Our ancestors could be in whole disbelief.
Ohio has voted to legalize marijuana for grownup leisure use?
All they ever heard about “the satan’s weed” was the way it led to ethical corruption, prison conduct and violent madness.
A century in the past, Akron residents learn with rising concern as a mysterious drug started to crop up throughout the nation. In 1921, a Beacon Journal article famous: “Many Mexicans within the Arkansas valley are reported to have been made insane from smoking ‘Indian hemp,’ and an in depth site visitors within the ‘loco weed’ has been happening in some sections of Colorado.”
In 1925, lots of of acres of “cannabis weed” had been reported to be rising wild all through Kansas. Girls and boys had been shopping for cigarettes “adulterated with the weed” and throwing events.
“Use of this drug, which results in violent madness, has invaded our highschool in Hutchinson,” Reno County Sheriff Jesse Langford lamented.
Marijuana, initially spelled “marihuana” or “mariguana” in america, had avenue names akin to “Mary Warner,” “Mary Jane,” “reefers,” “muggles,” “moota,” “griffo,” “kiff” and “Indian hay.”
Chicago authorities blamed the weed for a rise in crime. They mentioned drug peddlers preyed on youths in cabarets and dance halls, persuading them to attempt the brand new cigarettes with disastrous outcomes.
“We’re getting complaints day by day from moms who declare that their kids are appearing as if underneath the affect of medicine,” mentioned L.J. Ulmer, chief of the narcotics division in Chicago.
Akron makes a marijuana bust
Akron was late to the social gathering, however marijuana ultimately made its method right here from Cleveland through New York and Chicago.
“A amount of marihuana, a Mexican dope reputed to drive customers insane in about 5 years, had been seized Saturday by the vice squad and two males had been underneath arrest as being suspicious individuals following a raid on a home at 937 Financial institution St.,” the Beacon Journal reported June 2, 1934.
Pete Alvarado, 35, and John Bruno, 40, had been arrested within the raid, which confiscated $50 price of weed, 100 rolled cigarettes and a loaded gun. The reefers bought for $2 a dozen — or about $45 immediately.
Specialists mentioned people who smoke initially felt a rush of euphoria, adopted by a deadening of the senses after which complications, nausea and jitters. Continued use led to a “tendency to commit crime.” Marijuana addicts “typically are so unbalanced mentally that shade sensations are acquired by means of the ear as a substitute of the attention,” one critic famous.
A 15-year-old Akron woman, caught smoking in a nightclub, informed police she wished “to get additional pep.” An East Akron druggist acknowledged promoting hashish however denied understanding that clients used it for cigarettes.
In 1935, Ohio adopted the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act to ban the manufacturing of narcotic medicine inside state borders. Federal guidelines tightened.
Akron Mayor Lee D. Schroy introduced a crackdown “on the vicious marijuana site visitors” in 1937. 4 undercover brokers patrolled excessive colleges and the College of Akron to thwart drug peddlers.
“The weed is being grown in Akron and close by and we’re doing the whole lot we will to stamp it out,” Schroy mentioned.
“It’s a habit-forming drug, and we must always increase the cry to excessive heaven right here so mother and father will know simply what an evil it’s,” Akron Councilman Edmund Rowe introduced at a Metropolis Council assembly. “It’s my understanding that use of this weed produces a sense of exhilaration, and after girls and boys smoke one, they return for extra. Quickly they’re attempting to find cash to purchase them, and in that method we begin them on a downward path that results in crime and degradation.”
Regardless of raids throughout the town, authorities couldn’t root out hashish. A 1937 {photograph} reveals Akron vice officers pulling the unsuitable weeds from a subject, not sure what they had been there to search out.
Akron Metropolis Council handed a 1938 ordinance prohibiting the sale, possession and manufacture of hashish and different narcotics with out a license from the Ohio Board of Pharmacy. Violators confronted a $500 high quality and 6 months in jail.
‘Reefer Insanity’ and different movies
Akron theaters screened exploitation movies like “Reefer Insanity,” “Marihuana,” “The Satan’s Weed” and “Murderer of Youth.” On the floor, the melodramas excoriated using hashish, however some authorities believed audiences had been getting the unsuitable message.
Akron Municipal Decide Clande V.D. Emmons singled out “Murderer of Youth” in 1938 as being significantly loathsome.
“I see no earthly motive why it must be proven,” Emmons mentioned. “Quite than deter younger individuals from utilizing marijuana, I feel it encourages them to attempt it. It tends to immorality, if something. All the image reveals is a bunch of faculty youngsters getting drunk on the weed.
