Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present – Chapter 3: 1895-1910 – Hemp Delirium

In this chapter, DML looks at the beginning of society’s modern propaganda campaign against pot, providing examples of the beginning of the visual stigmatization of cannabis – depicting it as a cause of insanity. DML also provides evidence – found in reports and on medicine bottle labels – that it was no such thing.

Special thanks to the Cannabis Museum for sponsoring the creation of this series. The introduction to this series (Reefer Madness – 1895 to the Present) can be found here. Chapter 1 can be found here. Chapter 2 can be found here.

“Had a cobra raised his spectacled hood the surprise could not have been more startling. Here was the Oriental dream-making murder-inspiring bhang of Indian song, story and thuggism, taking root in the far west; a household plant grown at every cottage door in the vale of Kashmir found thriving before the door of a mud hovel and the desert begirt banks of the Santa Cruz.”

– Herbert Brown, “Hashish,” Arizona Daily Star, Sept. 13, 1908 (1)

Image #1: “MODERN ASSASSINS,” “THE HEMP EATERS,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis Missouri, July 14th, 1895, p. 32

The first visual depiction of cannabis-based “delirium” may have been in 1895 in an article titled “Hashish-Eaters of Syria.” The article mentions the “deadly drug” “hashish” and describes one of many “orgies” that consist mainly of drinking a cannabis beverage, dancing and then falling asleep. The accompanying illustration depicts men dancing about, waving their swords and shooting their guns in the air. One is even shooting his gun dangerously downwards, near the heads of those seated below him. (2) The caption below the photo reads “FESTIVAL OF THE HEMP EATERS AND THE WILD DELIRIUM OF THE DANCE.” Etymology dictionaries indicate “delirium” is a Latin word meaning “madness.” (3) Reefer Madness finally had an image to go along with the narrative.

Image #2: “FESTIVAL OF THE HEMP EATERS AND THE WILD DELIRIUM OF THE DANCE,” from “HASHISH-EATERS OF SYRIA.” San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco, California, August 24th, 1895, p. 6

Just as this lie was being planted firmly in the public’s mind, academics were reporting the truth – but the truth was not accompanied by any images. In 1894 and 1895, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (formed to investigate reports of hemp smokers filling insane asylums) released a report. This newspaper summary is illuminating:

“We were under the definite impression that the extracts of hemp, in whatever form consumed, were invariably pernicious, the drug, taken in moderation, destroying the nerves, and, taken in excess, producing homicidal mania. The Ghazees swallow it before their rushes, and so did the Scandinavian berserkers a thousand years ago. That impression, however, turns out to be an illusion of ignorance. The Indian government, which has no motive whatever for protecting the sale of the hemp products, has ascertained, after careful investigation, that they are only used by one-half percent of the population; that their use in the majority of cases has no result whatever either on health or morals; and that even when taken in excess they produce no more crime than alcohol does, which as all the natives witnesses testify, would be the immediate alternative. Unless, therefore, the government of India were prepared to prohibit all stimulants alike it cannot prohibit the sale of the hemp products, which, again, are protected by their use among certain castes in religious ceremonials, with which we can not interfere.” (4) (my emphasis)

Image #3: “Use Of Opium And Hemp,” Pittsburg Daily Post, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 26th, 1895, p. 14

Image #4: “LE NARGHILEH,” Le Petit Journal, July 5, 1896, cover image (detail).

Image #5: Keef : A Live Story In Nine Phases, Timothy Wilfred Coakley, Illustration by GWH Ritchie, 1897

This now-visual stigma against cannabis use was not fully foisted upon non-whites, and had yet to be foisted upon the white community. Visual depictions of white people using hemp-based drugs never involved orgies, dancing or the dangerous use of weaponry – just relaxation and the stimulation of the imagination. And white retailers of cannabis products were still fully entrenched in respectable society. For example, in 1897 you could still buy Piso’s Consumption Cure – a cannabis-based medicine for tuberculosis – straight from the Sears Roebuck and Co. Catalogue. The price was 18 cents per bottle, or 12 bottles for two dollars. (5)

Image #6: https://www.rubylane.com/search?q=Piso&sb=1

Image #7: The Weekly Montanian, Libby, Montana, August 24th, 1895, p. A4

Image #8: Fort Scott Daily Tribune and Fort Scott Daily Monitor, Fort Scott, Kansas, October 25th, 1899, p. 3

Image #9: Piso’s Remedy bottle from the Herb Museum collection. Photo by Bert Easterbrook.

