Marihuana Conference
HELD DECEMBER 5, 1938 in the UNITED STATES Bureau of Internal Revenue Building (Room 3003) Washington D. C.
CALLED BY THE BUREAU OF NARCOTICS OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY DEPARTMENT
PRESIDED OVER BY MR. H. J. ANSLINGER, COMMISSIONER OF NARCOTICS, AND MR. H. J. WOLLNER, CONSULTING CHEMIST, TREASURY DEPARTMENT MARIHUANA CONFERENCE
Index
Conferees Present: 2 - 3
OPENING STATEMENT OF H.J. ANSLINGER, COMMISSIONER OF NARCOTICS, containing Review of Proceedings of Sub-Committee on Cannabis of Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium, League of Nations: 4-16
STATEMENT OF DR. A. H .WRIGHT, PROFESSOR OF AGRONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, relating to growth of Hemp, where seeds are produced, and Hemp is grown in United States: 16 - 27
STATEMENT OF MR. FRANKLIN, CHIEF OF DRUG CONTROL, STATE OF NEW YORK, as to growth of Marihuana in that state. 27 - 29
STATEMENT OF DR. B. B. ROBINSON, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, relative to experiments as to World Production of Hemp, and quantity of Production in United States and Growth and Production of Cannabis, and Comparative Results obtained from Seed obtained from various Countries: 29 - 49
STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN R. MATCHETT, CHIEF CHEMIST, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS, as to Tests made from Seeds of Hemp in various Countries: 42- 43
STATEMENT OF MR. HENRY FULLER, CONSULTING CHEMIST, as to his Experience in Growth of Cannabis: 49 - 55
MARIHUANA CONFERENCE INDEX -(Continued)
STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. MUNCH, PROFESSOR OF PHARMACOLOGY, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, relating to Effects of Marihuana on Organs of Body: 55- 60
STATEMENT OF DR. S. LOEWE, PHARMACOLOGIST, CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDICAL COLLEGE, as to Bio-Assay of Marihuana 60 - 65
STATEMENT OF DR. WALTER BROMBERG, SENIOR PSYCHIATRIST, DEPARTMENT OF HOSPITALS, NEW YORK CITY, relating to varying Effects of Marihuana in various Classes of Individuals: 65 - 88
Discussion on Pharmacological Phases of Marihuana Problem: 89 -133
STATEMENT OF H. J. WOLLNER, CONSULTING CHEMIST, TREASURY DEPARTMENT: 133 -137
STATEMENT OF DR. A. H. BLATT, HOWARD UNIVERSITY, Relative to Survey of Chemical Constituents of Cannabis Sativa: 137-143
STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN R. MATCHETT, TREEASURY DEPARTMENT, containing Report of Department of Attacks on Marihuana Problems: 143 -151
STATEMENT OF DR. JOSEPH LEVINE, CHEMIST, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS, as to Tests for Identification of Marihuana 152 -160
STATEMENT OF MR. LOUIS BENJAMIN, CHEMIST, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, as to Tests: 160-164
STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. MUNCH, as to Tests: 162-164
STATEMENT OF DR. H. M. LANCASTER, CHIEF DOMINION ANALYST, CANADIAN GOVERMENT, in relation to Tests: 165 -l70
STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES COUCH, PATHOLOGICAL DIVISION, BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE: 170 -173
General Discussion: 173-178
I will now introduce the conferees in attendance:
DR. JOHN R. MATCHETT, Chief Chemist, Bureau of Narcotics
DR. JOSEPH LEVINE, Chemist, Bureau of Narcotics
LOUIS BENJAMIN, Chemist, Treasury Department
DR. B. B. ROBINSON, Bureau of Plant Industry, Department of Agriculture
DR. HERBERT O. CALVERY, Chief, Division of Pharmacology, Food & Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture
DR. ROBERT P. HERWICK, Food & Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture
DR. LAWRENCE KOLB, Division of Mental Hygiene, Public Health Service
DR. JAMES COUCH, Pathological Division, Bureau of Anlmal Industry, Department of Agriculture
DR. A.H. BLATT, Professor of Chemistry, Howard University
DR. S. LOEWE, Pharmacologist, Cornell University Medical College
DR. A.H. WRIGHT, Professor of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin
DR. WALTER BROMBERG, Senior Psychiatrist, Department of Hospitals, City of New York
3DR. JAMES C. MUNCH, Professor of Pharmacology, Temple University
MR. H. M. LANCASTER, Chief Dominion Analyst, Canadian Government, Ottawa, Canada
MR. HENRY FULLER, Consulting Chemist, Washington, D. C.
