; as dagga in Africa.

The term "cannabis" in the Geneva Convention of 1925 and in the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act included only the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant as the source of the dangerous resin. Research during the past few months shows conclusively that this definition is insufficient, as we have found by experiment that the leaves of the pistillate plant as well as the leaves of the staminate plant contain the active principal up to 50 percent of the U.S.P. strength. Accordingly, we are urging the several states to revise their definition to include all parts of the plant, as it now appears that the seeds and portions other than the dried flowering tops contain positively dangerous substances. We have been anticipating a challenge of the old definition in the courts and only a few weeks ago a defendant in a case in Florida in appealing to the higher court of that State said:

"We are of the opinion, therefore, that the information was insufficient to clearly apprise the accused of the nature and cause of the accusation against him because of the sale of cigarettes containing cannabis from which the resin had not been abstracted may relate to the resin of the staminate plant, the resin of which appears to be harmless."

This challenge demonstrates the advisability of making our definition all-inclusive, which has been done with respect to the bill under discussion, H.R. 6385.

EFFECTS

The toxic effects produced by "cannabin", the active narcotic principal of the cannabis sativa, hemp, or marihuana, appear to be exclusively to the higher nerve centers. The drug produces first an exaltation with a feeling of well-being; a happy, jovial mood, usually; and increased feeling of physical strength and power; and a general euphoria is experienced. Accompanying this exaltation is a stimulation of the imagination, followed by a more-or-less delirious state characterized by vivid kaleidoscopic visions, sometimes of a pleasing sensual kind, but occasionally of a gruesome nature. Accompanying this delirious state is a remarkable loss in spatial and time relations; persons and things in the environment look small; time is interminable; seconds seem like minutes and hours like days. Let us think, for instance, of what might happen if a person under its influence were driving a high-powered automobile.

Those who are habitually accustomed to use of the drug are said to develop a delirious rage after its administration, during which they are temporarily, at least, irresponsible and liable to commit violent crimes. The prolonged use of this narcotic is said to produce mental deterioration. It apparently releases inhibitions of an antisocial nature which dwell within the individual.

It is said that the Mohammedan leaders, opposing the Crusaders, utilized the services of individuals addicted to the use of hashish for secret murders.

Despite the fact that medical men and scientists have disagreed upon the properties of marihuana, and some are inclined to minimize the harmfulness of this drug, the records offer ample evidence that it has a disastrous effect upon many of its users. Recently we have received many reports showing the crimes of violence committed by persons while under the influence of marihuana.

The effect of the use of the drug depends largely upon the individual. Among some people the dreams produced are usually of an erotic character, but the principal effect is on the mind which seems to lose the power of directing and controlling its thoughts. Then follow errors of sense, false convictions and the predominance of extravagant ideas where all sense of value seems to disappear.

The deleterious, even vicious, qualities of the drug render it highly dangerous to the mind and body upon which it operates to destroy the will, cause one to lose the power of connected thought, producing imaginary delectable situations and gradually weakening the physical powers. Its use frequently leads to insanity.

I have statement here, giving an outline of cases reported to the Bureau or in the press, wherein the use of marihuana is connected with revolting crimes.

EXTENT OF TRAFFIC

The rapid development of a widespread traffic in marihuana during the past several years, particularly during 1935 and 1936 is a matter of grave national concern. About ten years ago there was little traffic in marihuana except in parts of the Southwest. The weed now grows wild in almost every state in the Union, is easily obtainable, and has come to be widely abused in many states. The situation is especially fraught with danger because this drug is being carried as a new habit to circles which heretofore have not been contaminated. Incomplete reports that have come to my attention during the past year on marihuana seizures effected throughout the country by state authorities show the existence of a dangerous and rapidly increasing traffic in this drug in at least 29 states.

Three hundred and thirty-eight arrests for violations during 1936, but this by no means represents extent of traffic, because not many of the states have actually begun real enforcement as against marijuana -- many of the states lack special enforcement facilities and require education of their enforcement officers in the detection and prevention of marihuana traffic, especially in identifying the drug.

STATE LAWS

All of the states now have some type of legislation directed against the traffic in marihuana for improper purposes. There is no legislation in effect with respect to the District of Columbia dealing directly with marihuana traffic. There is unfortunately a loophole in much of this state legislation because of a too narrow definition of the term. Few of the states have a special narcotic law enforcement agency and, speaking generally, considerable training of the regular polce officers of the states will be required together with increased enforcement facilities before a reasonable measure of effectiveness under the state laws can be achieved.

THE NEED FOR FEDERAL LEGISLATION

Even in states which have legislation controlling in some degree the marihuana traffic, public officials, private citizens, and the press have urged or suggested the need for national legislation dealing with this important problem. A partial list of states wherein officials or the press have urged the need for Federal legislation on the subject are Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

The uniform state narcotic law has now been adopted by some 35 states, many of these including cannabis or marihuana within the scope of control by that law. However, it has been recently learned that the legislative definition of cannabis in most of these laws is too narrow, and it will be necessary to have the definition amplified in amendatory legislation in most of the states, to accord with the definition in the pending Federal bill. As is the case at present with respect to opium, coca leaves, and their respective alkaloids, the uniform state law does not completely solve the enforcement problem with respect to marihuana but it will provide the necessary supplement to the Federal act and permit cooperation of state an Federal forces, each acting within its respective sphere, toward suppression of traffic for abusive use, no matter in what form the traffic is conducted. The Bureau of Narcotics, under the Marihuana Taxing Act, would continue to act as an informal coordinating agency in the enforcement of the uniform state law, exchanging information as between the respective state authorities in methods of procedure and attempting to secure true uniformity in the enforcement of the act in the various states which have adopted it.

INTERNATIONAL EFFECT

The United Sates is not a party to the Geneva Convention of 1925 which includes Indian hemp in the classes of drugs with respect to which the convention operates. It is a party to the Hague Convention of 1912 and the Manufacturing Limitation Convention of 1931, under both of which it submits complete reports of progress in enforcement to the League of Nations (insofar as opium, coca leaves, and their alkaloids are concerned.) The United States goes beyond the letter of its obligations under the last-mentioned conventions in international cooperation with respect to opium and coca leaves and their alkaloids. It is only with respect to cannabis (marihuana) that it cannot afford complete cooperation with other countries, since it is obviously handicapped by the lack of national drug legislation which would permit a reasonable degree of control over this drug and afford a direct means of information concerning the trend of the traffic. The United States has more than kept pace with other world powers in the united battle against the opium, morphine, and cocaine traffic; it continues to fall behind in the international movement directed against the use of marihuana. The importation and exportation of marihuana, with respect to the United States is practically unrestricted, and on once occasion the attention of the Bureau was called to an excess exportation of cannabis, by one of our exporters, to England, When the British governmental agency called attention to this exportation of a quantity from the United States in excess of the British import certificate, we were in the humiliating position of informing it that our laws did not cover cannabis, and remedial action had to be limited to a warning to the exporter -- not that he was violating a law of the United States, but an admonition that he would please refrain from violating the British laws.

Alamosa Daily Courier - Alamosa, Colorado, September 4, 1936
United States Treasury Department - Bureau of Narcotics

Gentlemen: Two weeks ago a sex-mad degenerate, named Lee Fernandez, brutally attacked a young Alamosa girl. He was convicted of assault with intent to rape and sentenced to 10 to 14 years in the state penitentiary. Police officers here know definitely that Fernandez was under the influence of marihuana.

But this case is one in hundreds of murders, rapes, petty crimes, insanity that has occurred in southern Colorado in recent years. The laws of this state make the first offense of using, growing, or selling marihuana a mere misdemeanor. The second offense constitutes a felony. Indian hemp grows wild within the limits of this city. It is clandestinely planted in practically every county in this section. Its use amounts to a near traffic in drugs.

The people and officials here want to know why something can't be done about marihuana. The sheriff, district attorney, and city police are making every effort to destroy this menace. Our paper is carrying on an educational campaign to describe the weed and tell of its horrible effects.

Your bulletins on traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs state that the production and use of Indian hemp are not prohibited by Federal law. Why? Is there any assistance your Bureau can give us in handling this drug? Can you suggest campaigns? Can you enlarge your Department to deal with marihuana? Can you do anything to help us?

I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That's why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions.

While marihuana has figured in the greater number of crimes in the past few years, officials fear it, not for what it has done, but for what it is capable of doing. They want to check it before an outbreak does occur. Did you read of the Drain murder case in Pueblo recently? Marihuana is believed to have been used by one of the bloody murderers.

Through representatives of civic leaders and law officers of the San Luis Valley, I have been asked to write to you for help. Any help you can give us will be most heartily appreciated.

Very sincerely yours, Floyd K. Baskette
City Editor, The Alamosa Daily Courier

MARIHUANA - A MORE ALARMING MENACE TO SOCIETY THAN ALL OTHER HABIT-FORMING DRUGS

(By Dr. Frank R. Gomila, commissioner of public safety, and Miss Madeline C. Gomila, assistant city chemist)

Many papers have been written on the effects, physical and mental, of the marihuana weed. Some of the best descriptions that we have read can be found in Bromberg's (1) paper called Marihuana Intoxication; Bragman's (2) Toxic Effects - Weed of Insanity; and Kingman's (3) Green Goddess. But talking and writing of the various results that ensue from constant use of this weed in no way impresses the reading public with the seriousness of the problem that faces it today.

To our knowledge, this is the first time that such a paper as this will be presented. After searching the literature thoroughly we could find no complete record of the situation in this country. We have not deluded ourselves into believing that the information compiled here is in any way a complete record of the situation, but we do believe that it is the best that can be obtained. The difficulty encountered is that any drug addiction is such a secretive affair that not even the authorities in charge know all the culprits. Also, we have encountered some rather unexpected reluctance on the part of some of the state authorities to furnish the information. The large gaps in the table that we compiled are due to this lack of information.

Referring to Table 1, we find that 46 out of 48 states, or 94 percent, have found it necessary to pass some legislation against the use, possession, and sale of this menacing weed. The urgent reason for all these laws was that in many states the discovery was made that scores of youngsters of high school age had become victims of the weed. It was only last year that the St. Louis Star Times in a series of newspaper articles, led the people of Missouri in a stirring fight for the passage of a state law for the protection of their children. Quoting from the St. Louis Start-Times of February 4, 1935, we read: "Those acquainted with the traffic say there are more women smokers than men. If you are a 'right guy' a 'giggle smoke' is available in places of lenient morals and may be purchased from a 'bystander' in many of the cheaper downtown resorts.

"One gentleman of the byways explained, 'The worst thing about that loco weed is the way these kids go for them. Most of them, boys and girls, are just punks and when they get high on the stuff you can write your own ticker.'" (4)

The article goes on to tell how, when the number of muggle smokers increased, marihuana dives came into existence. Here is a description, "The windows were covered with blankets and a single electric bulb flickers through smoke so dense you can barely see across the room. A dozen persons around a penny-ante poker game. They range from boys of 16 to men in their late 20's, all in a state of dazed exhilaration.

"There are only a few rickety chairs and the table for furnishings and the gang lolls about the room, some chasing cheap whisky with long muggles drags, others content to smoke, laugh vacuously and 'walk on air.'" (5)

Still quoting from the St. Louis Star-Times of an earlier date we find the case of a young high school student reported. "A case in point is that of a young man, an intelligent high school student, now confined to an institution for the mentally diseased. His experience is entirely the result of acquiring the habit of smoking marihuana cigarettes.

"One of his friends said to a Star-Times reporter, calling the youth by name, 'He was a swell fellow until marihuana got him. Like the rest of us, he thought the weed wasn't habit-forming and had no idea of the possible consequences of smoking it. He smoked so many he couldn't quit. finally he went crazy and his folks put him in a sanitarium.'" (6) From this same article we read: "'Weed' smoking among young St. Louisians appears to be chiefly confined to boys. Girls who indulge do so largely as a result of association with boys who smoke the drug."

"A girl student, still in her teens told a reporter she had seen some of her friends under the influence and named a boy and a girl who lost their senses so completely after smoking marihuana that they eloped and were married.

"'Another boy I know got the habit so bad he didn't have enough money to buy all the cigarettes he craved. To get the money he stole jewelry from his mother while under the influence of marihuana and pawned it. He was arrested, but when his mother found out who the thief was she naturally dropped her complaint.

"'I know at least 20 boys, some of them in school, whom I have seen smoking marihuana cigarettes. Sometimes three or four of them crowd into a telephone booth and puff on a single cigarette.

"'Several girls I know have smoked marihuana and I smoked with them, but I've decided its bad business and haven't smoked lately. "'Sometimes we would go to a beer tavern and smoke, the boys always supplying the muggles.'"

Referring to table II, we find then that Colorado reports that the Mexican population there cultivates on an average of 2 to 3 tons of the weed annually. This the Mexicans make into cigarettes, which they sell at two for 25 cents, mostly to white high school students. Strangely enough, it has been noted that when this weed is grown at altitudes considerably higher than sea level, it is much more potent. Colorado, a state that has an average altitude than sea level (sic), can therefore grow a plant that is much more powerful than one grown in Louisiana. (8)

From Massachusetts we learn that cigarettes sell for 25 cents apiece and that they are chiefly used among the younger people between the ages of 18 and 21. In Louisiana the age range is 18-37 years. Minnesota, like Missouri, has its difficulties with high school addicts. Oklahoma is another of the afflicted states,. Reports state that the weed is used widely among the high school students there.

The tragic picture of all these youngsters coming under the influence of the drug certainly must have some significance. It means that more drastic action is necessary. All these states have passed laws concerning this drug but though the law has curbed the use of marihuana to a certain degree it has by no means eradicated it. This is still a very important problem. Why shouldn't our Federal government, with its wheels of action already set in motion, take over the control of the use of this dangerous drug in the United States? We said "wheels of action, already set in motion", because in many large cities the Federal narcotic squads are cooperating with the local police in stamping out the danger threatened by this drug. The states, individually, are doing what they can, though in many instances they are sorely handicapped by lack of experience with this problem, insufficient funds and ignorance of the proper methods. Referring to Table 1, again, we find that the narcotic squad is even now helping curb this menace in Louisiana, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Wyoming.