Image #10: Piso’s Remedy bottle from the Herb Museum collection. Photo by Bert Easterbrook.

One can safely assume that the all-white staff of most US newspapers of the time allowed racism to have an effect on the way they reported on Mexicans and their drugs of choice. An article titled “Victims of a Mexican Drug” from the August 16th, 1897 issue of The Tennessean stated; “Marihuana, our local hasheesh, continues to impel people of the lower orders to wild and desperate deeds.” (6)

“STRONGER THAN OPIUM” screamed the headline from the September 15th, 1897 Tombstone Prospector – a newspaper from Tombstone, Arizona. The body of the text was equally dire:

“Mariguana is a kind of a loco weed which is more powerful than opium. The Mexicans mix it with tobacco and smoke it in cigarettes, which causes hilarity not equaled by any other form of dissipation. . . . The weed is grown from seed by cultivation in southern Arizona and Mexico, but is a dangerous thing to fool with.” (7)

Fritz Lemmermayer’s Haschisch appeared in 1898. It was illustrated by an illustrator of erotic art, Gottfried Sieben. The half-naked female dancer appearing from the smoke of the skull bong suggested a connection between hashish, sex and death. The story involved a plot and illustrations that did not bother to differentiate between the happy/hungry/relaxed/inspired/focused results of typical hashish use and the hallucinatory results of immoderate hashish use. (8)

Image #11: Haschisch: Eine orientalische Erzählung Fritz Lemmermayer, illustrations by G. Sieben, Budapest: Verlag von Gustav Grimm, 1898 (cover). Image taken from “Hashish: The Lost Legend,“ edited by Ronald K. Siegel, Process Media, Port Townsend, Washington, 2013, p. iv

Image #12: Haschisch: Eine orientalische Erzählung Fritz Lemmermayer, illustrations by G. Sieben, Budapest: Verlag von Gustav Grimm, 1898 (cover). Image taken from “Hashish: The Lost Legend,“ edited by Ronald K. Siegel, Process Media, Port Townsend, Washington, 2013, p. 40

Image #13: “HASHISH INSANITY,“ The Witstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, Whitstable, Kent, England, May 28th, 1898, p. 6

A report in the July 2nd, 1898 Scientific American Supplement #1174 put “Indian Hemp” in a positive light, mentioning that it promotes “mental cheerfulness” amongst many other attributes.

Parental-hysteria-creating propaganda also made an appearance during this era. In 1898 an article entitled “A Bad Mexican Habit” was published.  It was written that

“. . . the most alarming feature in connection with this course is the growing use of the maddening weed by the young . . . a young boy not much over twelve years of age, who had been crazed by smoking marihuana, was running wildly down the center of the thoroughfare, tearing his clothes and attacking all who crossed his path.” (9)

Another study from the same year – this one entitled “Hasheesh: the Cause of Insanity Among the Natives of India” – reported that

“The usual types of the disease are hasheesh intoxication – that is, an elated and reckless swaggering state, with optical delusions and hallucinations. Acute mania is another form of hasheesh insanity, involving frightful hallucinations, restlessness, sleeplessness, incoherence and exhaustion . . .” (10)

Image #14: THE REIGN OF LAW – A TALE OF THE KENTUCKY HEMP FIELDS, JAMES LANE ALLEN, THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, New York, 1900

Image #15: THE REIGN OF LAW – A TALE OF THE KENTUCKY HEMP FIELDS, JAMES LANE ALLEN, THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, New York, 1900, p. 15

