Cannabis Cures: American Medicine, Mexican Marijuana, and the Origins of the War on Weed, 1840-1937
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Cannabis Cures: American Medicine, Mexican Marijuana, and the Origins of the War on Weed, 1840-1937 Author: Adam R. Rathge Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:107531 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2017 Copyright is held by the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). Cannabis Cures: American Medicine, Mexican Marijuana, and the Origins of the War on Weed, 1840-1937 Adam R. Rathge A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School May 2017 © Copyright 2017 Adam R. Rathge CANNABIS CURES: AMERICAN MEDICINE, MEXICAN MARIJUANA, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR ON WEED, 1840-1937 Adam R. Rathge Advisor: Martin A. Summers, Ph.D. This dissertation charts the medicalization and criminalization of the drug now widely known as marijuana. Almost no one in the United States used that word, however, until it was introduced from Mexico in the early twentieth century. Prior to that, Americans often called it hemp or hashish, and generally knew it as Cannabis - the scientific name given to a genus of plants by Carl Linnaeus. That transition in terminology from cannabis to marijuana serves as the crux of this project: It begins in 1840 with the formal introduction of cannabis into American medicine and ends in 1937 with the federal prohibition of marijuana. In between, it charts nearly a century of medical discourse, social concern, and legislative restrictions surrounding the drug – demonstrating that the origins of our nation’s war on weed are much older and more complicated than previous studies have suggested. In short, marijuana prohibition in the United States was not a swift or sudden byproduct of racism and xenophobia toward Mexican immigrants, but instead, the culmination of broad evolutions in public health and drug regulation coupled with a sustained concern about the potential dangers of cannabis use dating to the mid-nineteenth century. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vi Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ......................................................................................................................... 15 "A Great Sensation Throughout the World": Cannabis in Antebellum America, 1840-1860 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................ 73 "Remedy for an Acknolwedged Evil": Medical Jurisprudence, Consumer Protection, and Cannabis Regulation, 1860-1900 Chapter 3 ....................................................................................................................... 131 Corn Plasters and Marijuana: Drug Bifurcation, Local Control, and the Regulation of Cannabis, 1900-1925 Chapter 4 ....................................................................................................................... 192 “A Damdable Cuss to American Youngsters”: New Orleans, the Marijuana Menace, and the Impetus for Federal Prohibition, 1920-1935 Chapter 5 ....................................................................................................................... 256 Anslinger’s Assassins: The Medical Roots of Reefer Madness and the Case for Federal Marijuana Prohibition Epilogue ......................................................................................................................... 311 Going to Pot: Past and Present Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 320 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was the product of both solitary toil and profound external support. It was, of course, support that made the toil possible. At the risk of leaving someone out, I wish to highlight just a few of those sources. The community in the history department at Boston College was especially influential, especially my friends Peter Cajka, James Clifton, Craig Gallagher, and Jesse Tumblin. Likewise, my committee members gave their time and expertise freely: Alan Rogers, Heather Cox Richardson, and Joe Spillane each offered significant contributions. Martin Summers was the advisor every graduate student dreams of – engaged and caring throughout, tough when he needed to be and exceedingly kind we he did not. Martin kept every promise along the way, and for that, I cannot thank him enough. Additional support for this project came from numerous sources in myriad ways. Melissa Grafe and the staff at Yale University’s Cushing/Whitney Medical Library offered an early boost to the project via the Ferenc Gyorgyey Research Travel Grant. The Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College provided a space for workshopping papers as well as travel and research funding. Anne Kenny and the staff at O’Neill Library handled my frequent and often obscure Interlibrary Loan requests with patience and grace. Numerous members of the Alcohol and Drug History Society (ADHS) read and provided feedback on parts of this project, especially Timothy vi Hickman and Joseph Gabriel. As managing editors at Points: the Blog of the ADHS, Emily Dufton and Claire Clark gave me an online venue for circulating my research-in- progress. A special thanks to Isaac Campos who read every word, many of them more than once. His friendship, guidance, and encouragement have been instrumental to the completion of this project and my development as a scholar. I owe the deepest debt of gratitude to my family. To my parents, whom I could easily thank at a length exceeding the entirety of the pages below, I say only that I am blessed beyond such words to be your son. None of this would have been possible for a small-town Ohio farm boy without the two of you. My wife, Kathleen, most assuredly did not know what she was getting herself into when she started dating me - and this dissertation. She nevertheless stuck with the both of us, obliterating the boundaries of total support and unconditional love along the way. To all of you, and many more, my deepest thanks. vii INTRODUCTION Victor Robinson received a Ph.G. at the New York College of Pharmacy, a Ph.C. at Columbia University, and an M.D. from the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1912, he published a short book entitled An Essay on Hasheesh: Including Observations and Experiments. The book began with an overview of humanity’s attempts at finding an “antidote for suffering” – chronicling the many plants from around the world that now contributed to “the eradication of disease and the alleviation of pain.” Robinson, however, wanted to focus on just one. “Of all the narcotics,” he wrote, “none is more alluring to the imagination than the intoxicating hemp-plant, scientifically known as Cannabis Sativa and popularly famed as Hasheesh.”1 His book chronicled all aspects of cannabis, remarking on its ancient history, its unknown chemical composition, its physiologic and pharmacologic actions, and its recognized therapeutic uses. Robinson highlighted the fact that cannabis “has never produced death,” calling it “a poison which lacks a maximum and fatal dose.” He stressed its remarkable variability, stating that, “No drug in the entire Materia Medica is capable of producing such a diversity of effects as cannabis.” He also observed its uncanny ability to mislead the mind with uncontrollable 1 Observers often classified cannabis as a narcotic in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this instance, Robinson described a narcotic as “being roughly defined as a substance which relieves pain and produces excitability followed by sleep.” The classification of cannabis as a “narcotic” is somewhat precarious, but the term stuck at various moments to many drugs, including those like cocaine, which is also widely regarded as a stimulant. 1 thoughts and distortions of space and time. In short, Robinson captured the crux of medicinal cannabis in the early twentieth century: a powerful but frequently inconsistent drug used for a variety of ailments but capable of producing a rather startling intoxication. “Not many drugs,” he wrote, “are used for both the brain and the feet, but with cannabis we have this anomaly: a man may see visions by swallowing his corn- cure.”2 In June of the same year, D. R. McCreesh, a writer from the El Paso Herald, published an exposé on patterns of drug use in the border towns of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Though mainly focused on cocaine and opium, McCreesh also introduced readers to “a drug fiend of another type,” one he claimed was “different from the drug victims of any other place.” This, he wrote, was “the Marihuana victim.” According to McCreesh, experts considered “Marihuana, Cannabis Indica, or [more] commonly called Indian hemp … to be the most deadly in its effects.” Nonetheless, he declared, “Juarez drug stores keep it on hand, and sell it to anyone who has the purchase price.” Smoked in cigarettes, marijuana