MR. FRANK SMITH, Chief of Drug Control, State of New York.
DR. JAMES HIBBEN, Geophysical Laboratory Carnegie Institute of Washington
MR. FRED T. MERRILL, Foreign Policy Association Washington, D. C.
MR. PETER VALAER, Chemist, Alcohol Tax Unit Laboratory, U. S. Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.
DR. W. V. LINDER, Chief, Alcohol Tax Unit Laboratory, U. S. Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.
MR. PAUL W. SIMONDS, Assn. Chief, Alcohol Tax Unit Laboratory, U. S. Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.
MR. MORRIS KAPLAN, Office of the Chief, Division of Laboratories, U. S. Bureau of Customs
DR. S. T. SCHICKTANZ, Chemist, Alcohol Tax Unit Laboratory, U. S. Treasury Department
Dr. Bouquet submitted reports on the following points:
- I Vegetable products wrongly designated as hemp.
- II Microscopic examination of samples of Cannabis.
- III Physiologically active resin in the staminate Cannabis plant. 6
- IV New variety of Cannabis.
- V Influence of drought on the growth of Cannabis.
- VI Medical uses of Cannabis and drugs with a Cannabis base.
- VII Use of animal charcoal.
- VIII Dr. James C. Munch's Reaction.
- IX Is light petroleum the only solvent of the active element of Cannabis and its preparations?
- X Addiction by certain solanaceae.
Then the report is supplemented by Dr. Bouquet regarding the following points:
- I Are the light petroleum extracts of Cannabis the only ones that are physiologically active?
- II Observations on document O.C.1542 (z) (Report on the research conducted by the Treasury Department of the United
- States of America, in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, in connection with studies on the chemical identification of Cannabis Indica (Cannabis Sativa).
- III Identification test for Cannabis resin, proposed by Dr. de Myttenaere.
- IV Method of identifying resin, proposed by Dr. H. J. Wollner.
- V Procedure for experiments.
- VI Observations on the causes of Cannabis addiction in North Africa.
"In discussion of the matter before it, the Sub-Committee divided consideration of the subject as follows:14
- (l) Commercial uses of Cannabis
- (2) Medical uses of Cannabis
- (3) Effects of the abuse of Cannabis
- (4) Methods of detecting the presence of Cannabis
- (5) Legal definition of the term "Cannabis."
The discussions developed the fact that the Committee still lacks complete information concerning the commercial uses of Cannabis. The Sub-Committee would welcome further information concerning the physiological, psychological and psychopathic effects of abusive use of Cannabis and the relation between Cannabis-addiction and crime. Dr. Bouquet pointed out that percentages of resin content in the hemp plant raised in different countries should be ascertained with a view to deciding whether it is necessary to prohibit or merely to control the cultivation of Cannabis for industrial purposes. The value of the Beam test for detecting the presence of Cannabis appears to have been confirmed by a further series of experiments, the results of which are before the Committee, including those attained by the employment of several different modifications of that text. Dr. de Myttenaere said that his experience enabled him to state that the Beam alkaline reaction and its modifications indicated the chief element in the various
15components of Cannabis resin which was the cause of Hashish addiction, i.e.the alcoholic group. Dr. Bouquet informed the Sub-Committee that a test based upon new principles had recently been devised which will form the subject of a thesis to be presented by Messrs. Duquenois and Hassan Negm Mustapha at the University of Strasbourg in July, 1938, a brief description of which will be circulated to the Opium Advisory Committee. The question of modifying the incomplete definition of Indian hemp in the Geneva Convention of 1925 was discussed, but no definite conclusion was arrived at. It appeared upon examination that such modification would affect not only Article 1 of the Convention, but also Articles 4 and 11 and would necessarily involve complicated adjustments in the Convention itself. It was therefore decided to postpone further consideration of this matter until the next session of this Sub-Committee when it is hoped that more time will be available for the work. Up to the present time, the work of the Sub-Committee has consisted almost entirely of collecting information in regard to the various phases of the Cannabis problem, and, until the Sub-Committee has before it more data than it has at present, it would scarcely be considered advisable to undertake definite recommendations."