In New Orleans we were called in a case in which Federal narcotics agents had made the wholesale arrests of 36 peddlers simultaneously. This is just one case out of many handled by the Federal men this year. These men are more thoroughly trained and much better equipped to handle the situation than the local police. Certainly our government could help out in this deplorable situation by amending the Harrison Narcotic Act to include marihuana as a potent and dangerous drug. As long ago as 1931 our country was one among 57 other countries that met at Geneva Switzerland, in order to draw up a treaty convention for restricting the manufacture and cultivation of narcotic drugs. Included among the narcotics listed by this treaty convention is marihuana. By the end of the year 1935, 55 nations had ratified this convention, the United States being the second nation to do so in 1932. Why then should our Government ratify this treaty convention and not include marihuana in our own Harrison Narcotic Act(11)?

The increasing prevalence of this menace is another matter for serious thought. From Table 1, we find that eight states enacted legislation against the use, sale, and possession of this weed in 1935 and 1936. By glancing over Table II you'll find that New York State alone destroyed 187 tons of the weed in 1935. There seems to be no shortage there. In Louisiana, in recent months, the state police have destroyed more weed here than ever before. There are many states in a similar dilemma. This problem seems in no way to be solved but on the contrary is growing to be a more dangerous one every day.

From table II we ascertain that out of 450 persons arrested in New Orleans, La. in 1934, 125 were marihuana addicts; out of 37 murders 177 were addicted to the use of marihuana, and out of 193 convicted of thefts, 34 were under the influence of this drug. Therefore, the ratio is that approximately 1 out of every 4 persons arrested in this city has become a victim of this dangerous drug. (12)

In the state of New Mexico, 4 percent of the inmates of the penitentiary are confessed users of the weed. In New York we find that ten percent of all the narcotic violators are marihuana cases. The warden of the state penitentiary in North Dakota reports that some of the prisoners are addicted to the drug but that there are none there at present. In Minnesota 10 out of 348 cases at the reformatory confessed to being addicts, while in Mississippi 6 confessed users were arrested. Illinois reports having arrested 30 marihuana addicts since 1933.

In the case of the city of New Orleans, if we refer to table III for the year 1936, we find that in the first 4 months of that year 36 arrests were made. This number does not include the arrests made by the Federal narcotics men which greatly exceeds this figure. If we consider this figure 36 as an average figure for that period we find that the total number of arrests for the year of 1936 will substantially exceed the total for any one of the preceding years. This is a significant fact and proves that the danger is growing instead of abating.

Practically every article written on the effects of the marihuana weed will tell of deeds committed without the knowledge of the culprit, while he was under the influence of this drug. There are many arguments for and against this statement, and many cases reported which uphold it, and still others which contradict it. Our opinion is that both arguments for and against are correct because of the inconsistency of the action of this drug on individual victims. The reactions resulting depend to a large extent on the innate characteristics of the individual. The person who is so unfortunate as to come under the influence of this drug, in many cases, becomes the unwilling offender of the law because the central nervous system has become affected, as is the case with other habit-forming drugs. As a representative case, note the tragic predicament of this Californian. "A man under the influence of marihuana actually decapitated his best friend; and then, coming out of the effects of the drug, was as horrified as anyone over what he had done" (9). Then we have the case of a young boy in Florida. The story runs as follows: "A young boy who had become addicted to smoking marihuana cigarettes, in a fit of frenzy because, as he stated while still under the marihuana influence, a number of people were trying to cut off his arms and legs, seized an axe and killed his father, mother, two brothers and a sister, wiping out the entire family except himself." (10)

Those of us who are native New Orleanians must well remember the tragic incident that happened in our city last year. In a downtown section a man under the influence of the weed became so frenzied and angered at his wife as to kill her out on the street in front of many witnesses.

These are only three cases of which there are hundreds. Each one is a blot on the history of the State where the crime was committed and so it is very difficult to unearth such information.

Is marihuana sufficiently like any other habit-forming drug that it should receive recognition as a real menace? For an answer we have only to glance over table IV, where we find that in comparison with other habit-forming drugs, heroin, morphine, opium, and cocaine, marihuana has an established place. Like these drugs named, it, too, derives it effects chiefly from resultant changes to the central nervous system. It decreases pain and in certain instances dispenses it completely. Comparable to the other drugs mentioned, a certain amount of tolerance is set up rather easily with marihuana.

In its action of depression and stimulation it is very much like that noted under small doses of morphine. Habit-forming drugs in every case disturb the vision and heart. In this instance marihuana reacts like cocaine, in that the pupils become dilated and the pulse is accelerated. Habitual use of heroin weakens judgment, self-control, and attention. IN this sense, marihuana is like heroin as constant use results in loss of judgment and measurement of time and space. Marihuana makes the imagination run rampant and the dreams that result are as extravagant as those reported by opium eaters. Social dangers that ensue from the use of marihuana are comparable to those that result from heroin. The heroin habit produces an utter disregard for conventions and moral; similar results ensue from the smoking of the weed. Here, however, the skeptic has a point which he can dispute. The action of marihuana is much less constant than heroin, as it depends to a certain extent on the disposition and intellectual activity of the victim. However, we must remind friend skeptic that the great majority of users are ignorant and inexperienced youngsters and members of the lowest strata of humanity. When you think this fact over there should be no room for argument on that point.

After an exhaustive search on marihuana from its earliest history to the present time, it is easy to see that the destruction of the plant is absolutely essential in all communities in this country. To this end we believe that the members of the Orleans Parish Medical Society should lend their wholehearted cooperation.

In conclusion we wish to state that we have proved conclusively:

1. The seriousness of the problem as it concerns youngsters who are willing to take a chance at all times.
2. The increasing prevalence of this menace which results in a large percentage of criminal users.
3. The tragedy of persons who use the weed becoming unwilling offenders of the law because the central nervous system has been so affected.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) American Journal of Psychiatry, Marihuana Intoxication, Clinical Study of Cannabis Sativa Intoxication. Walter Bromberg, Volume 91, Pages 303-330, September, 1934.
(2) Medical Journal and Record, The Weed Insanity. Louis J. Bragman, Syracuse, NY, October 7, 1925, pages 416-417.
(3) Ibid., October 19, 1927, pages 470-475. The Green Goddess (A Studyin Dreams, Drugs, and Dementia). Robert Kingman, Brooklyn, NY
(4) St. Louis Star Times, February 4, 1935. Louisville Paper Finds Marihuana a Menace There.
(5) Ibid.
(6) St.. Louis Star Times, January 18, 1935. Young Slaves to Dope Cigaret Pay Tragic Price For Their Folly. Hulius Kleen.
(7) Ibid.
(8) World Narcotic Defense Association. Marihuana or Indian Hemp and Its Preparations.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) World Narcotic Defense Association. Narcotic Drug Addiction and How to Fight It.
(12) World Narcotic Defense Association. Marihuana or Indian Hemp and Its Preparations. US Treasury Department, Bureau of Narcotics, Washington, DC, Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, 1934. Cushny's Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Edmunds and Gunn, pages 278-293, 1934.

The New Orleans Times-Tribune
Cannabis. W. G. Walker, Chief, Division of Narcotic Enforcement, San Francisco, California, July 1, 1934.
Annual Report on Narcotic to Governor Lehman for 1935, New York State.
Legal Mediciine and Toxicology. Webster, W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, United States of America, 1930.

MARIHUANA AS A DEVELOPER OF CRIMINALS

(By Eugene Stanley, district attorney, parish of Orleans, New Orleans, La.)

Many prosecuting attorneys in the South and Southwest have been confronted with the defense that, at the time of the commission of the criminal act, the defendant was irresponsible, because he was under the influence of marihuana to such a degree he was unable to appreciate the difference between right and wrong, and was legally insane. A great deal of difficulty has been experienced in rebutting this defense by the testimony of psychiatrists, for, while some of these experts are conversant with the nature and effect of this drug, it has been the experience of the author that many psychiatrists know nothing whatsoever of the effect of the drug.

This may be due to the fact that this drug has come into wide use in certain parts of the South only within the last 10 years.

It is the purpose of this article to give a brief outline of the nature and origin of this drug, the legislation enacted which prohibits its sale and use, to recommend that this drug be placed within the provisions of the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act, and to give a list of some of the works which may be consulted by any persons interested in making a thorough study of the drug.

MARIHUANA IS THE MEXICAN TERM FOR CANNABIS INDICA.

The plant or drug known as Cannabis indica, or marihuana, has as its parent the plant known as Cannabis Sativa. It is popularly known in India as Cannabis Indica,; in America, as Cannabis americana; in Mexico as Cannabis mexicana, or marihuana.

It is all the same drug, and is known in different countries by different names. It is scientifically known as Cannabis sativa, and is popularly called Cannabis americana, Cannabis indica, or Cannabis mexicana, in accordance with the geographical origin of the particular plant. In the East it is known as charras, as gunga, as hasheesh, as bhang, or siddi, and it is known by a variety of names in the countries of continental Europe.

Cannabis sativa is an annual herb from the "hemp" plant; it has angular, rough stems and deeply lobed leaves. It is derived from the flowering tops of the female plant of hemp grown in semi-tropical and temperate countries. It was once thought that only the plant grown in India was active, but it has been scientifically determined that the American specimen termed "marihuana" or "muggles" is equal in potency to the best weed of India. The plant is a moraceous herb.

In the South, amongst the Negroes, it is termed "mooter". In India, where the plant is scientifically cultivated on a wide scale for the drug obtained from it, the plants, when small, are separated, the female plant being used exclusively for the purpose of obtaining the drug. In Mexico and in America, the plants are permitted to grow together indiscriminately, without separating the male and female plants, so that the potency of the female plant is lessened by the admixture of the male element.

In semitropical climates, because of the fertility of the soil and the ease with which hemp seed may be procured, the plant can be easily cultivated, and prohibition of the actual cultivation is rendered practically impossible. It resembles a weed, and has been found growing in some of the back yards and lots of the cities. The traffic in the plant , and the drug derived therefrom, has been found to be considerable, particularly in the South and Southwestern States.

CULTIVATION OF HEMP

Hemp is cultivated all over the world; its culture probably originated in China, from whence it spread. It is cultivated for three purposes; For the fiber, out of which rope, twine, cloth, and hats are made; for the seed, from which a rapidly drying oil is obtained that is used in the arts and as a commercial substitute for linseed oil; and for the narcotic contained in the resin of the dried, flowering tops of the pistillate plant. The seed is also sold as a constituent of commercial bird seed.

Hemp is grown in the New England Colonies for fiber used in the making of homespun. It was also grown in the Virginia and Pennsylvania Colonies and cultivated at an early date in the settlements of Kentucky, from whence the industry spread to Missouri. Hemp has been grown at various times in Illinois, near Champagne; in the Kankakee River Valley, in Indiana; in southeastern Pennsylvania, and in Nebraska, Iowa, and California. It is now abundant as a wild plant in many localities in Western Missouri, Iowa, Southern Minnesota, and in the southwestern and western states, where it is often found as a roadside weed. It is not known when the plant was introduced into Mexico, and the southwest, but probably along with the early Spanish settlements. It was introduced into Chile in the 16th Century.

The early cultivation of hemp in the United States was of the small European variety, but this has been replaced since 1857 by the larger Chinese hemp. Practically all the seed for present-day American hemp culture is grown in the Kentucky River Valley.

CANNABIS INDICA OR SATIVA

Cannabis Sativa is designated as a "narcotic" in a number of State laws. It is sometimes mentioned in the laws as "loco weed" because of its inebriate effect upon men and cattle; in others a "marihuana", "hemp", or "hashish"; in fact, the drug is known by a wide variety of names.

It is one of the several drugs included under the antinarcotic laws of 17 States, namely Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Nevada, California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa. It is also prohibited under the laws of Mexico and England.

In a great many of the states where this legislation was enacted, so widespread was the use of marihuana, and so terrific the result, that grave emergencies were declared to exist which justified the legislation taking effect immediately. The restrictions respecting the smoking of "hemp" are mentioned along with those restricting opium smoking.

Although the different forms of the plant have been described under different botanical names, there are no essential differences in any of the specific characteristics, and all cultivated or wild hemp is now recognized as belonging to one species - Cannabis sativa.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DRUG

The origin of the drug is very ancient.

In the year 1090 A.D. the religious and military order or sect of the Assassins was founded in Persia, and the numerous acts of cruelty of this sect was known not only in Asia, but in Europe as well. This branch of the Shiite sect, known as Ismalites, was called Hashishan, derived from Hashish, or the confection of the hemp leaves (Cannabis indica).

In fact, from the Arabic "Hashishan" we have the English word "Assassin". It is mentioned in the Arabian Knights, and was known at the time of the Crusaders. It is known to the Greeks as "Nepenthe", and was lauded in the immortal Odyssey of Homer as a drug to lull all pain and anger, and to bring forgetfulness of all sorrow. It was known in ancient times to the Egyptians, and its use in Egypt, at the present time is widespread.

In fact, it is presently as widely used amongst the Egyptians, and in the East, as opium is used by the Chinese, and alcohol by the Americans and Europeans. Its effect upon the Malays has been terrific, and the natives of the Malayan Peninsula have been known, while under its influence, to rush out and engage in violent or bloody deeds, with complete disregard for their personal safety, or the odds arrayed against them. To run "amok" in the Malayan Peninsula is synonymous with saying one is under the influence of this drug.

In America, particularly in the South and Southwestern portions of the United States, it is called marihuana. It is popularly known amongst the criminal element as "muggles", or "mooter" and addicts are commonly termed "muggle heads."

THE EFFECT OF THE USE OF THE DRUG

The flowering tops of the female plant are the source from which the drug is obtained, and in American these flowering tops are gathered and rolled into cigarettes and smoked, the smoke being inhaled.

A favorite method of smoking these cigarettes is for a person to draw into the mouth the smoke from one of these cigarettes and to blow the smoke from the mouth against the cupped hands, and then inhale the smoke.

In India, marihuana or "muggles" is mostly used in "ganja" form, which is the Indian name for a mixture of the stems, leaves, and flowering tops of the cultivated female plants. It is smoked, as in America, in the form of cigarettes, or in the pipe; its smell is typically offensive, and is easily recognized by the initiated.

In Inida, Bhang, or siddi, are the Indian names for the mixture of these dry leaves and capsules without stems, whether male or female, cultivated, or in its wild state. It is the cheapest and the weakest of all the preparations of hashish, and is taken as tea.