A 1904 newspaper article entitled “Egyptian Smokers and Madness” provided the following details:

“An Egyptian smoker of hasheesh is even a more helpless slave than the Chinese opium fiend. He knows that in the end he will become a madman, yet he rushes toward the awful goal with unrelaxed speed. With the strange exaltation which first comes to the smoker he feels himself floating from cloud to cloud or alighting in the gardens of palaces all his own. Most of the hasheesh which Egypt consumes comes from Greece. From the husks of the hemp seeds and the tender hops of the hemp plant the Greeks manufacture a greenish powder whose fumes bring the ecstasy its victims desire.” (11)

In an article from the November, 1904 edition of The Indian Medical Gazette, (12) Dr. George Francis William Ewens – a Major in the British Army and Superintendent of the Punjab Lunatic Asylum in Lahore, India – asserted that the “excessive use of hemp drugs” led to a “Toxic Insanity.” (13) It seemed, when reading his case studies, that his charges suffered from temporary acute toxicity, but were diagnosed as chronically insane, so that they might be kept in the asylum for long periods of time against their will. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission was mentioned, (14) but no mention was made of the practice of automatically ascribing the cause of insanity to hemp if the insane had been known to have taken hemp, or to automatically change every “unknown” cause of insanity to hemp use. Much of the violence ascribed to the hemp smokers could very well have been a result of the strain of living under colonialism – or even resistance to colonialism. It would be difficult for a colonialist insane asylum superintendent to take an honest look at the effects of colonialism – in other words take responsibility for the effects of their own actions – on the minds of those under colonial rule, especially one that viewed his charges as “dull, uneducated people” (15) as Dr. Ewens did.

In a newspaper article from 1904 titled “Uncle Sam’s Poison Farm,” it was revealed that the US Department of Agriculture was growing all the major drug crops in a place called the “Potomac Flats” . . . next to where the Pentagon is now located. “Indian Hemp – The Hasheesh Plant” was, according to the article, responsible for producing “extraordinary visions and hallucinations.” (16)

Image #16: “UNCLE SAM’S POISON FARM,” The Boston Globe, Boston, Massachusetts, January 10th, 1904, p. 45

In a 1905 article about the Potomac Flats medicinal herb farm (aka the Arlington Experimental Farm) – “Our Wicked Government Scientists” – a description of hasheesh’s effects indicated that impairment was primarily dose-related, but that long-term use was damaging:

“In moderate doses it produces a pleasant intoxication, which does not stupefy, but engenders an extraordinary clearness of brain. Thoughts crowd upon one another so rapidly that language does not suffice to give them utterance. At the same time everything is wonderfully magnified. Small distances become enormously great. . . . the slightest sound becomes a crash, and seconds appear like hours. . . . Larger doses produce frightful delirium, and the effect of the drug when habitually used for a long time is nothing short of horrible.” (17)

Image #17: “OUR WICKED GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS,” The Butte Miner, Butte, Montana, July 9th, 1905, p. 20

Image #18: “INSANITY CAUSED BY HINDOO DRUG,” Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles, California, May 14th, 1905, p. 3

The first visual depiction of actual cannabis-based violence may have been in 1905 in a Florida Star article entitled “CRAZED FROM SMOKING A WEED – Startling Behavior of Victims of the Marihuana Habit.” According to the article

“Marihuana is a weed used in Mexico by people of the lower class and sometimes by soldiers, but those who make larger use of it are prisoners sentenced to long terms. . . . The dried leaves of marihuana, alone or mixed with tobacco, make the smoker wilder than a wild beast. . . . Everything, the smokers say, takes the shape of a monster, and men look like devils. They begin to fight, and of course everything smashed is a monster ‘killed.’ But there are imaginary beings whom the wild men cannot kill, and these inspire fear until the man is panic stricken and runs. Not long ago a man who had smoked a marihuana cigarette attacked and killed a policeman and badly wounded three other officers. Six policemen were needed to disarm him and march him to the police station, where he had to be put into a straightjacket.” (18)