STATEMENT OF DR. A. H. WRIGHT Professor of Agronomy University of Wisconsin
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Go right ahead.
DR. WRIGHT: You know I might not have another chance to say anything
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: You will be given a chance. Go right ahead, Dr. Wright.
DR. WRIGHT: I was just wanted to throw this into the pot, and that is, of course, that we who work with the commercial producers, and the industry naturally collectively, and I suppose we are justifiable in that, our prejudices are on that side. I do not think we would be human if we were not, and I do not claim to be other than human. We have a small industry in the United States that
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We thank you very much, Doctor. Before we go on to Dr. Robinson, I think there were various points brought up that our conferees would like to discuss. There is one point about commercial hemp. We did not make a survey in your State, but we did make a survey in the State of Minnesota, and some of the hemp that was harvested in 1934 is still on the ground.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: It is giving us a great deal of difficulty. The farmers up in Minnesota in some of the sections have been subjected to various promotion schemes. Due to the existence of stacks of the old 1934 and 1935 crop of harvested hemp in Southern Minnesota, which is a menace to society in that it has been used by traffickers, we have arrested a gang who took a truck load of this Marihuana into New York. I will say that the farmers up there have been cooperating with us 100%. If they see anybody around that section who looks like a trafficker, they bring out their old shot guns, and he is soon disposed of. We have very little trouble from the farmers up there. It is said that every stack contains a plentiful supply for smoking purposes. Allegations have been made that if it was on the ground three years there would not be any resin left. Mr. Wollner can tell you how much resin some of the experts reported after Marihuana had been lying on the ground three years. It seems that the traffickers can find it. Our own chemists have found it. We feel that the farmer is entitled to a reasonable return for these old crops. He planted the crop in goodfaith; he has no desire to violate the law, and we have
DR. ROBINSON: As to the commercial procedure, the plant is spread out on the land, and left there until the stalks are retted, and some of the leaves are gone. It is shocked and taken into the hemp mill. The grower is uncertain as to where he stands, and whether the leaves that are associated with the straw are in the legal sense Marihuana, referring, of course, to that particular clause in the law which refers to dry stalks. Now this is done as follows: the straw is left on the land in the stubble for varying times, as I say, from two weeks or longer during this retting process. It is subject to the action of rains and bleaching and decomposition with the various effects of bacteria and fungi, but when it is taken in, it still retains a trace of the leaves. That is what affects the folks up there in Minnesota.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I notice the term "hurds" referred to.
DR. WRIGHT: That is the non-fibrous material crushed and taken away from the fibrous. It is the residue. It
MR. WOLLNER: I am afraid to say that the experiment with Minnesota hemp is rather inconclusive. As I understand it the hemp was bundled before it had been permitted to ret for an extended period of time. It may be we will find that if the hemp is permitted to ret before it is stacked, a further decomposition of the drug will ensue. However, we do know that the Minnesota hemp of 1934 is active.
DR. WRIGHT: It would be active.
MR. WOLLNER. It is active but whether the activity was retained by improper handling of the hemp, I don't know. As I understand it they were advised to bunch their hemp before it was retted.
DR. WRIGHT: It was never rotted or retted. The plan of handling in Minnesota was unauthorized. In other words, it was contrary to the usual procedure. They put the green hemp or the semi-green hemp in a bundle, and at a later stage it would be known in the trade as green hemp. That was never used for textile purposes. It was not suitable for textile purposes.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Then, Dr. Wright, your opinion is that if harvested properly most of the leaves would remain on the ground and not adhere to the stalks?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Then prompt harvesting would reduce this danger we are now confronted with?
DR. WRIGHT: It would.
DR. MATCHETT: What about the hemp stacked green in Kentucky; doesn't that mold more than that left on the ground?
DR. WRIGHT: Hemp is left in the shock in Kentucky. You will correct me Dr. Robinson, if I'm wrong, because it has been fifteen years since I was down there, but it is my impression that it is shocked. It is first spread and allowed to wilt on the ground.