In India, the resinous substance which exudes from the flowering head of the female plant is called "chearris", and is either smoked or taken in pills or in confections, or mixed with sugar or honey, and is commonly sold amongst the bazaars of Egypt and the Far East.

In many respects, the action of cannabis sativa is similar to that of alcohol or morphine. Its toxic effects are ecstasy, merriment, uncontrollable laughter, self-satisfaction, bizarre ideas lacking in continuity, and its results are extreme hyperacidity, with occasional attacks of nausea and vomiting. It has also been described as producing, in moderate doses, from a mild intoxication to a dead drunk, a drowsy and semicomatose condition, lapsing into a dreamy state, with a rapid flow of ideas of a sexual nature and ending in a deep sleep, interrupted by dreams. On awakening, there is a feeling of great dejection and prostration.

Large doses produce excitement, delusions hallucinations, rapid flow of ideas, a high state of ecstasy, psychomotor activity with a tendency to willful damage and violence, and a temporary amnesia of all that has transpired. In cases of prolonged addiction, especially in the Malays, the somnolent action of Cannabis indica is replaced with complete loss of judgment and restraint, the same effects so frequently observed in alcohol intoxication. It is commonly used as an aphrodisiac, and its continued use leads to impotency. This has been observed among the natives of India. It is an ideal drug to quickly cut off inhibitions.

At the time of the founding of the religious sect of the "Assassins" in Persia, by Hassan Ben Sabbat, young men whom the sheik desired to subjugate were given this drug, and when under its influence, were taken, blindfolded, into the garden of the sheik, where every pleasure which appealed to the sense awaited them.

When complete indulgence in these pleasures were had, they were taken from this garden, and so eager were they for a further opportunity to use this drug and a repetition of these pleasures, that they were under the complete domination of the sheik, who alone knew the secret of this drug, and gladly followed his will, even to the extent of sacrificing their lives is he commanded them to do so, in order to further experience the pleasures to which they had been initiated.

At the present time, the underworld has been quick to realize the value of this drug in subjugating the will of human derelicts to that of the master mind. Its use sweeps away all restraint, and to its influence may be attributed many of our present day crimes.

It has been the experience of the police and prosecuting officials in the South that immediately before the commission of many crimes the use of marihuana cigarettes has been indulged in by many criminals, so as to relieve themselves from a sense of natural restraint which might deter them from the commission of these criminal acts, and to give them the false courage necessary to commit the contemplated crime.

THE GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE TOWARD MARIHUANA

Indian hemp (marihuana) addicts were made eligible for treatment in recent legislation enacted by the Seventieth Congress, approved January 19, 1929, establishing narcotic farms for the confinement and treatment of persons addicted to the use of habit-forming narcotic drugs.

This legislation is somewhat unique in congressional legislation, since Indian hemp is not classified as a habit-forming drug or narcotic in other Federal narcotic laws.

Inasmuch as the harmful effects of the use of the drug is becoming more widely known each day, and it has been classed as a narcotic by the statutory laws of 17 American states, England, and Mexico, and persons addicted to its use have been made eligible for treatment in the United States narcotics farms, the United States Government, unquestionably, will be compelled to adopt a consistent attitude toward this drug, and include it in the Harrison antinarcotic law, so as to give Federal aid to the States in their effort to suppress a traffic as deadly and as destructive to society as the traffic in the other forms of narcotics now prohibited by the Harrison Act.

REFERENCES

See American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (Dorland, 1927) "Marihuana."
Arny, Henry V. Principles of Pharmacy (3rd Ed.) Philadelphia and London, W. B.
Saunders Co. (1926, 1978pp. Cannabis, pp 767-768, Reference p. 779)

(Bethea) Materia Medica and Prescription Writing (1926 pp. 114-15)

Boyce, Sidney S. Hemp (Cannabis Sativa), a practical treatise on the culture of hemp for seed and fiber, with a sketch of the history and nature of the hemp plant. New York, Orange Judd Co. (1900, 112 pp)

Briosi, Giovanni, Interno alla anatomia canapa (Cannabis sativa) Milano, Tip. Bernardoni di C. Rebeschini (cc. 1894-96, 2 v., bibliografia; ff. 1 pp. 2-28; v. 2, pp. 14-38)

Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia (vol. 12, pp. 771, 1909).

Daggett, Charles H. Theory of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Philadelphia and New York, Lea & Febiger, 1910 (539 pp. Cannabis Indica; p. 480).

Edmunds, C. W. and J. A. Gunn. A textbook of pharmacology and therapeutics (9th ed.) , Philadelphia, Lea & Febiger, 1928 (743 pp. Cannabis; pp. 280-282)

Evers, Norman and G. D. Elsdon. The analysis of drugs and chemicals. London C.Griffin & Co. (1929, 372 pp. Cannabis Indica; p. 190)

India. Department of Finance and Commerce. Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (No. 1369 ex. Government of India, Calcutta, 1925 23 pp.)

-- Memorandum on excise administration in India, so far as it is concerned with hemp drugs * * * (3d, 1. e. 2d ed.; Simla, Printed at the government central printing office 1902, 22 pp.)

-- Hemp Drugs Commission. Report, Simla, printed at the government central printing office (1894 7 v.)

--- Supplementary Volume. Answers received to selected questions for the native army. * * * Calcutta, 1895 (186 pp)

-- Supplementary Volume. Evidence of witnesses from nattive states. Calcutta, office of the superintendent of government printing, India, 1895 (218 pp.)

Marshall C. R. The active principle of Indian hemp; a preliminary communication. Lancet (London), Jan.23 1897 (pt. 1, pp. 235-238)

Marihuana (Mex) In Mexico, any one of several plants having narcotic properties; in many localities; Cannabis indica and in the State of Sonora, Nicotiana glauca.

Medical -- Jurisprudence & Technology, Prof. Jno. Glaister and Hon. Jno. Glaister, Jr. (5th Ed. 1931) Wm. Wood & Co., New York, E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh (p. 849)

Merck's Index; an encyclopedia for the chemist, pharmacist, and physician (4th ed.), Rahway, NJ Merck & co., Inc. (19330, 585 pp), Cannabis (p. 147)

Moreau Jacques J. Du hachich et de l'alienation mentale. Etudes psychologiques. Paris, Fortin Masson et cie, 1845 (431 pp).

Munch, James Clyde. "Bioassays; a handbook of quantitative pharmacology", Baltimore, the William & Wilkins Co., 1931 (pp. 190-197) An article on the subject, including a few references in the text (covers, pp. 67 -88)

Orleans Parish Medical Society. the Marihuana Menace, by Dr. A. E. Fossier.

Perez, Genaro. La Marihuana. Breve estudio sobre esta planta. Mexico, 1886. Noted in Nicolas, Leon. "Biblioteca botanico - mexicana." Mexico, Officina tip. de la secretaria de fomento, 1895 (p. 207)

Pharmacopiea of U.S.A. 1925 (pp. 95-96)

Poulsson, E. A textbook on Pharmacology and therapuetics (Eng. ed.) London, W. Heinemann, 1923 (519 pp.). Cannabis indica; (pp. 90-91)

Prain, Sir David. on the morphology, teratology, and diclinism of the flowers of Cannabis, * * * Calcutta, office of the superintendent of government printing, India (9104, 32 pp.) Scientific memoirs of officers of th medical and sanitary departments of the government off India (new ser. no. 12)

Robinson, Victor. An essay on hasheesh, historical and experimental (2d ed.), New York. E. H. Ringer (1925, 91 pp.)

Rusby, Bliss & Ballard. The Properties and Uses of Drugs (1930 ed., p. 415)

Solis Cohen Githens. Pharmaceotherapeutus (192 ed., pp. 1702-3)

Sollman, Torald. A manual of pharmacology, and its applications to therapeutics and toxicology (3d ed.) Philadelphia and London, W. b. Saunders Co. (1926, 1184 pp.) (Marihuana (Cannabis) (pp. 323-324)

United States Departemtn of Publich Health, See Report of Surgeon-General, Hugh S. Cummings, to the Seventieth Congress. See Index Catalogue of the Surgeon General's Office, as follows:

Series 3 (Cannabis indica), 3:836-37, 1922

Series 2 (Cannabis indica) 3:341-45, 1898

Series 2 (Haschisch) 6:784, 1901

Series 1 (Cananbis indica) 2:690-91, 1881.

U.S. Dispensatory, 1918 (p. 276)

Wood, George B., The dispensatory of the United States of America (21st ed.) Philadelphia and London, J. b. Lippinscott Co. 1926, 1892. Cannabis indica (Marihuana in Mexican) p. 277-281 A few references are given in the text.

JOURNALS

See (Bragman) Toxic effects: Weed of insanity (M. J. & Rec. 122; pp. 416-18, 1925)

(Del Favero) mental effect o hashish on Central African Negroes. Pensiero med. 17;270-277, 1928

(Dontas and Zis) Narcotic action of potassium chlorate added to smoking tobacco; comparison with hasheesh Wien. Klin. Wehnsehr. 41:161-163, 1928

(Dawner) Cannabis indica in smoking tobacco. Brit. M. J. 2:521, 1923

(Fantchenko) Case history of intoxication psychosis from poisoning with tinct. cannabis indicae. Klin. Med. 6: 770-773,
1927

(Gayer) Pharmacologic standardization of oriental hashish and cannabis indica.

Hasheesh Insanity (by Dr. Warnock, superintendent Cairo Lunatic Asylum), British Medical Journal, vol. 2, p. 2 or 8, 1903

(Huher) History of hashish and opium. Deut. Med. Wehnschr., 53: 1145, 1927

(Joel) Cultivation of cannabis indica; reply to Sabaltschka, Klin. Wehhenschr., 5: 364-365, 1926 Abst J.A.N.A. 86: 1490

(Djunjibhoy) Role of Indian hemp in causation of insanity in India. Far East Assn. Trop. Med. Trans. 7th Cong. 1927, V. 1: 400, 1928

(Joel and Frankel) Hashish intoxication; contribution to experimental psychopathology. Klin. Wehnschr.5: 1707-1709, 1926.

(Kant and Krapf) Psychic phenomena by ingestion of Hashish Archiv. f. exper. Path. u. Pharmakol. 129: 319-338, 1928

(Kant and Krapf) Question off intact function in hashish intoxication, Ztschr. f. d. ges. Neurol u. Psychiat. 112: 302-305, 1928

(Kingman) Gren Goddess, study in dreams, drugs and dementia. M. J. & Rec. 126-470-475, 1927

(Sabalitschka) Cultivation of cannabis indica; comment on Joel's article, Klin. Wehnschr. 5: 1279-1280, 1926

(Straub) Bavarian hashish, experiments. Munch. Med. Nehnschrr. 75: 49-51.

(Kent) Forms of reaction of psychotic indivisuals to hashish intoxication; study of problem of hallucination. Arch. f. Psychiat. 91: 694-721, 1930.

(Dhunjiohoy) "Indian Hemp Insanity" peculiar to India, J. Ment. Sc. 76; 254-264, 1930

STATUTORY REGULATIONS

England -- George V (1925), Statutes 15 and 16 amending. California - Code of California, statutes and amendments (1929), page 381, chapter 216 Indiana -- A. Burns' Annotated Indiana Statutes, volume 1, section 2494, page 1228, act 1911, page 45 Iowa -- 1924 acts of Iowa, chapter 156, page 427 Louisiana -- Act 41 of 1924 Maine -- Revised statues of Maine (1930, sec. 25, ch. 23, p. 477). Nevada -- Compiled laws of Nevada (1929) New Mexico -- The laws of New Mexico (1923), chapter 42, page 58. Oregon -- General Laws of Oregon (1923) Chapter 27 Texas -- Vernon's Annotated Criminal Statutes of the State of Texas (Penal Code) volume 2, 1926, chapter 3, article 720. Utah. -- Compiled laws of Utah, section 4432 (1917 edition), page 902. Vermont -- General Laws of Vermont (1919), section 6285, page 1081 Washington -- Remington's Compiled Statutes of Washington (1923), supplementing chapter 7, sections 2509-2511, 2509-2512. Wisconsin -- Wisconsin Statutes (1929), tenth edition, section 146.02, formerly sectioon 1419 of the Old Wisconsin Statutes, paragraph 16. Wyoming.-- Wyoming's Compiled Statutes(1920), section 3570, page 693 (see descriptive word index and tables of cases affirmed. Revised or modified, covering "Current Digest". vols, 1 to 5 (1926030) (West Publishing Co. "Marijuana", p. 327.) Criminal law: 507 (1), 730 (2) 569, 338 (7) 1170 1-2 (2), 1153 (6) 814 (8,9), 459, 741 (1) Poisons. 9.

(Thereupon the committee adjourned to meet tomorrow, Wednesday, Apr. 28, 1937, at 10:30 a.m.)

=-=-=-=-

Conference on Cannabis Sativa L.

January 14, 1937 -- Room 81 Treasury Building, 10:30 AM

Present: Dr. Lyster H. Dewey (retired) Department of Agriculture. Dr. James C. Munch, Professor of Pharmacology, Temple University Dr. Herny C. Fuller Dr. Carl Voegtlin, Chief, Division of Pharmacology, National Institute of Health Mr. Arthur F. Sievers, Division of Drug and Related Plants, Department of Agriculture Mr. Peter Valaer, Alcohol Tax Unit Washington Laboratory Dr. John Matchett, Chemist, Bureau of Narcotics Mr. P. W. Simonds, Alcohol Tax Unit Laboratory Mr. John F.; Williams, Chief, Division of Laboratories, Bureau of Customs Mr. H. J. Wollner, Consulting Chemist to the Secretary of the Treasury. M. H. J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Narcotics Mr. A. L. Tennyson, Legal Division, Bureau of Narcotics Mr. S. G. Tipton, General Counsel's Office Mr. R. L. Pierce, General Counsel's Office

Mr. Wollner: As I understand the problem we've got here, and according to Commissioner Anslinger, it is a question of trying to set up a definition of terms with reference to what we generically refer to as the marihuana problem, in a sufficiently clear style and sufficiently competent as to be significant from an enforcement point of view. Is that as you see it, Mr. Tennyson?