Image #19: “CRAZED FROM SMOKING A WEED,” The Florida Star, Titusville, Florida, May 19th, 1905, p. 7

Image #20: “CRAZED FROM SMOKING A WEED,” The Florida Star, Titusville, Florida, May 19th, 1905, p. 7

The illustration accompanying the article depicted a Mexican man in a sombrero beating a policeman to death with a club. Coincidentally – or perhaps not coincidentally – 1905 was also the year that depictions of crazed, hallucinating, destructive African American cocaine “fiends” began to be depicted in newspapers. (19)

Image #21: “HOW HUMAN VICTIMS ARE WREAKED BY THE TERRIBLE COCAINE HABIT,” Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, January 15th, 1905, p. 7

Image #22: “THE UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT,” Saturday Sunset, Vancouver, British Columbia, August 10th, 1907, p. 1

The simultaneous stigmatization in multiple newspaper cartoons of an assortment of non-white drug using communities could be seen as a totally random coincidence, or it could be seen – along with efforts such as the 1906 Food and Drug Act, the 1907 anti-drug laws in the Philippines, the 1908 anti-opium law in Canada, the international drug treaty process that began in 1908 with the Shanghai Opium Conference, and the attack on herbal medicine from the 1910 Flexner Report – as a concerted effort from the white power elite to stigmatize, outlaw and/or phase out the natural medicines in order to monopolize synthetic medicines, stigmatize non-white drug using groups to create more prison labour, and – eventually – using the power and resources of the military and intelligence agencies, take control of the underground drug smuggling economy. This process will be explored in more detail in future chapters.

Image #23: “THE SPIRIT OF ‘HASCHISCH’,” Haschisch Hallucinations by H. E. Gowers, illustration by Sidney Herbert Sime from The Strand Magazine, July 1905, p. 658

Image #24: “HE WAS MOVING OVER THE DESERT IN A BARQUE OF MOTHER-OF-PEARL.” Haschisch Hallucinations by H. E. Gowers, illustration by Sidney Herbert Sime from The Strand Magazine, July 1905, p. 659

Image #25: “ALL THE MENAGERIES OF MONSTROUS DREAMS TROTTED, JUMPED, FLEW, OR GLIDED THROUGH THE ROOM.” Haschisch Hallucinations by H. E. Gowers, illustration by Sidney Herbert Sime from The Strand Magazine, July 1905, p. 660

Image #26: “THE CUP SEEMED A HUGE TANKARD, BEAUTIFULLY CHASED ALL OVER WITH DRAGONS.” Haschisch Hallucinations by H. E. Gowers, illustration by Sidney Herbert Sime from The Strand Magazine, July 1905, p. 661

Image #27: “HE DISTINCTLY SAW WITHIN HIMSELF THE DRUG HE HAD CHEWED.” Haschisch Hallucinations by H. E. Gowers, illustration by Sidney Herbert Sime from The Strand Magazine, July 1905, p. 662

In 1906, in a periodical called The Pacific Drug Review, madness from “mariahuana” was described in great detail;

“Mariahuana [sic]is one of the most dangerous drugs found in Mexico. The weed grows wild in many localities of the southern part of that country. Its wonderful powers as a[n]intoxicant have long been known to the natives and many are the wild orgies it has produced. So dangerous is mariahuana, writes a correspondent to the Sun, that in the City of Mexico and other Mexican cities the Government keeps special inspectors employed to see that the weed is not sold in the markets. A few years ago, it was found that many prisoners in the Belem prison in the City of Mexico were losing their minds. An investigation was started and the discovery was made that they were all addicted to the use of mariahuana, which was smuggled in to them by the guards, who had been bribed for that purpose. Since then strict orders prohibiting the use of mariahuana by prisoners have been enforced. The poisonous weed always finds favor among the soldiers, who mix it with tobacco and smoke it. The sale of the weed to the soldiers is strictly prohibited, and severe punishment is provided for anyone guilty of the offense. The habitual user of mariahuana finally loses his mind and becomes a raving maniac. There are scores and scores of such instances in Mexico. It is said that those who smoke mariahuana frequently die suddenly. The smoking of mariahuana is a seductive habit. It grows upon a person more quickly and securely than the use of opium or cocaine. . .” (20)