DR. MATCHETT: Then there is no molding?
DR. WRIGHT: If properly handled there will be no molding.
MR. WOLLNER: From our point of view that would be improper handling; there would be no decomposition of the resin.
MR. WOLLNER: How long, about, does that take?
DR. WRIGHT: Now, after it is shocked, cured and stacked, later it is spread on the land again and retted.
DR. MATCHETT: But, during this period, of course, it would be in excellent condition for smoking, - that is, relatively dry in the stack.
DR. WRIGHT: From the time it is cut until it is rotted, whatever leaves there are should be suitable for Marihuana.
MR. SMITH: While we have not found in New York State a large agricultural growth, we do find that the largest part of our growth, instead of being on good soil, is on poor soil. For the past two years when I have been looking for wild growth, I have found it in dumps or soil that has a high content of ashes or cinders, and I have found it trying to grow it in my own garden but the growth does not begin to compare with that of the cinder growth, and as a matter of fact we have found that most recently the wild growth seeks that kind of soil. That does not prove anything, of course, except we have probably most of our wild growth coming from ashes
DR. WRIGHT: As to your first statement about hemp growing on cinder beds, wild hemp, - it is not a fibrous hemp. As all of you who are familiar with the middle west know, you will find blocks that were formerly even cinder beds, but fibrous hemp will not grow there.
MR. SMITH: The point I was chiefly interested in was the public interest, where it was grown, whether being produced by chance or design.
MR. SMITH: We have also in New York State given some consideration to definite measures for removal, but so far we have operated under difficulties acting under nuisance laws. Under the Public Health laws in New York, we can fix a penalty for maintaining a public nuisance. We have in a few instances removed Marihuana from private property where the owner wouldn't undertake it himself, and then assessed a lien against the property within the Public Health law on the ground that we have removed a public nuisance.
DR. WRIGHT: It might be construed to apply to Marihuana under our Public Health regulations in Wisconsin. I do not know whether it has been discussed or not.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Dr. Robinson, we would like to hear from you.
STATEMENT OF DR. B. B. ROBINSON BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.
DR. ROBINSON: If fibres produced from plants were ranked in accordance with their world production in tonnage, hemp would occupy a position of probably third or fourth. It would be surpassed by cotton and jute produced in India, and in some years by flax. That gives you some idea of where it stands in relative importance. Dr. Wright mentioned a mattor that many of you are familMWith, the fact of the importance that hemp played in our earlier Colonial days before the introduction of the cotton gin.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Thank you very muck, Dr. Robinson. You recall what I said about the Turkish annual report for the year 1937 in which it is said that Cannabis sativa with long stalks is grown for industrial purposes in various parts of Anatolia; that the fibre is used for the manufacture of ropes and sacks, and its resin content is so slight that it could not be used for the extraction of a narcotic drug. It might be interesting to get some Turkish seed.
MR. WOLLNER: We have not had a great deal of success as regards those statements. We obtained some seed submitted by Dr. Bouquet and I believe Dr. Robinson planted some of them, without any success.
DR. ROBINSON: We planted them under favorable conditions last spring. Roughly we may have gotten in the field 200 or 300 plants, and after our first Beam test it was estimated we had about 100 left. About the first of August, I came back from a trip to the west, and we el- iminated about two-thirds of the remainder leaving only about 40. I have harvested about 20 of these one-half were males, and we sent 10 from that collection over to Dr. Matchett to run an alkaline Beam test on. I was
MR. WOLLNER: Was the amount of resin in these plants comparable to that in other plants?
DR. ROBINSON: In harvesting these plants, we merely stripped the seed in the field to keep the birds from getting it and I would say that the African plant was more resinous than the Manchurian plant. It may be that the African plant was later in maturing, but still, by comparison with the Manchurian plant, it had more resin. My hand was simply caked with resin in stripping the plant for the seed.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: The Indian Government report for 1934 shows that where they did not have this type of hemp all of the resin was imported from Central Asia. It is stated that the hemp cultivated in Europe does not carry the intoxicating properties of Indian hemp. While it is believed that the European hemp does not contain as much resin as is to be found in hemp usually produced in Asia, the production of the active resin is particularly variable, and there are some times great differences in quantity depending on the altitude of the place of cultivation. Are there any questions that you care to ask, Dr. Robinson?