Mr. Tennyson: Yes.

Mr. Wollner: And at the same time be mindful of the legitimate uses of the product. In going through the literature on marihuana in pursuit of an answer to this general problem of defining terms, you get very little satisfaction. For every negative statement made there is a positive one made to counteract it. One reference will tell you definitely there is no active principle in the seed -- a dozen will -- and one will cast a shadow of doubt. Dr. Munch is rather certain there is an active principle in the seed. I spoke to Dr. Munch in Philadelphia this week, and put this question to him this way: "Can you take the position that there is no resin in the male plant?" He said, "No, because I have found some in the small glands that secrete the resin so copiously on the leaves of the female and are found in the male plant, though not to so large an extent." Cannabis, in the Uniform Narcotic State Act, is defined as follows: (reading from the Act) "Cannabis includes the following substances under whatever names they may be designated: (a) The dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant Cannabis Sativa L., from which the resin has not been extracted, (b) the resin extracted from such tops, and (c) every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such resin, or of such tops from which the resin has not been extracted." That obviously doesn't meet our requirements.

In an effort to clarify the situation in anticipation of a possible attempt to set up a more satisfactory legal program, the technical division in the Treasury, the Narcotics Bureau, and the Legal Division, have gotten together and asked themselves some questions, which were distributed. I dare say that a duplicate or triplicate set of questions might have been asked with equal effect.

We haven't a problem akin to the morphine or opium problem. We knew the chemical reactions of morphine and its behavior before laws were passed. That state of definitive knowledge does not obtain with regard to cannabinol, which, again, some people dispute the existence of. In trying to define these terms we are not privileged, I am afraid, to be too emphatic about this compound known as cannabinol, especially since there may be contributive active ingredients in the plant. It has been an accepted situation in the past that all trouble derives from the female plant. That has been thrown over. First of all it was thought to be only the flowering tops; then, later, the leaves, but that is questioned at the present time. There isn't very much we can hang our hats on to. The problem is here of defining this for purposes of legislation. I wonder whether we can take each of these questions in turn and discuss them, in an attempt to clarify the picture somewhat. (Reading first question): "What is the constituent in Cannabis Sativa which is definitely known to produce deleterious physiological effects upon the human body?"

We, I think, can assume for the moment we refer to those effects which are recognized as being the concomitant off smoking the substance. How do you feel about that, Dr. Voegtlin?

Dr. Voegtlin: I think we can say that the substance called cannabinol contains the chief specific pharmacological principle or principles of the plant.

Mr. Wollner: Is that a fact?

Dr. Voegtlin: As far as we can tell. Recently a crystalline substance has been isolated from the oil.

Mr. Wollner: It is active in that form?

Dr. Voegtlin: As far as I know the pharmacological activity has not been tested.

Mr. Wollner: We separate cannabinol from the plant and crystallize it. If we give an animal an injection from that, will we get the same sort of reaction as it if were smoked?

Dr. Voegtlin: The work of Cahn on the crystalline substance was published in 1932, but apparently it has not been investigated as to its pharmacological action. Straub has made partially purified preparations -- not crystalline -- and has studied their pharmacological action on animals and humans. He come to the conclusion that the products give essentially the same response in humans as does the crude drug.

Mr. Wollner: Could we have that reference, Doctor, again?

Dr. Voegtlin: Professor Walter Straub, University of Munich, on "Bavarian Hashisch". They tested Cannabis grown locally and found it contained a much lower percentage of resin -- about one-tenth, if I am right -- as compared with the Persian product. The crude resin was partially purified. After calling attention to the lack of reliability of the bio-assay of Cannabis, they tested their products on rabbits and determined the dose which was just sufficient to produce anesthesia taken by human volunteers was found to produce definite symptoms characteristic of Cannabis. Two doses produced more marked symptoms. These are described in detail, especially from the psychiatric standpoint. This is the first careful psychiatric study of Cannabis. The doses used in terms of weight were very small. Whether to toxic symptoms were due to one substance or more than one, it is hard to say. Is it essential to attribute the action to one definite constituent?

Mr. Wollner: It would be preferable. We might be able to exempt certain parts definitely as coming within the purview of the law. If you can't do that you have to include everything. What do you think, Mr. Tennyson?

Mr. Tennyson: That's the way I feel.

Mr. Wollner: What do you think, Mr. Anslinger?

Mr. Anslinger: I think so too.

Mr. Wollner: If it weren't used sometimes in legitimate industry we wouldn't care.

Dr. Voegtlin: May I ask whether you have carried out any tests here on the presence of active principles in the different parts of the plant?

Mr. Wollner: No.

Dr. Voegtlin: Testing say, the leaves, the seeds etc.?

Mr. Wollner: Matchett and Valaer: Have you tried these?

Negative response.

Mr. Wollner:

The only one who has done work of that kind is Dr. Munch. He will be here shortly. His results, working with the seed, showed two principles, one excitant and one depressive. Of course, the work has not been confirmed yet. If you accept the possibility of that, that is what you run into. That is why I asked that question. Is it possible that you have here the same situation as in opium, where you have a series of bi-alkaloids?

Mr. Tennyson: Just to clarify the situation, I would like to ask, from the standpoint of the layman, the difference between cannabin, cannabinol, and resin?

Mr. Wollner: Dr. Voegtlin, can you clarify that point?

Dr. Voegtlin: The resin is the crude secretion expressed from the plant. Cannabinol is a partially purified preparation of the resin. Resin and cannabinol are usually considered as containing the specific principles of Cannabis. As I said before, Cahn has applied the name Cannabinol to his crystalline substance, but this has not as yet been shown to be physiologically active. The word Cannabin is loosely used by different authors for impure products obtained from the resin.

Mr. Tennyson: Is the drug principle only from the resin?

Mr. Williams: I believe Cannaben is the name applied to the alkaloid.

Mr. Wollner: Isn't it true, that on the nether side of the leaves there are long hairs among which are sacs which secrete this resin analogous to opium?

Mr. Tennyson: Can that be obtained from the seed or the stalk?

Mr. Wollner: That is the question. It can be obtained from the flowering tops like opium. Can we define it as coming from the leaves and the flowering tops, when later we may find it comes also from the seeds and the stalk?

Mr. Tennyson: Can you identify it? If a substance contains cannabinol, can you by some process tell it is there?

Mr. Wollner: If it is present in certain quantities and in a certain state. That to a layman is no answer at all. If it exists in the form Dr. Voegtlin has mentioned, we can identify it if it is there in sensible quantities. We do not know whether we can identify it if it were in a form generically on either side of it. We do not know what it is converted into if it stays in the open. Specifically, from your point of view, we do not know whether if you dehydrated the flowering tops for two years you could reactivate it.

Mr. Tennyson: As I understand it, Dr. Voegtlin, the resin is not designated as cannabinol.

Dr. Voegtlin: Cannabinol is an extract made from the resin.

Mr. Tennyson: The point is, we could not start with cannabinol as the fundamental of this drug for purposes of legislation, could we?

Mr. Wollner: No, you could not.

Mr. Valaer: I would like to make a practical suggestion. In growing the two kinds, male and female plants, in my back yard, I extracted a green resin from both plants. It looked exactly alike. There was not enough material to make fine extractions for they appeared to be the same. There are more leaves on the female plant. In the male, there is hardly anything to really make a cigarette out of, but those leaves had the same sort of green resin that was described by various authors as being found in the female plant. Whether the physiological characteristics might be different or not, I do not know, but they certainly look the same and both gave the same Beam reaction.

Mr. Wollner: To confirm your work, Dr. Munch has done a microscopic examination of the male plant and found exactly the same sacs there as in the female, though many less of them.

Dr. Dewey: As a matter of fact the cannabis from Indian seed grown in this country 35 or 40 years ago produced a plant with both male and female flowers on the same plant. That's not uncommon with plants taken out of their ordinary habitat.

Mr. Valaer: The seeds in my little investigation were furnished by Dr. Dewey, and it seemed there were as many male as female seeds.

Dr. Dewey: You never can tell by the seeds which they are. They range from 60 percent to 40 percent always.

Mr. Anslinger: Did the male plant mature earlier than the female?

Mr. Valaer: Yes. I brought specimens of both kinds over. The male plant was dry while the female plant was still green and pliable. Some of the green pollen formed early in the male plant, and in order to get some seeds with it I shook some onto the female plants. Evidently I did fertilize them, because this is the third year, and I had volunteers this spring. It was three years ago I made the test, and last year and this year they showed up again.

Mr. Wollner: Do you see what we are up against, Mr. Tennyson?

Mr. Tennyson: Yes. I would like to ask Dr. Dewey a question if I may, to bring out the possibility off varieties in this plant. A question has been raised as to the difference between Cannabis Americana and Cannabis Indica. My impression, according to past talks over the telephone with Dr. Dewey, was that they are all the same.

Dr. Dewey: Three are many forms or types which are quite different, but the differences are only in degree. There are no distinct differences permitting a specific description I brought an illustration of the plants as they grow. There is the Cannabis Indica described by La Marsh in 1788, and in 1901; if he had my own plants he could not have made a more accurate description.

Mr. Wollner: What can we be sure of?

Mr. Anslinger: The danger in a definition would be to describe one species like Indian hemp or Cannabis Sativa L. or Cannabis Indica. We've got to be all-inclusive.

Mr. Wollner: Is there a generic title?

Dr. Dewey: There is only one species, but different forms.

Mr. Wollner: What would be the term under which we would be certain of including all forms?

Dr. Dewey: Cannabis Sativa L.

Dr. Sievers: Unless you want to say Cannabis Sativa and all varieties, if that would help any.

Mr. Tennyson: We discovered a field in Massachusetts, which has a law prohibiting the raising of Indian hemp, and the man said he was raising Cannabis Americana. It raised a nice question and might have availed him something in court if there is any distinction between Indian hemp and American.

Mr. Wollner: This is a basis we can all agree upon, then, that the designation be Cannabis Sativa L. That would include the plant in any stage off growth or development from the seed onward. Or would we have to further define that, Dr. Dewey?

Dr. Dewey: I don't think so. Cannabis will cover the plant in all forms.

Mr. Wollner: Is there any question as to identification of the seed? Suppose the possession of the seed were proscribed by law and a man were found with a parcel of it. Is there any possibility of error?

Dr. Dewey: I don't think so. The seed is very characteristic. There are varieties in size ranging from 50 to 75% in different forms. I don't know of any seed that can be mistaken for it though.

Mr. Wollner: Would we have to actually plant the seed and see what happens to definitely establish that this is the seed?

Mr. Valaer: I would like to quote Dr. George L. Keenan: "The most characteristic seed that I have ever examined is the cannabis seed." It is the easiest part of the plant to identify. I don't believe that difficulty will ever come up.

Mr. Wollner: Have you had any experience, Mr. Tennyson?

Mr. Tennyson: Not in seed. From what I can learn from Mr. Valaer and Mr. Simonds, it occurred to us that some one might take this abstract and impregnate tobacco, and we wonder whether it would be possible to identify that?

Mr. Wollner: I think that is an enforcement problem which would have to be predicated on present methods of identification and what can be developed. My thought was to first define the subject we are dealing with. Let's agree on the terminology with reference to this plant marihuana, Cannabis Indica, or Cannabis American. There seems to be no question that if we call it Cannabis Sativa we include all forms of the plant. The question is this: Can the plant in any of its forms be mistaken for any other plant?

Dr. Dewey: I don't know of any other plant. The leaf is very characteristic.

Mr. Wollner: Dr. Sievers, how do you feel?

Dr. Sievers: I want to confirm what Mr. Valaer said; it is very easy to identify and there is no other seed known that could be mistaken for it. Some of the nettles come the closest, I believe. As to the character of the seed, Mr. Keenan told me just the other day that there was no other seed known that would be mistaken for it.

Mr. Wollner: Dr. Munch, we are at the present time on the question of defining terms in reference to this problem. We have reached the point where all of us agree that if we refer to this species as Cannabis Sativa L. we refer to it in all stages of growth and development, and all the related members of the same family. The question has come up as to whether there is any possibility of confounding the seeds or the leaves separated from the stalks, or the flowering tops of any of the plants generically listed under this title, with any other type of plant.

Dr. Munch: In our experience, as far as the microscopic examination goes, we think we can distinguish Cannabis Sativa from any other plant that has been submitted.

Mr. Wollner: What is the reason for the doubt implied by your statement?

Dr. Munch: We have only examined about fifty different species of plants. There might be something we don't know about. Thus far, we have not had any difficulty in distinguishing Cannabis.

Mr. Wollner: Regardless of the state of dehydration?

Dr. Munch: Regardless.

Mr. Wollner: Is that purely visual, or is a chemical test included?

Dr. Munch: Only microscopic tests have been conducted in detail.

Mr. Wollner: In aging the plant, is there any likelihood of what you refer to as the source of the resin being destroyed or in any way hidden or assimilated in the body of the leaf in such a manner you could not recognize it?

Dr. Munch: I would have to qualify my answer to that. I haven't examined material less than three or four months old, and the literature states that these glandular cells do not appear until the plant is at least two months old. Under a variety of conditions, our microscopic examinations have always shown the presence of the typical glandular cells. The microscope seems to work under all conditions.

Mr. Wollner: Could we add to our definition that, regardless of the state of the plant, we could always identify any portion as belonging to this family? I was just wondering whether we could back up anything we could say. Could we do anything to the plant which would prevent us from identifying it? Let's say it had the age of about one year.

Dr. Munch: You are thinking about the leaf of the plant?

Mr. Wollner: Yes.

Dr. Munch: I think we can answer that in the affirmative. I think that under ordinary conceivable conditions we could identify it.

Mr. Wollner: Dr. Voegtlin, how do you react?

Dr. Voegtlin: I'm not a botanist. Suppose you only had fragments of leaves or seeds, could you identify them?

Dr. Munch: You could microscopically.

Dr. Dewey: That's right.

Mr. Valaer: At one time I had to examine a cigarette which was a mixture of tobacco and marijuana. It did not seem difficult at all to distinguish between ordinary tobacco structure and the other. It was a coarse yellow structure. It was just like picking out a pea from a bean, almost, under the microscope. In this first experience it seemed a very simple matter.