Image #28: “Seeing Everything,” U.S. Post Card circa 1906

Image #29: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Advice from a Caterpillar, Illustrated by Arthur Rackham, 1907 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_in_Wonderland_by_Arthur_Rackham_-_05_-_Advice_from_a_Caterpillar.jpg

In March, 1908, word of a “Hashish Fad” spread throughout the newspaper universe. Eating hashish had been taken up by the writers and poets of New York City. Unfortunately for the writers involved, smoked modes of administration and self-titration were not part of their experiment, and they all suffered from overdose. Conflating overdose with a proper dose seemed to be one of the ways the weed-inspired madness reputation was formed. (21)

Image #30: “Eating of Hashish Has Been Taken Up Experimentally By Well Known Authors,” Owensboro Messenger, Owensboro, Kentucky, March 1st, 1908, p. 9

Despite this, at that time cannabis remained freely available in many drugstores in raw, tincture, pill, salve and cigarette form. (22) Cannabis – we now understand – has over 100 cannabinoids and over 200 terpenes – some if not all of them medically effective, and none of them toxic. (23) This leads one to reasonably conclude that cannabis may be the one medicinal plant that qualifies as a panacea.

Image #31: Indian Cigarettes by Grimault: antiquecannabisbook.com/chap7/CGrimault.htm

Image #32: Indian Cigarettes by Grimault: antiquecannabisbook.com/chap7/CGrimault.htm

Image #33: An ad for Grimault’s Indian Cigarettes, The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, London, England, February 6th, 1897, p. 31

Image #34: The Lyttelton Times, Lyttelton, New Zealand, October 8th, 1898, p. 2

Image #35: INDIAN CANNABIS: Pressed Flowering Tops, Cannabis Sativa, No. 144, PARKE, DAVIS & CO., DETROIT, MICH., U.S.A., from the Herb Museum collection. Photo Bert Easterbrooke

On the back of an Eli Lilly Standardized Fluid Extract of Cannabis Indica bottle (circa 1909), the following description of the “Action and uses” included the following:

“NOT POISONOUS according to best authorities, though formerly so regarded. Antispasmodic, analgesic, anesthetic, narcotic, aphrodisiac. Specially recommended in spasmodic and painful affections; for preventing rather than arresting migraine, almost a specific in that form of insanity peculiar to women caused by mental worry or moral shock. . . . In hysterical cases not calmed by chloral or opium it acts especially well.” (24)

Image #36: CANNABIS INDICA U.S.P., (Indian Cannabis), STANDARDIZED FLUID EXTRACT, ELI LILLY & COMPANY, INDIANAPOLIS, from the Herb Museum collection. Photo Bert Easterbrook

Image #37: CANNABIS INDICA U.S.P., (Indian Cannabis), STANDARDIZED FLUID EXTRACT, ELI LILLY & COMPANY, INDIANAPOLIS, from the Herb Museum collection. Photo Bert Easterbrook

In other words, if your mom accidentally saw someone’s private parts and was freaking out, give her some pharmaceutical-grade pot. Notice that cannabis was being touted as a cure for insanity – not the cause of insanity – and by one of the biggest and most reputable pharmaceutical companies that ever existed in the United States.