“Why don’t they present the actual evils of marijuana? Why don’t they go into the penitentiaries and present the people who find themselves there as a result of they dedicated a criminal offense underneath the affect of the weed? That will be an actual schooling.”
In 1940, the Beacon Journal revealed a tip from linguist Frank Colby on easy methods to pronounce marijuana.
“Accent the primary and third syllables,” he defined. “The ‘a’s’ are broad as in father. The ‘j’ has the sound of ‘h’ strongly aspirated. Right pronunciation: MAH-ree-HWAH-nah.”
Which, after all, wasn’t actually the best way to pronounce it, however … oh, effectively.
Even the humorous pages entered the dialogue. In a 1945 panel of the cartoon “Kerry Drake,” a district legal professional requested the detective: “What’s the cost this time?” Drake’s reply: “You’ve obtained a selection of marihuana peddling or homicide! One’s about as good as the opposite.”
Some individuals blamed musicians for corrupting the youths of America.
“Most reefer people who smoke are discovered amongst musicians and different artists,” correspondent Douglas Larsen wrote. “The drug has its best attraction to individuals of unstable character.”
And wouldn’t you understand it? Two Los Angeles musicians from Alvino Rey’s orchestra had been arrested in 1948 on drug expenses following the group’s live performance at East Market Gardens in Akron. The 2 males had been busted on the Anthony Wayne Lodge after having a courier ship reefers to their room.
In 1951, Akron patrolman Florian Smole grew two marijuana vegetation to show on the police station.
“We wished to have the ability to determine the weed positively,” Police Lt. Cletus McGuckin mentioned. “We allow them to develop simply massive sufficient so we might research the leaves.”
“All I did was to dig a gap and throw within the seeds,” Smole mentioned.
Police vowed to destroy the exhibit after it had served its goal.
Dope a ‘communicable illness’
In 1951, the Summit County Federation of Ladies’s Golf equipment distributed pamphlets that condemned the “dreadful crime of peddling marihuana.”
“Knowledgeable witnesses predict that one in 50 highschool college students could fall sufferer of drug habit which places youth in contact with the underworld and results in thieving, prostitution and different crime,” wrote Dorothy Deemer Houghton, president of the nationwide federation. “Narcotic habit could possibly be stamped out by quarantining the current addicts in hospitals as we quarantine for smallpox.”
By her calculations, every addict triggered 4 different individuals to grow to be addicts, and people 4 made 16 different addicts, “and so forth.”
“Dope is a communicable illness,” she concluded.
Happily for opponents, marijuana’s reputation plummeted within the Nineteen Sixties.
Simply kidding. The counterculture motion fanned the flames of grass and pot, resulting in widespread use amongst youthful generations.
In 1966, the Beacon Journal interviewed two Akron males, 26 and 24, who had been arrested on drug expenses. They admitted peddling marijuana, however insisted they’d completed nothing unsuitable.
“I bought happiness,” one vendor mentioned. “For those who noticed as many individuals as I’ve seen, being twisted, tortured, coerced by their very own minds, being strangled by their very own constipated egos, you’d attempt to assist them, too.”
“You possibly can’t maintain marijuana down,” the opposite predicted. “Some belongings you simply can’t.”
Drug experiment with mice
In 1970, Dr. Edward B. Truitt Jr., a medical researcher at Ohio State College in Columbus, carried out an experiment with two white mice. One he gave pot, the opposite he didn’t. The drug-free mouse was upright and alert. The marijuana mouse lay flat on its stomach in a stupor.
After spending almost three years on analysis, Truitt really useful a wait-and-see strategy on the legalization of marijuana.
“The most important motive for restraint is to see what develops in analysis,” he informed the Beacon Journal. “I can see absolute uproar within the nation if it’s legalized and one thing like harm to kids at start is proven or long-term psychological sickness develops.”
If marijuana turned out to be innocent bodily and mentally, it would match into the class of a leisure drug, however that was a giant if, Truitt mentioned.
“Let’s wait on legalizing it,” he mentioned.
At any charge, he doubted that pot would stay in excessive demand.
“I feel a common use will proceed, however the reputation it now has will considerably decline as individuals grow to be extra hip, extra knowledgeable of its capability and limitations,” he mentioned.
Greater than 50 years later, Ohioans have voted to legalize marijuana for grownup leisure use.
If something goes unsuitable, we will’t say they didn’t warn us.
Mark J. Value could be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com
Extra: Oops! Classic bloopers from the collection of Mark J. Price
Mark J. Value: Things I’m old enough to remember about Akron
This text initially appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Local history: Akron experienced reefer madness in 20th century