Dr. Fuller: There are other characteristics of the leaves besides the glands. I was looking at the pictorial microscopic fragments of Karma yesterday, and there are twenty things that might be concerned in distinguishing them. Cannabis is easy in one way, because there is only one species for the whole family. No other plant answers that description.

Dr. Dewey: It was the oldest plant described -- at least 2700 BC. That description has come down without question to the present time.

Dr. Fuller: They have references of its use in India for the purposes we are discussing.

Mr. Wollner: Is there any part of the plant we can exempt from any official cognizance?

Dr. Sievers: I could suggest something, but in view of Dr. Munich's work I am not so sure. It was always my understanding that the mature seed was harmless, but I would like to hear what Dr. Munch says.

Mr. Wollner: Would you mind telling us, Dr. Munch, what your recent experience has been?

Dr. Munch: I would be very glad to. We became interested in connection with the study of the possibility of developing biochemical methods for detecting materials in the saliva of animals, particularly men and horses. We studied two lots of hemp seed bought from feed stores, and a third lot which I separate by have from Cannabis Sativa plants grown under my personal observation in Glenolden, Pennsylvania. All three lots behaved in the same way. Ether removed the fat. Alcohol extracts of the de-fatted material had either a depressive or stimulating effect on mice, cats, dogs, and horses. We went a step further and added norite to the alcohol solution. After norite treatment the solution was lighter in color and contained the principle giving the stimulating reaction. We next eluted with chloroform, which gave us a cheesy-like material soluble in alcohol, and producing only a depressant effect. When we took extracts of commercial material (consisting of the leaves and fruit) and tried them on our mice they showed either a depressive or stimulating reaction; when we carefully removed all the fruits, then the extracts of the leaves had a depressant effect only. Our suggestion is that the stimulating principle of the fruit may go in with the depressant of the leaves and the resultant extract may show either stimulating or depressing effects, or nothing.

Dr. Voegtlin: Did you try it on dogs?

Dr. Munch: No.

Dr. Voegtlin: There was no ataxia?

Dr. Munch: No. The extracts of the fruit do not produce ataxia. In fact, they do not produce a typical cannabis reaction.

Dr. Fuller: I think the depressing effect would be similar to that of the barbiturates.

Dr. Voegtlin: In terms of seed used, what is the dose as compared with the flowering tops?

Dr. Munch: For the depressive type of effect?

Dr. Voegtlin: Yes.

Dr. Munch: Approximately ten times as large as the leaves, on mice.

Dr. Matchett: Isn't it true that the extract from the leaves would be different from cannabinol in this case?

Dr. Munch: We did not do any chemical work, but I expect they would differ.

Mr. Tipton: It would appear there are at least three principles we have to deal with.

Mr. Wollner: There is this to be said. We know that the principle won't stand rigorous treatment. Is it definitely known that cannabis does the job?

Dr. Munch: I evade answering that by saying I have never seen cannabinol. I have attempted to duplicate some of the work reported in the literature, but have not gotten satisfactory results.

Dr. Wollner: I would like to see reference to this: where a man has taken cannabinol, purified it and found it to be active. Did Fraenkel do any tests?

Dr. Munch: Yes. His work was with a certain product "Cannabinol" -- an oil -- which he found to be active. The work of Straub and the more recent chemical work of Cahn and Casparis shows that his suggested chemical constitution was not right.

Dr. Voegtlin: The doses Straub used were small, getting powerful effects in man, which would indicate that he dealt with a highly potent material.

Mr. Wollner: Dr. Fuller, I think you have something to say.

Dr. Fuller: I think I can add one or two points, from the experimental work I did covering about four years, some time ago, working with the plant on a rather extensive scale. We grew it by the acre -- fifteen or twenty acres at a time -- and concentrated on the bushy plant and from seed selection we got plants that would not grow over eight feet tall but were very bushy. That is, in the female. The male is more scraggly.

In the work I was doing we attempted to root up the male plants as fast as the blossoms became apparent so there would be no fertilization. I think, in planting as we used to, ten to a hill, we never get less than eight plants to come up and until they reached a certain stage we could not tell them apart. Some of these groups --- I don't know whether it is atmospheric conditions, soil conditions, or what -- seemed to develop more resin than others. One year we might get tops and leaves very sticky, and again they did not seem to be so much so.

After it is harvested and dried all you have to do is cut and shuck it like corn. There are always a certain number of seeds that will remain on the tops, especially where the plants are quite resinous.

Whether they can be gotten off by some process not known to the seed men I don't know, but it appears to me that the effect Dr. Munch has described probably came from a lack of thoroughness in removing that last portion of the resin, rather than any inherent substance in the interior of the seed itself. I am not saying that is the case, and don't want to cast any doubt on Dr. Munch's work, but am giving it as a suggestion. The plants I worked with were carried down to as ultimate a point as possible in the experiments that were conducted . This was done during the war. We were working with Dr. Sievers' office and trying to develop a drug industry. I found it was a very simple matter to concentrate the active principle, and I believe there is more than one as we got more than one effect-- depression, uncoordination, and a narcosis on dogs.

The experiment I carried out was done with an extract from the leaf and the seed and tops down to a point where we had a very sticky deep green extract, soluble in petroleum either and that, in turn, was treated with alkali which removed a great deal of resinous material which I assumed was inert and, carrying down further, we found this oily residue which was extremely active. The fact that the product had been obtained using a strong alkali, say 10 percent, would indicate to me that this substance cannabinol is not very phenolic in character. If it had been, it was my opinion it would have stayed in the alkali and not gone into the petroleum either. All this petroleum either extract was extremely active, and I was very anxious to go on with that to see if I could not get out some things to which activity could be actually ascribed, but, unfortunately, the people backing the work died and my experiments ended at that point. The points I want to make are these:

You will get drugs, cannabis, of probable different strength, depending on the season, and the development of this resinous matter. It is possible that what we consider as an active principle in the seeds is due to the adherent resinous matter which is difficult to abrade. I believe nobody knows definitely what, in a chemical way, the active principle of cannabis is, and I am almost of the opinion that there is more than one. I worked with the leaves from the male tops before being dried, and they are active, containing some resin. There is an active constituent there, and there is no reason why, if anybody wanted to raise a crop of cannabis they could not gather the male tops for that purpose. The female contains more because of the bunchy conditions of the tops. In other words, I believe both plants contain active material but, of course, the female is the more lucrative source.

Mr. Wollner: This confirms a lot you have said, Dr. Munch. You confirmed that fact with the male plant.

Dr. Munch: Yes. Exception is taken to only one point of Dr. Fuller's discussion. I set my hard-working assistants to work picking off the shells, and we still got both the reactions from the decorticated plants.

Mr. Wollner: Mr. Anslinger, I think that answers some doubts in your mind as to the Uniform State Act.

Mr. Anslinger: Yes. At this point, with regard to what Dr. Fuller had to say about several constituents, I think we might consider the experiments made by the Medical Division of the War Department in Panama. They took ten or twenty soldiers, gave them cigarettes to smoke and observed them over a given period. It seems every man got a different reaction. Some were depressed, some stimulated, some morose, some hysterical, some slept, and some became wild. It bears out what Dr. Fuller had to say about the possibility of there being a number of active principles.

Dr. Voegtlin: I don't know whether that necessarily follows. The way I understand the action of cannabis is that it does away with cerebral inhibitions. Now, that might produce any sort of reaction, according to the individual who is exposed to the drug. I think that's the reason we get these different manifestations. For instance, in this paper, (referring to Bavaran Haschish by Straub.) scientific people would have a very keen perception of their scientific problems, but they did not develop mania as some people do. It's the psychological constitution of the individual which determines the response. I agree there is a good chance we are dealing with different principles, though this has not be proven or disproven.

Dr. Wollner: I think I am inclined to agree with Dr. Voegtlin. The thing has not been sufficiently investigated to say definitely that there is only one or that there is more than one. From the legal point of view we cannot tie up any legislation with the term cannabinol. I am afraid that has to be out until we know more, and that may take thirty or forty years. There is a concomitant to that, since we do not know the active ingredient or ingredients, we are not in a position to say one chemical treatment or another might not produce those active ingredients from that portion of the plant which at the present time is believed to be totally innocuous. We might be able to take the stalk which is today a harmless part of the plant and generate it from copious quantities of the active ingredient.

Mr. Tennyson: That bears directly on the discussion we had on limiting this for the purpose of a workable piece of legislation to flowering tops, seeds, and leaves of the plant. Our idea was to attempt to help the hemp industry if we could do it.

Mr. Wollner: We might, among ourselves, compromise the situation. That situation must be acknowledged in the same way you have to accept the fact that morphine can be extracted from the stalk of the opium plant.

Mr. Anslinger: We might be in a bad position if we eliminated the stalks and later found it to be present in them.

Dr. Fuller: My experience with it was that the active principle was tied up in the resin -- whether this was gathered up and held there mechanically and did not exist in the more cellular portions of the plant I do not know. That was my only experience. I made no tests on the stems.

Mr. Anslinger: We could make those tests, couldn't we?

Mr. Wollner: I wonder whether our botanist friends could help us? What is the history of plants of this type? Are we likely to have them behaving as morphine and present in all parts of the plants?

Dr. Fuller: I can tell you our experience with belladonna, which is easily identified. The succulent parts, that is, the leaves toward the ends of the lateral stems and tops were always the most potent. We grew some that were over 2 percent alkaloid. As you come down to the big leaves which grew to maturity early and were beginning to disappear, there was very little alkaloid. The main stem and lateral stems that were woody were devoid of alkaloid. Toward the ends -- in the top stems -- we got alkaloid. Where they were more or less woody there was none.

Mr. Wollner: Wouldn't that be predicated on the sensitivity of your tests? Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that at any one time you would find it in the pipe lines?

Dr. Fuller: Yes, the pipe lines contained it all the way through as long as they were succulent. The root as well as the leaves of the belladonna contains the alkaloid. The woody stem did not contain it.

Dr. Sievers: The resin is probably parallel to essential oils which are present in leaves or flowers more than in the woody part. The stems as a rules contain a great deal less. Occasionally you will find it in the root. I hardly think the seed would contain much resin and at this time I would like to be put clear on what Dr. Munch has developed -- whether he really thinks the seed will produce any effects as the resin does.

Dr. Munch: The active material from the fruits does not produce the same type of pharmacological response as the active material from the leaves. We have instances recorded in the literature of narcotic effects on children from the fruits.

Mr. Tennyson: When you speak of fruits, do you include seed?

Dr. Munch: Technically this is a fruit and not seed.

Dr. Fuller: The words are more or less synonymous in the way they are used.

Mr. Anslinger: There is a case on record, I believe, of a prisoner who had a canary bird in the cell and the warden found he was taking the seed brought in to the bird.

Dr. Munch: May I offer for the record several lines of French? In a publication by Dardanane, on page 20, he is referring to some work done by Bouquet. The essence of it is that physiological tests upon the twigs of Indian hemp showed 0.40 percent, whereas the inflorescences showed 7.20 percent of resin.

Dr. Fuller: That sounds to me as if it was an immature plant.

Mr. Anslinger. Bouquet is working on this now.

Dr. Dewey: It says the young shoots here showed a very high percentage in comparison with the old shoots.

Mr. Sievers: The old stems would still contain less.

Dr. Munch: Yes.

Mr. Tennyson: It occurs to me, Dr. Wollner, that if we get a law we have to support it and everything in it when we go before the committee. We have here some other uses -- I don't know whether I am anticipating one of these questions or not. There is a use for fiber, for bird-seed, and for oil in the varnish industry. Those people will probably come in and complain about what they consider a foolish attempted control if we try to make this all-inclusive. If we are going to cast suspicion on every part of the plant we certainly will have to be fortified.

Mr. Wollner: I would offer this question to that, although we think it is well taken. It does not follow that because the seeds or the stalks are potential sources that we wish legislation to control their use. I do feel that we should be in a position to know what the situation is. I think that would be a preferred position to be in -- to be able to say that there is a possibility, but if it is existing, it is in amounts not sufficient to warrant its inclusion.

Mr. Tennyson: We had a complaint from the Sherwin-Williams Company who wanted to start a farm. We tried to discourage that. The point was raised in connection with this tentative act we have drafted. We are faced, on account of constitutional limitations, with the necessity of drafting this as a tax measure, with lessening of application of the tax to the legitimate articles of commerce which are innocent. In that phase of the situation we have quite a problem to qualify the exemptions, say seed, where there is apparently such a use for it.

Mr. Wollner: One thing would help us a great deal. It would be relatively simple, I imagine, to delete certain portions of the plant if we could say how much of the active principle was available in those parts of the plant. I turn to Dr. Voegtlin on this. Is it possible to use a bio-assay?

Dr. Voegtlin: No, I don't think it is characteristic enough. We are interested in the psychic manifestations which are produce by this product. These are, of course, not recognized in dogs or rabbits.

Mr. Wollner: Dr. Voegtlin, you mentioned that article by Straub in which he created this active principle in terms of the corneal effect.

Dr. Voegtlin: The criticism of the bio-assay on dogs holds also for the bio-assay on rabbits. both methods are based on the degree of cerebral depression produced. The symptoms in dogs and rabbits are not specific for cannabis, but occur also after alcohol and other drugs having a similar pharmacological action.

Mr. Wollner: Cannabis Sativa is included in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia in unit doses?

Dr. Voegtlin: Yes.

Mr. Wollner: How are they measured?

Dr. Voegtlin: By the bio-assay method. I was a member of the Standardization Committee of the League of Nations and that is one thing we discussed and we came to the conclusion it was not reliable. Most pharmacopoeias do not contain a bio-assay for cannabis, although the American one does.

Dr. Munch: If I may intrude, that bio-assay was in the 10th, but is not in the 11th edition of the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. When the American Drug Manufacturers Association submitted samples they obtained such inconsistent results that the bio-assay was deleted from U.S.P. XI. Qualitatively, the procedure was all right. We found, in our dog tests, that only about one dog in a hundred had a sufficiently developed brain to be useful. I made a detailed study of the rabbits corneal anesthesia method. We were unable to obtain any quantitative results with fluid extract. We do think it is qualitatively valuable.

Mr. Wollner: Could you answer this question: Has an active principle ever been separated from Cannabis Sativa, which was not associated with cannabinol?