Citations:

1) Herbert Brown, “Hashish,” Arizona Daily Star, Sept. 13, 1908, p. 1

2) “Hashish-Eaters of Syria,” San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 24, 1895, p. 6 3) https://www.etymonline.com/word/delirium

4) “USE OF OPIUM AND HEMP,” Pittsburg Daily Post, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1895, p. 14

5) 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, reprint, 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York

6) “Victims of a Mexican Drug,” The Tennessean, Aug. 16, 1897, p. 6

7) “STRONGER THAN OPIUM,” Tombstone Prospector, Tombstone, Arizona, Sept. 15th, 1897, p. 4

8)  Fritz Lemmermauer, Hashish: The Lost Legend, translated by Ronald K. Siegel, 2013, Process Media, Port Townsend, Washington

9) “A Bad Mexican Habit,” The Broad Ax, Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 29, 1898, p. 3

10) “Hasheesh: the Cause of Insanity Among the Natives of India,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati Ohio, Oct. 2, 1898, p. 17

11) “Egyptian Smokers and Madness,” Allentown Messenger, Allentown New Jersey, Sept. 29th, 1904, p.2

12) “INSANITY FOLLOWING THE USE OF INDIAN HEMP,” G. F. W. Ewens, M.D., Major, I.M.S., Superintendent, Punjab Lunatic Asylum, Lahore, The Indian Medical Gazette, November 1904, pp. 401-41

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5162468/

13) Ibid, p. 401

14) Ibid, p. 403

15) Ibid, p. 406

16) “Uncle Sam’s Poison Farm,” Boston Globe, Boston Massachusetts, Jan. 10th, 1904, p. 45

17) “Our Wicked Government Scientists,” American Journal Examiner, Butte Miner, Butte, Montana, July 9th, 1905, p. 20

18) “CRAZED FROM SMOKING A WEED – Startling Behavior of Victims of the Marihuana Habit,” The Florida Star, May 19, 1905, p. 7

19) “HOW HUMAN VICTIMS ARE WRECKED BY THE TERRIBLE COCAINE HABIT: Pen Pictures of Cocaine Fiends, Showing Some of the Effects the Drug Works Upon Its Unfortunate Victims.” The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, January 15th, 1905, p. 7

See also: “The Amazing World of the Coca Leaf,” David Malmo-Levine, August 31, 2021

The Amazing World of the Coca Leaf

20) From the Pacific Drug Review 18(4):6 (April 1906), quoted in “The Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California,” Originally published as “The Forgotten Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California,” Contemporary Drug Problems, Vol 26 #2, Summer 1999, Substantially revised Jun. 2006, p. 12 https://www.canorml.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/caloriginsmjproh.pdf

21) “Votaries Tell of the Hashish Fad – Indian Hemp Makes New York Poet Think He Is Another John Milton For the Time,” The Leavenworth Times, March 2, 1908

22) cannabismuseum.com

See also: http://antiquecannabisbook.com/

Pharmaceutical-grade cannabis cigarettes, such as Grimault’s Cigarettes of Cannabis Indica, were sold in New Zealand and Australia and Paris at least by the late 1860s if not earlier, and were sold in the US by 1901. They were still advertised for sale in the US as late as 1938, and advertised for sale in Jamaica as late as 1946.

http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap7/Cigaret.htm

23) “Over 100 phytocannabinoids have been identified (Brenneisen, 2007; Mehmedic et al., 2010), but many are artefacts of analysis or are produced in trace quantities that have not permitted thorough investigation. . . . Over 200 have been reported in the plant (Hendriks et al., 1975; 1977; Malingre et al., 1975; Davalos et al., 1977; Ross and ElSohly, 1996; Mediavilla and Steinemann, 1997; Rothschild et al., 2005; Brenneisen, 2007), but only a few studies have concentrated on their pharmacology (McPartland and Pruitt, 1999; McPartland and Mediavilla, 2001a; McPartland and Russo, 2001b).” Ethan Russo, “Taming THC: potential cannabis synergy and phytocannabinoid-terpenoid entourage effects,” Br J Pharmacol. 2011

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3165946/

24) Standardized Fluid Extract of Cannabis Indica U.S.P. (Indian Cannabis), Eli Lilly & Company, circa 1909, from the Herb Museum collection.