Dr. Munch: If, by cannabinol, you refer to a particular product mentioned in the literature by Fraenkel, then I can answer the question. I believe that if the material reported by Fraenkel is considered as an entity, there may be another constituent in the leaf of Cannabis. Subsequent work has not confirmed the original cannabinol, and there are possibly three or four active principles at the present time, depending on the author.

Mr. Wollner: We are after limiting specifications. It is not necessary that the active principle be cannabinol or that it be the one and only, but if we could definitely establish that the active principle has been found then we could say "a substance which contains less than a certain amount of cannabinol is exempt." Do you see what I mean? How do you feel, Commissioner?

Mr. Anslinger: I would like to ask Dr. Munch a question. I thought you had found one other principle?

Dr. Munch: I believe there are at least three active principles.

Mr. Wollner: What would the legal aspect of this be, Mr. Tennyson? Would it be legally sound to measure the activity of the product by the amount of a material which is present and always associated with the material?

Mr. Tennyson: This is a taxing measure, you know. We like to think of it as some standard definite term that can be referred to that everybody knows about. If you are going to tax something on the basis of its strength, you have a lot of trouble.

Mr. Wollner: You tax liquors by nature of their content and material.

Mr. Anslinger: Wouldn't that place a colossal burden on your division, Dr. Wollner, when we get these cases into court?

Mr. Wollner: I think the Beams reaction would give evidence of cannabinol.

Mr. Tipton: If the Commissioner finds a field of fifteen acres growing will it be necessary to test ever plant to determine that, or can you, when you have tested one strain, say the rest of the field is the same?

Mr. Wollner: That would not be necessary, would it? If you find a man with one hundred heroin pills it is not necessary to test the hundred. We are trying to exempt the usable parts of the plant.

Mr. Valaer: At the present time the chemist has an easy time identifying. I would rather see us go further and say, identify a green resin which is apparently in both male and female plants. If you have to find a definite crystalline substance it is going to put a burden on the chemist. I believe we are going far enough to keep within practical grounds. If it is not a definite structure we could say it is a green resin. We have been very successful in court. I don't know of any case where anybody has fallen down. If we go too far I am afraid we are going to get into trouble. On this data here of the League of Nations on which some of the best minds in Europe have expressed themselves one man calls Cannabis one thing and one another thing. They all agree that there is a crude green substance. If you want to get into effect within the next year or so, if we get as far as a green resin characteristic of the plant, we will accomplish something.

Mr. Anslinger: I am afraid of making it too complicated. The agents out in the sticks would be confused.

Mr. Wollner: What's wrong with Mr. Valaer's approach?

Mr. Pierce: That would make the question easier constitutionally to defend I think, than if you were to link it with some constituent part.

Mr. Wollner: Suppose Dr. Matchett, as a result of his investigations in the laboratory, finds he is able to recover a certain amount of this green resin from the stalks, what is Commissioner Anslinger supposed to do then? For the purpose of this act could we define the substance first as a resin, secondly, as the leaves of the male and female plant, third, as the tops of the plants?

Mr. Pierce: Would that include bird seed?

Mr. Tennyson: No.

Mr. Wollner: If Sherwin-Williams wants to put in an acreage then they could do it.

Mr. Fuller: They can winnow the seeds out of the flowering tops.

Mr. Anslinger: The reason I am after the seed is the preventive measure. Getting the seed out will make our trouble disappear.

Mr. Sievers: Isn't that the same situation you have with regard to poppy? You can grow them in this country for seed legally, can't you?

Mr. Tennyson: What you say is probably true, but we like to discourage that as far as possible.

Mr. Sievers: There is no law at present that would prohibit me from growing poppy as a seed poppy.

Mr. Anslinger: In every case I know of where it was done we got the defendant.

Mr. Sievers: We had a project years ago where the scheme was to grow the poppy and let it mature and have the seed as a side crop, and we extracted morphine and other products. We did not go far with it because the Secretary did not approve.

Dr. Fuller: Can't you have some provision in your legislation for destroying the seed after the oil has been taken out?

Mr. Tipton: I would like to pursue this definition further. That sounds pretty good if you can define this greenish substance.

Mr. Wollner: I don't know whether it would be necessary to define it beyond stating its generic state: "The resin which is derived from this plant."

Mr. Tipton: Given a batch of greenish resin, you can determine that?

Mr. Wollner: Yes, I think that can be done. That is a question of laboratory technique.

Mr. Tipton: Can you say that the active principle is in the resin?

Mr. Wollner: Yes, we can definitely say that the active principle is in the resin.

Mr. Tipton: Your suggested definition is the flowering tops, the leaves, and the greenish resin?

Mr. Wollner: But that doesn't satisfy Commission Anslinger because potentially every seed is harmful.

Mr. Anslinger: Our experience has been that in almost every large seizure made we got a large quantity of the seed from the defendant for growing purposes.

Mr. Wollner: What would happen if we proscribed the use of seed for bird seed?

Mr. Anslinger: Dr. Munch told me it would stop the birds from singing.

Dr. Munch: The difficulty in Philadelphia now may be illustrated by one of these photographs. The individuals testified that this crop had been grown from bird seed scattered on the ground.

Mr. Wollner: If we proscribe the use of this stuff as bird seed we could eliminate that.

Mr. Pierce: Does ordinary commercial bird seed have any particular effect on its use?

Mr. Wollner: Bird seed only in part contains the Cannabis Sativa seed. I do not think our state of knowledge on that is sufficient. Not enough work has been done to say that it is detrimental tot the birds. The idea would be to license the growing of this stuff and to rule out the use of it for bird seed. If anybody else had it after that they would be guilty of a violation.

Mr. Tennyson: The tentative idea was to place a transfer tax on whatever we should cover, for instance, marihuana, or a general term which would be recognized -- a moderate tax for recognized purposes and a prohibitive transfer tax for any other purpose. What was the first amount?

Mr. Tipton: $1.00 to register.

Dr. Dewey: The use of hemp seed for bird seed costs about $1.00 per hundred pounds.

Mr. Wollner: I don't see that it would present any difficulties from the point of view of our technical side to include all the parts of the plants we know to contribute to the drug.

Mr. Pierce: We have excluded transfers to certain users. We would like to know if it would be safe to exclude transfers to persons just selling bird seed and who do not plant it? Can any ill effect come from this?

Mr. Wollner: Suppose a man said he just discarded some bird seed and threw it out his window?

Mr. Pierce: If it is growing he is liable for the tax.

Mr. Wollner: Suppose he plants it on someone else's property?

Dr. Dewey: Practically all of our wild hemp is from bird seed. I don't know of a single instance in America where the fiber type has become wildly grown.

Mr. Tipton: Is hemp seed indispensable from bird seed? If Commissioner Anslinger would agree to cut out bird seed it would certainly help the bill and enforcement.

Mr. Anslinger: Can they prove that the birds need this food?

Dr. Matchett: Two people told me the hemp seed had potentialities for evil for the bird if the husks were not removed; furthermore, that the seed is an oily seed and is dangerous especially if the oil is rancid. I gathered that the hemp would not be indispensable, but did not ask it directly.

Mr. Wollner: Can we start setting up a definition for the purposes of the legal division? We include in that the resin derived from the plant Cannabis Sativa.

Dr. Fuller: Would you want to include the solid extract too?

Mr. Wollner: Any extract or derivative thereof.

Mr. Tennyson: You would not need to do that.

Mr. Wollner: In other words, the usual terminology would obtain with reference to this. Can't we get away from the use of the term marihuana?

Mr. Tennyson: We just happened to mention it as a general term.

Mr. Wollner: I think we would be on sounder ground if we left t in the scientific name Cannabis Sativa Linne.

Mr. Tipton: In a statute you can pick a term and define it as you please. Marihuana struck us as a good short form. Its meaning in any other regard would be of no consequence.

Mr. Tennyson: But don't you think, in order to be a little more scientific, we might call it Cannabis?

Dr. Munch: Certain state laws prohibit the use of marihuana. If your Federal law defines marihuana, will that strengthen your state laws?

Mr. Tennyson: One of the purpose of the conference is to give the States a better definition.

Mr. Wollner: We can say that Cannabis Sativa means Cannabis Sativa Linne.

Mr. Pierce: Isn't there some advantage in using the popular term marihuana?

Mr. Wollner: It is technically unsound and wrong, but that's up to you men to decide. Whatever you call it, it means Cannabis Sativa L, and any preparations, derivatives, etc. -- what else should there be?

Mr. Tennyson: "The salts, derivatives and preparations" or "any resin, salt, derivative and preparation thereof." Do you want to give that? Marihuana means Cannabis Sativa L. and any resin, compound, mixture, salt, preparation, etc." Would that mean everything?

Dr. Dewey: Yes.

Mr. Wollner: Cannabis means the flowering tops, the leaves and any resin, compound, mixture, salt, derivative or preparation of the plant Cannabis Sativa L.

Dr. Munch: That will include the fiber, won't it?

Mr. Pierce: We can exclude the fiber.

Dr. Munch: In the Mexican Pharmacopoeia it says that marihuana refers to the feminine inflorescence of Cannabis Sativa.

Mr. Wollner: Can we deliberately exempt the stalks?

Mr. Tipton: I think it would be better to say "Marihuana is the resin, and the flowering tops and leaves of the plant Cannabis Sativa L., the preparations, etc." That will eliminate the stalks yet include the resin.

Mr. Tennyson: Is the "flowering top" sufficient to include the seed.

Mr. Wollner: It is not quite specific:

Mr. Valaer: Let me give you a rough idea of what I have in mind. For the purposes of this act marihuana shall include all of the species of Cannabis Sativa Lynne, Noraceae and its synonyms: Cannabis eradica paludosa endrs; Cannabis indica Lamarck; Cannabis macoosperma stokes; Cannabis chinensis, delile; Cannabis giganta, delile; and by all other designations known. The provisions of this act shall pertain to all parts of the pistillate (female plant) and all parts of the staminate (male plant) and all parts that have been found to secrete the characteristic resin of Cannabis Sativa L.

Mr. Wollner: That throws it wide open again. We would have you out in the field looking for secretions. I don't think you give us enough leeway for exempting the stalks. The suggestion of Mr. Tipton fortifies us in this respect. The stalks as such cannot be smoked.

Dr. Matchett: Could it be possible that the young plants might have the resin in their stalks?

Dr. Fuller: Put in the word mature.

Mr. Wollner: I think that's a good point. The only thing you want to exclude are the mature stalks. I don't see any reason why that should not be done.

Mr. Tipton: I can't think of any.

Mr. Wollner: Would you be authorized to issue specific regulations interpreting this?

Mr. Tipton: You have to be pretty definite in your act.

Mr. Wollner: Would you be undertaking too much if you exempted the oil?

Mr. Pierce: In ou transfer tax we could make exceptions for the paint companies.

Mr. Wollner: If you are going to take care of these things in your transfer tax why not take care of your stalk there too?

Mr. Pierce: We could. We are attempting to thrust the marihuana traffic into legal channels where it could be taxed some.

Mr. Wollner: What is that predicated on?

Mr. Tennyson: Physical transfer:

Mr. Wollner: Suppose I grew the stuff myself.

Mr. Tipton: You are taxed as a producer.

Mr. Wollner: Would the tax on that be prohibitive?

Mr. Tipton: No, by paying $25.00 I think you can grow and smoke all the marihuana you like, yourself.

Mr. Wollner: Is it incumbent upon you to see that no one else smokes it?

Mr. Pierce: There is a transfer tax which is prohibitive, and, of course, criminal penalties.

Mr. Wollner: And the responsibility rests on the enforcement officer to show that there was a transfer?

Mr. Pierce: yes.

Mr. Wollner: Mr. Pierce, would you try to re-word that definition?

Mr. Pierce: How would it be if you let us work out the definition. We have pretty well in mind what you wish to have exempted.

Mr. Wollner: Commissioner Anslinger, have you any suggestions?

Mr. Anslinger: No, I think that's going to be a great improvement over the definition we started with. I wanted to show the extent of the traffic and give some of the gentleman an idea of this problem to show we are not on a fishing expedition. Last year there were 296 seizures we know about. The illicit traffic has shown up in almost every state.

There was a question about the forms of Cannabis derivatives employed medicinally. This will take care of that trade, won't it? Is the tax to be prohibitive as to the trade? We prepared for the legal division a statement as to what was used. We had a list of about three hundred compounds.

Mr. Pierce: We have allowed exemptions in another part of the law for medical or veterinary uses.

Mr. Tennyson: Even that's going to be awfully expensive, Mr. Pierce:

Mr. Anslinger: I was surprised to hear some medical experts at Geneva recently say that is has absolutely no medical use. I think that the Indian delegate wanted to know what he was going to do for his corn plaster, and one of the medicos said it wasn't the cannabis, but something else, that had the analgesic effect.

Dr. Munch: We have shown that Cannabis has no local analgesic effect.

Mr. Anslinger: (Reading the 14th question.) "What are the proofs that the use of marihuana in any of its forms, are habit-forming or addicted, and what are the indications and positive proofs that such addiction develops socially undesirable characteristics in the user?" We have a lot of cases showing that it certainly develops undesirable characteristics. We have a case of a boy, about 15, (reads from report of case). This took place in a community playground in Finely, Ohio. The playground supervisors were the men who were selling the stuff. It all developed from the case of this youngster who was evidently going crazy. That's only one of the many cases we have.

Mr. Tipton: Have you a lot of cases on this--horror stories -- that's what we want.

Mr. Tennyson: Isn't there some literature on the effects, Dr. Voegtlin?

Dr. Voegtlin: Oh, yes.

Mr. Anslinger: And it leads to insanity?

Dr. Voegtlin: I think it is an established fact that prolonged use leads to insanity in certain cases, depending upon the amount taken, of course. Many people take it and do not go insane, but many do.

Mr. Wollner: At the League of Nations they whitewashed the whole thing.

Dr. Dewey: Colonel Crane wrote me it did cause trouble over there.

Mr. Tipton: the Commission inquired into the fact and said there was no more reason to control the hashish than to control alcohol. If it leads to insanity, and we have a lot of horror stories, we can build it up.

Mr. Wollner: There was a report given out by Wilbert in 1910 in which he claimed, as one of his conclusions, that there was no evidence of a habit-forming nature from the use of Cannabis by the Anglo-Saxon race. I just mention that because it may be pulled on you in opposition some time.

Dr. Dewey: Dr. Patrick, of the Bureau of Chemistry, definitely stated it was the most dangerous habit-forming drug he had taken, and he tried all of them.

Mr. Wollner: Are there any other questions?

Mr. Sievers: I would like to ask what the situation is with regard to the seed. What about a person who wants to import the seed for bird seed or hemp oil?

Mr. Tennyson: That's something still to be determined when we consider this new definition. I am not quite sure myself just how that will be handled.

Mr. Tipton: The only thing I had in mind was that we would endeavor, by the use of exemptions, to protect the use for oil-producing hemp, and to discourage the use of bird seed, because bird seed, as the Commissioner remarks, results to a great extent in illicit usage.

Mr. Seivers: Will there be a tax on the seed when used for oil purposes?

Mr. Tipton: The transfer tax will be exempted there.

Mr. Pierce: I think we can work out the tax on medicinal uses so that it won't be prohibitive. The bird seed industry will be wiped out probably as far as hemp seed is concerned.

Mr. Tennyson: Dr. Munch, you are quite familiar with Sharpe & Dohme's method of manufacture, aren't you? I was thinking that this transfer tax would have to be appreciable at least, and if it were at the rate of $1.00 an ounce on the raw material and another dollar an ounce on the transfer of extract, it would be rather expensive.

Dr. Fuller: I think you will find that, while a great many preparations may use a small quantity, there won't be a great deal of it used medicinally. Bauer and Black, in Chicago, used a great deal in making a plaster at one time. the rest of it might use a few pounds a year and, perhaps, somebody making corn plaster would use some.

Mr. Tennyson: Veterinarians use a great deal, don't they?

Dr. Fuller: I don't think you will find the volume is very great. I think the ue of Cannabis is diminishing as a legitimate use. that is just my opinion. from the point of view of one who has studied the situation for a good many years.

Mr. Wollner: Gentlemen, I want to thank Dr. Fuller, Dr. Dewey, Dr. Veogtlin, Mr. Sievers, and Dr. Munch for their very kind assistance. I wonder if you gentlemen would be in a position to confer with us further after this have been given more consideration?

Assent.
=-=-=-=-=-

STATEMENT OF H. J. ANSLINGER,

COMMISSIONER OF NARCOTICS, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS OF THE TREASURY
DEPARTMENT

MR. ANSLINGER: Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee, we are having a great deal of difficulty. Last year there were 338 seizures of marihuana in some 31 states involving several hundred tons of growing plants, bulk marihuana, and cigarettes.

The states are asking for our help. We are trying to give it to them, but we are rather limited in our ability at the present time.

I have made a statement before the Ways and Means Committee, which is in the record, but since that time I want to point out to the committee an incident which occurred on June 28, at Abingdon, Va. There was a marihuana farm at that point, and the man who was growing those plants had been connected with a family that was engaged in smuggling narcotic drugs into Atlanta penitentiary some years ago. When we heard Dewey Doss was engaged in the production of marihuana, we went after him, and we got the state officers to make a case against him. We could not do anything about that, although the information came to us first.

A month or so ago, down in Texas, a man was arrested on a Missouri Pacific train going north with a quantity of cannabis, and another man was arrested in the vicinity of this place, called Raymondsville, Texas. They had both stripped the plants on a hemp farm.

SENATOR BROWN: You mean they had taken the leaves off?

MR. ANSLINGER: They had taken the leaves off and the flowering tops.

I received this letter from an attorney at Houston, Texas, just the other day. This case involves a murder in which he alleges that his client, a boy 19 years old, had been addicted to the use of marihuana.

SENATOR BROWN: Shall we read this into the record?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; I shall be very glad if you will.

(The letter is as follows:)

Houston, Tex., July 7, 1937

H. J. Anslinger

United States Commissioner of Narcotics

Washington, DC

Dear sir:

Your article on Marihuana appearing in the July issue of the American is very useful as well as interesting.

this subject strikes close to home because of a client II have who not so long ago murdered in a brutal way a man who had befriended him in giving him a ride. This client is a boy 20 years of age and he explained to me he has been smoking marihuana for several years. I would like to have about 1 copies of your article and will gladly pay any necessary charges. I would appreciate an early reply.

Yours Truly,

Sidney Benbow

MR. ANSLINGER: I have another letter from the prosecutor at a place in New Jersey.

It is as follows:

The Interstate Commission on Crime

March 18, 1937

Charles Schwarz, Washington, DC

My Dear Mr. Schwarz:

That I fully appreciate the need for action, you may judge from the fact that last January I tried a murder case for several days, of a particularly brutal character in which one colored young man killed another, literally smashing his face and head to a pulp, as the enclosed photograph demonstrates. One of the defenses was that the defendant's intellect was so prostrated from his smoking marihuana cigarettes that he did not know what he was doing. The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to a long term of years. I am convinced that marihuana had been indulged in, that the smoking had occurred, and the brutality of the murder was accounted for by the narcotic, though the defendant's intellect had not been totally prostrate, so the verdict was legally correct. It seems to me that this instance might be of value to you in your campaign.

Sincerely yours,

Richard Hartshorne

Mr. Hartshorne is a member of the Interstate Commission on Crime. We have many cases of this kind.

SENATOR BROWN: It affects them that way?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes.

SENATOR DAVIS: (viewing a photograph presented by Mr. Anslinger) Was there in this case a blood or skin disease caused by marihuana?

MR. ANSLINGER: No; this is a photograph of the murdered man, Senator. It shows the fury of the murderer.

SENATOR BROWN: That is terrible.

MR. ANSLINGER: That is one of the worst cases that has come to my attention, and it is to show you its relation to crime that I am putting those two letters in the record.

SENATOR BROWN: The first letter is also very interesting.

MR. ANSLINGER: This first letter was from an attorney at Houston. In June of this year, at Geneva, an international committee of experts in going over the reports received from all over the world said that the reports thus far indicate that the medical value of cannabis derivatives is very doubtful. There is another report here from Dr. Paul Nicholas Leech.

SENATOR BROWN: That is, to make perfectly clear, its medical value is not very great, and there are many other drugs that may be used in place of it that are fully as good if not better?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; it is not indispensable.

SENATOR BROWN: I think some medical men say that if we had no such drug at all the medical profession would not be very greatly handicapped. That is, medical science would not be very greatly handicapped.

MR. ANSLINGER: I think they are pretty generally in agreement that its use could be abandoned without any suffering.

I have a few cases here that I would like to tell the committee about. In Alamosa, Colorado, they seem to be having a lot of difficulty. The citizens petitioned Congress for help, in addition to the help that is given them under state law. In Kansas and New Mexico also we have had a great deal of trouble.

Here is a typical illustration: A 15-year-old boy, found mentally deranged from smoking marihuana cigarettes, furnished enough information to police officers to lead to the seizure of 15 pounds of marihuana. That was seized in a garage in an Ohio town. These boys had been getting marihuana at a playground, and the supervisors there had been peddling it to children, but they got rather alarmed when they saw these boys were developing the habit, and particularly when this boy began to go insane.

In Florida some years ago we had the case of a 20-year-old boy who killed his brothers, a sister, and his parents while under the influence of marihuana.

Recently, in Ohio, there was a gang of very young men, all under 20 years of age, every one of whom had confessed that they had committed some 38 holdups while under the influence of the drug.

In another place in Ohio, a young man shot the hotel clerk while trying to hold him up. His defense was that he was under the influence of marihuana.

SENATOR BROWN: When a person smokes the cigarette, how long does the influence of the drug continue?

MR. ANSLINGER: From reports coming to me, I think it might last as long as 48 hours before the effects of the drug fully wear off.

SENATOR BROWN: I do not know whether it was your article I read, or an article from some other source, but I understand that experiments have been conducted, in which the persons smoking the marihuana have been kept under control after taking the drug. Do you know whether or not that demonstrated how long the effect would be felt?

MR. ANLSINGER: As I remember it, the effects in those cases were something like 48 hours, before they fully returned to their normal senses.

Here is a case in Baltimore, where a young man committed rape while under the influence of marihuana. He was hanged for it. Last fall, about September, we uncovered a field of several acres, growing right outside the city limits of Baltimore. Those men were selling it to New York, sending it all over the country, at $20 a pound.

SENATOR DAVIS: And how many pounds to the acre?

MR. ANSLINGER: That would depend, Senator. If they just took the flowering tops the yield would not be so big, but some of them strip off the leaves and the flowering tops and grind them up.

SENATOR DAVIS: Do the leaves have the same effect as the flowering tops?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; one of the Treasury's chemists is here who can verify that, sir. It has been proved by experts in other countries who have analyzed the leaves. They find that the resin is also present in the leaf. Our experiments have not shown the presence of any drug in the mature stalks, though. A one time we thought that the dangerous principle was only in the flowering top, but that is not true. What led us to the study as to whether there was resin in the leaves was the fact that we had seen so much of this stuff rolled up. In some cases only the leaves had been crushed, and they seemed to be giving the effect. In New Mexico, officers sent us about 4 or 5 pounds of nothing but leaves, and some of that particular shipment had been the cause of the killing of a police officer, and also the killing of a man within the ring. Every day we have such seizures, reports.

SENATOR BROWN: Is the cigarette that is made form the flowering top more potent than the one made from the leaves?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir, it would be, because the tops have the resin concentrated.

SENATOR BROWN: Do I understand that the seed is ground up, too. and used to any extent?

MR. ANSLINGER: Well, we have heard of them smoking the seed..

SENATOR BROWN: Does it produce the same effect?

MR. ANSLINGER: I am not qualified to say. We have not made any experiments as to that, but we do know that the seed has been smoked. I think that the proposition of the seed people sterilizing the seed by heat and moisture will certainly do a lot to kill this traffic. I think that that one thing might cut this traffic in half, because much of the trouble we encounter is due to the trafficker going to a feed store and buying the birdseed and planting cannabis, and all due to the birdseed being scattered during the winter. Hempseed is thrown out in the garden or in the vacant lot. The following year you have a growth of cannabis. That is what happened in Baltimore, and particularly in Philadelphia. I know of a case there where the State officers got over 200,000 pounds of growing plants, as the result of dissemination by birdseeds. A lot of that growth was being used illicitly. The traffickers knew where to get it. The plant reseeded itself.

The action that will be taken under this bill by the birdseed people in sterilizing the seed should have a remarkable effect in killing the traffic.

SENATOR BROWN: The sterilized seed will not reproduce?

MR. ANSLINGER: It will re-seed itself.

SENATOR BROWN: I am referring to the birdseed. What are they going to do to the birdseed?

MR.ANSLINGER: They are going to kill the germinating power.

SENATOR BROWN: When the seed is then thrown out, what will happen?

MR. ANSLINGER: Nothing will happen.

SENATOR DAVIS: Will it be of any use as a birdseed?

MR. ANSLINGER: Oh, yes. It will still have food properties.

SENATOR BROWN: The birds will sing just the same?

MR. ANSLINGER: There is some question about that. Sterilization is a voluntary act by the birdseed people.

SENATOR BROWN: That is not in this bill?

MR. ANSLINGER: It is not in there. They voluntarily agreed to do that under this act.

MR. HESTER: Yes, it is in the bill.

SENATOR BROWN: I wan to bring out one fact that you have not touched upon yet. As I understand it marihuana is not a habit-producing drug, at least to the same extent that opium is, for instance. It is somewhat easier to break the habit in the case of marihuana than it is in the case of opium smoking?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, you have stated that correctly, Senator. It is a very difficult matter to break the opium habit. However, this habit can be broken. There is some evidence that it is habit-forming. The experts have not gone very far on that.

SENATOR BROWN: There is the impression that it is stimulating to a certain extent? It is used by criminals when they want too go out and perform some deed that they would not commit in their ordinary frame of mind?

MR. ANSLINGER: That was demonstrated by these seven boys, who said they did not know what they were doing after they smoked marihuana. They conceived the series of crimes while in a state of marihuana intoxication.

SENATOR DAVIS: How many cigarettes would you have to smoke before you got this vicious mental attitude toward your neighbor?

MR. ANSLINGER: I believe in some cases on cigarette might develop a homicidal mania, probably to kill his brother. It depends on the physical characteristics of the individual. Every individual reacts differently to the drug. It stimulates some and others it depresses. It is impossible to say just what the action of the drug will be on a given individual, of the amount. Probably some people could smoke five before it would take that effect, but all the experts agree that the continued use leads to insanity. There are many cases of insanity.

SENATOR HERRING: Is it every type off hemp that contains this drug, or is it just some particular type?

MR. ANSLIINGER: Yes, sir; there are different forms, but only one species.

SENATOR BROWN: This thought has impressed me: I read with care the supplemental statement which you placed in
the record before the Ways and Means Committee, in which you brought out quite clearly that the use, which will be "illicit" if we may describe it that way, in the event this bill becomes a law, has been known to the peoples of Europe and Mexico and the United States for centuries.

MR. ANSLINGER: That is right.

SENATOR BROWN: Do you think that the recent great increase in the use of it that has taken place in the United States is probably due to the heavy hand of the law, in its effect upon the use of other drugs, and that persons who desire a stimulant are turning to this because of the enforcement of the Harrison Narcotics Act and the State laws?

MR. ANSLINGER: We do not know of any cases where the opium user has transferred to marihuana. there is an entirely new class of people using marihuana. The opium user is around 35 to 40 years old. These users are 20 years old, and know nothing of heroin or morphine.

SENATOR BROWN: What has happened to the new dissemination of it? We did not hear anything of it until the last year or so.

MR. ANSLINGER: I do not think that the way against opium has very much bearing upon the situation. That same question has been discussed in other countries; in Egypt particularly, where a great deal of hasheesh is used, they tried to show that the marihuana user went to heroin, and when heroin got short he jumped back to hasheesh, but that is not true. This is an entirely different class.

I do not know just why the abuse of marihuana has spread like wildfire in the last 4 or 5 years.

SENATOR BROWN: Could you give us any estimate of the number of persons that are engaged in this illicit traffic? Please state that as nearly as you can.

MR. ANSLINGER: I can only give you what our records show, Senator. There were about 400 arrests throughout the States in the year.

SENATOR BROWN: That is for violations of State law?

MR. ANSLINGER: For violations of State law. That would not include the arrests in California, where I understand they have several hundred a year; but the figure I am giving you of 400 arrests would be about the average number that are being picked up now, under just a noncoordinated enforcement policy , every State doing its own work, and bringing us in occasionally. When they run into "dope" work, and bringing it to us occasionally. When they run into "dope" we down and say, "It is marihuana and you take the case."

The state of Ohio recently seized what we call a "plant". It was a seizure of marihuana. These people had a mailing list of 6,000 customers scattered throughout the States.

SENATOR DAVIS: How were they dispensing it?

MR. ANSLINGER: They were selling it in lots from a pound down, just selling it by mail.

SENATOR BROWN: There was nothing in the law to prevent a man in Columbus, Ohio, using the mail in selling it to a person in Louisville, Kentucky?

MR. ANSLINGER: No, they are doing it every day.

SENATOR DAVIS: Is there anything in the present bill to prevent them using the mail?

MR. ANSLINGER: Under this bill it would have to be tax-paid, and all of that would be illicit, sir.

SENATOR HERRING: You say there are several hundred arrests in California alone, and about that same number throughout the rest of the United States?

MR. ANSLNGER: There are about the same number in the rest of the United States.

SENATOR HERRING: How do you account for that? Is it because of their state law?

MR. ANSLINGER: It is because they have a state enforcement agency there. They vigorously enforce the law. I might say that Pennsylvania is doing important work also.

SENATOR HERRING: It might be just as prevalent in other states; but for the fact that we do not have the law enforced as efficiently?

MR. ANSLINGER: I would not say it is as prevalent, but certainly the use has increased in the last few years. In Pennsylvania the enforcement people are very active today, particularly in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and the are constantly calling upon us.

SENATOR DAVIS: Are they endorsing the Harrison Narcotics Act in manner satisfactory to you?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir; that is satisfactory, but they are asking us for help every now and then when they run into a rather large situation.

SENATOR BROWN: I think that while you are on that point you had better make clear the need for Federal legislation. You say the States have asked you to do that. I presume it is because of the freedom of interstate traffic that the States require this legislation?

MR. ANSLINGER: We have had requests from states to step in because they claimed it was not growing in that state, but that it was coming in from another state.

SENATOR BROWN: And they could not touch that?

MR. ANSLINGER: And they could not touch it and we could not touch it.

There is need for coordinated effort. We are required to report ot the League of Nations, under a treaty arrangement, all of the seizures of marihuana made throughout the United States. It is rather difficult to get, I would say, half of them. One particular reason and one primary reason for this is -- usually these complaints come to us first -- that there is "dope" being used in a certain place, and that there is a supply of it on a certain street. Our men go and investigate it, and they find that it is marihuana. Well, we have to call in the state officers and there is a lot of lost effort. Very often by the time the state officer comes the case is gone. I would say in most of these cases we get the information first and turn it over to the state officer. Now, we want to coordinate all of that work throughout the states. By state and Federal cooperation we can make a good dent in this traffic.

For instance, all states had narcotics laws before the enactment of the Harrison Narcotics Act, but until the Federal Government stepped in no substantial progress was made.

SENATOR BROWN: What have you to say about the extent of the production of hemp? May it be produced in practically any state in the Union?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir, it can be produced.

SENATOR BROWN: There is climatically no reason why it could not be produced everywhere in the United States?

MR. ANSLINGER: No.

SENATOR BROWN: Growing as a weed could take place anywhere?

MR. ANSLINGER: Anywhere; yes, sir. That has been demonstrated.

SENATOR DAVIS: A moment ago I asked you what was the yield per acre, and you then told me so much of the flower and so much of the leaves. What is the combined yield per acre of both the flower and the leaves?

MR. ANSLINGER: I would not be able to say that, sir. That would be impossible.

SENATOR DAVIS: Is there any way of getting that information?

MR. ANSLINGER: We are growing an experimental crop over here on the Agricultural Farm. We can find out that way, or we can take a plant and strip the leaves and the flowers, and find out how many plants there are in an acre and multiply it. I think that would give a reasonably accurate estimate. I think I can find that out.

SENATOR DAVIS: I wish you would.

SENATOR BROWN: Now, Commissioner Anslinger, I do not know whether you are the best man to answer this question, or Mr. Hester. What dangers, if any, does this bill have for the persons engaged in the legitimate uses of the hemp plant?

MR. ANSLINGER: I would say that they are not only amply protected under this act, but they can go ahead and raise hemp just as they have always done it.

SENATOR BROWN: It has been represented to me that the farmer might hesitate to grow hemp when he is not only subjected to a $5 tax but also to the supervision by the Government, or what you might call the "nosing" of the Government into his business. What have you to say to this proposition?

MR. ANSLINGER: Well, I would say the answer to that is the fact that they are already controlled under state legislation.

SENATOR BROWN: In practically every state in the Union.

MR. ANSLINGER: Not all the states, but certainly in a lot hemp-growing states they are controlled. In most of the states cultivation is prohibited but in some states they are regulated by license.

SENATOR BROWN: Administratively, it seems you have charge of the administration of the tax and the collection of the
tax?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir.

SENATOR BROWN: Just what would happen? We will take a farmer living the other side of Alexandria, over in Virginia. Just what would happen to him if he wanted to grow 2 acres of hemp? What would he have to do?

MR. ANSLINGER: He would go down to the collector of internal revenue and put down his $5 and get a registration, a stamp tax. That would permit him to grow under the act, and at the end of year ----

SENATOR BROWN: That is a stamp tax similar to the one a doctor gets who uses a narcotic?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir, the same kind of tax.

SENATOR BROWN: He would hang that up in his house?

MR. ANSLINGER: Yes, sir. At the end of the year we would just ask how much he grew.

SENATOR BROWN: Would you not go down and look his field over, to ascertain whether he was making any illicit use of the otherwise worthless byproduct? As I understand it, there is no legislation about the use of the petals or the flowers or of these leaves.

MR. ANSLINGER: So far very few of these hemp people have been involved. Well, they have not been involved in the illicit traffic at all.. This case in Texas is the only case I know of. We were not going to supervise his crop. It would be impossible.

SENATOR BROWN: I do not mean that, but suppose that some fellow come along and says, "I will give you $100 to let me go in and strip your leaves and top flowers from your hemp crop." How would you ever cover that? How would you meet a situation of that kind?

MR. ANSLINGER: Certainly under the act, if the farmer agreed ot that, they would both be guilty of conspiracy to violate the act.

SENATOR BROWN: But you would exercise no particular supervision over the growing of that crop?

MR. ANSLINGER: The exercise would be in this way: If we see Mr. Dewey Doss, the photograph of whose place I showed you, go in and pay $5 to the collector, we would watch that. We would be very careful to see what disposition he made of that, but we would certainly know the sheep from the goats without any close general supervision.

SENATOR BROWN: Before it reaches its greatest potency?

MR. ANSLINGER: In other words, before it reaches its greatest potency. There is some resin that comes up through the plant, but if he is a legitimate hemp producer he will cut it down before the resin makes its appearance.

SENATOR BROWN: You had before the Ways and Means Committee two samples of the plant. Do you happen to have any of those samples here?

MR. HESTER: We do not have them here this morning. We can get those samples for you.

MR. ANSLINGER: The plant which I have in my hand now can be easily distinguished as you go along the road.

SENATOR DAVIS. You can see that along all the highways of the country.

MR. ANSLINGER: Well, Senator Davis, that will grow up 16 feet.

SENATOR DAVIS: How high?

MR. ANSLINGER: Sixteen feet.

SENATOR DAVIS: Sixteen feet?

MR. ANSLINGER: Sixteen feet. Of course when they are small like that you cannot distinguish them.

SENATOR BROWN: At what height are they usually harvested?

MR. ANSLINGER: About 14 or 16 feet.

SENATOR BROWN: At that height?

MR. ANSLINGER: Not for hemp production. That is for resin.

SENATOR BROWN: I mean for hemp production.

MR. ANSLINGER: Oh, for hemp production, I would say around 10, 12, 14 feet. But it is certainly before the resin gets up there to do the damage.

SENATOR BROWN: Are there any other questions that any member wants to ask Mr. Anslinger?

MR. ANSLINGER (sic): What is the return to the farmer per acre?

MR. ANSLINGER: I do not know. The hemp people here could tell you what the return is, but I understand it is around $30.

SENATOR BROWN: Does it require intense cultivation?

MR. ANSLINGER: I do not think so.

SENATOR HERRING: It is a weed that will grow, is it not?

MR. ANSLINGER: It will grow without any trouble. In fact, a lot of these illicit traffickers will try to hide their field with corn. They will grow corn all around it. Well, the hemp will shoot right up above the corn and will grow 4 or 5 feet higher.

MR. HESTER: Before we complete our case I think we ought to say one word on the regulations, if I may?

SENATOR BROWN: Yes; we shall be glad to have that.

MR. HESTER: From time immemorial it has been the policy of Congress in imposing taxes and in providing exemptions under certain conditions from the imposition of certain taxes, to provide that the exemption will be made under regulations to be prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

Take for example in this particular case, in the Revenue Act of 1932 they provided that automobile parts and accessories should be exempt from taxes if the manufacturer sells them to a manufacturer who is going to make a complete automobile or truck.

In order to get that exemption the manufacturer who is going to sell that part of an automobile or truck to the other manufacturer, who is going to make a completed truck, cannot get that exemption except under regulations to be prescribed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

The Commissioner merely requires him to obtain a certificate from the other manufacturer that this part is to be used in the manufacture of a completed truck.

In this particular we have exactly the same situation here, and we are simply following the practice, I say, that Congress has followed from time immemorial in revenue acts. The farmer here will not even have to go to the Collector's office. All he will have to do will be merely to mail in his five dollars, and they will send him the stamp tax and the registration. At the end of the year he will make an information return as to how much land he has under cultivation and what disposition he has made of it.

When he wants to sell his crop off seeds all he will have to do under the regulations of the Treasury Department will be to obtain some evidence from the person to whom he sells it, that that person is entitled to the exemption.

That is the situation with respect to the seed, which is the important item involved here so far as the domestic interests are concerned. Of course, the fiber products are entirely out of the bill.

That completes our case.

SENATOR BROWN: Mr. Hester, what are you going to do with respect to the large number of farmers who are not going to know about this law in its earlier stages of enforcement? It seems to me that with the lack of dissemination of information, a great many of them are going to engage perhaps in a legitimate production of it, not knowing of this law. Are you rather harsh toward those fellows, or can you be reasonable and generous toward them?

MR. HESTER: No, the bill will not become effective for 60 days, and there are not a great many of the hemp producers in the United Sates. Of course the Treasury Department would do everything it possibly could to notify these people. There would be no hardship imposed upon them. This would be administered exactly as any other revenue act is administered, and frequently there are excise taxes imposed where the individual does not know anything about it.

SENATOR BROWN: What legitimate uses are now made of the hemp plant in the United States. That is, what causes the farmer to raise it?

MR. HESTER: Some raise it for seeds.

SENATOR BROWN: Do you mean birdseeds?

MR. HESTER: Yes. They raise the seeds for use in the manufacture of birdseed. They make oil out of it. Most of the seed, however, that is used in the manufacture of oil is imported from Manchuria, but it may develop in this country.

Then after the seed is used for the making of oil, they take that seed and crush it, and make meal and meal cake, and that is sold to cattle raisers.

The oil is used in the manufacture of varnish and paint and soap and linoleum, and then in the case of the mature stalk they use that for making fiber and fiber products. Of course, they are entirely outside the bill.

SENATOR DAVIS: While primarily you are placing a tax, it is for the sole purpose of getting and enforcement of the law, and getting a plan for enforcing it?

MR. HESTER: That is correct.

SENATOR DAVIS: If it should be one dollar, what difference would that make?

MR, HESTER: Well, the situation is simply this: -------

SENATOR DAVIS: I am only talking from the farmer's point of view, of charging him one dollar instead of five dollars.

MR, HESTER: I am glad you raised that point, Senator Davis,. When the Harrison Act was first before the Supreme Court the occupational tax was only one dollar, and the vote was 5 to 4. In other words the Supreme Court said, "This is a revenue measure", although the tax was only one dollar. But the vote was five to four. After that Congress raised the
occupational tax and then when the case came before the Supreme Court, the vote was six to three. and the Court said, "We now have more reason to sustain the constitutionality of this act that we had before, because it is more of a revenue act than it was then."

In the case of the producers, under the Harrison Narcotics Act, although there are no poppies grown in this country, if they could develop it so that they could raise poppies, so that they could get opium from it, the farmer would have to pay $24, but in this case the producer only pays five dollars.

We have left the practicioner at one dollar, because that was the situation of the Harrison Narcotics Act, and that is the real reason why the figures are set in this bill at $24, $5, $3, and one dollar, so that we can have a real revenue raising measure.

SENATOR DAVIS: You charge five dollars an acre under this?

MR, HESTER: Oh no, a year.

SENATOR DAVIS: I meant to say this: You charge five dollars whether he produces on one acre of on one thousand acres?

MR, HESTER: That is right.

Senator Brown: Have you worked out the Canal Zone matter with the Department?

MR, HESTER: We have. They wish to be exempted, and they have agreed not to propose their amendment providing for direct regulation of marihuana in the zone because as I pointed out to you the other day it might indicate on the face of the bill that it is a regulatory measure, but they wish to be exempted, and we have no objection. We are preparing to change that.

SENATOR BROWN: Just one or two more matters. Why should they be exempted?

MR, HESTER: There is no legitimate business in the Canal Zone, and they say they have sufficient control over the marihuana problem in the zone at this time under existing legislation, and they object to general legislation being applied.

SENATOR BROWN: It would probably be considerable duplication of effort down there.

MR, HESTER: There might be some. The Harrison Narcotics Act applies to the Canal Zone, and that is the reason why it was included in this bill. But the Treasury Department has no objection if the Canal Zone goes out.

SENATOR BROWN: Will this entail any considerable increase in personnel of the Department?

MR, HESTER: No, I do not think so.

MR. ANSLINGER: No, sir.

SENATOR BROWN: I understand this measure has the approval of the Treasury Department.

MR, HESTER: Yes, oh, yes. it is strongly recommended.