DR. HIBBEN: I would like to ask if you made any experiments artificially in the new varieties by radiation?
DR. ROBINSON: We had a program for a number of years on hemp, and my predecessor, Mr. Dewey, who unfortunately could not be here this morning, reached retirement age three years ago, and our hemp program was interrupted. So far we have not gone into that, but to some extent we have considered it. These other methods we have approached seemed to have possibilities of results if the tests mean anything. I think this next spring, we should be able to plant these negative seeds we have, and those which have tested negative three different times and have been pollinated by plants in three different tests, and we should be able to give the chemists something definite to test.
DR. MUNCH: It is my recollection, when Mr. Dewey made a test of the original plants growing in Arlington back in 1922, we found different physiological portents in the male and the female but, at that time, Mr. Dewey had seed he had obtained from various parts of the world, and it is my impression that after about three years of cultivation at Arlington, the growth characteristics of all of these plants tended to the same type. In other
DR. ROBINSON: I think that more or less that result is obtained. Professor Wright who may have had a little closer touch with the problem could answer you better. Wouldn't that be your opinion, Professor Wright?
DR. WRIGHT: Yes, under the method used of applying open pollinating, that was the tendency as far as our observation went,-that they were more or less alike.
DR. ROBINSON: In reference to that, these stalks of hemp we obtained last year from these various sources, have all been isolated, so they have not been cross pollinated.
DR. MUNCH I do not know where Mr. Young of Florence, South Carolina, got his idea for the raising of Cannabis for a medicinal purpose -
DR. ROBINSON: He got it from Mr. Dewey.
DR. MUNCH: There was a material decrease in the material before he finally abandoned that project.
DR. ROBINSON: I do not know how he obtained it all, or that he obtained it all from Mr. Dewey, but as I recall, he did.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Yes, Dr. Wright, can you give us something on that?
DR. WRIGHT: Commercial seed used for commercial planting?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Yes.
DR. WRIGHT: I do not have any notes on that. The seed are grown from plants cultivated principally for seed; I mean the ordinary hemp which has been planted for seed similar to corn. It is planted in rows, all harvested by hand, and put in large shocks like those in Kentucky. It is harvested in the latter part of September or the first of October in the section in which it is grown. Then the shocks are dumped over on large canvasses, smoothed out on the ground, and the stubble removed and beat out with sticks in the old fashioned method. This is the only place in the United States producing this commercially.
DR. MATCHETT: Isn't most of the seed planted here produced in foreign countries?
DR. WRIGHT: I do not get the question.
DR. MATCHETT: Aren't most of the seeds produced in foreign countries?
DR. WRIGHT: Most of the seed produced for Commercial purposes originated in China, central China or towards the south part of China and was carried here for cultivation.
MR. WOLLNER: I believe what Dr. Matchett means is the commercial crop that is grown for instance in Wisconsin, does that originate from seed grown in Kentucky, or the Far East?
DR. WRIGHT: All of the hemp planted in the United States for commercial purposes comes from Kentucky. That is, all of the legitimate hemp comes from seed grown in Kentucky. Does that answer the question?
DR. MATCHETT: Yes.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Dr. Matchett, you have been collaborating with Dr. Robinson in these experiments at Arlington. Can you tell us what results you obtained? Dr. Robinson has told us quite a lot about the results, but I think you can probably elaborate upon them.
DR. MATCHETT: First of all I might state we made these tests in the manner that was published by us last year, and in the treatment we divided the tests into six categories, according to the depth of color that we obtained, beginning with zero for negative plants. These plants which, gave us only traces of color, which we felt should not be overlooked, but which we also felt would not constitute wholly satisfactory identification of the plant, were designated number one.
Those plants characterized as 2, gave strong responses, definitely positive, and those as 3, 4, and 5 responded with increasing intensity in that order.
Briefly we found on variety No. 1, a Rumanian variety 97.5% of the plants tested would have been satisfactorily identified by the Beam test. That is assuming for the moment the single test would be sufficient, which I believe is generally understood not to be so.
Variety No. 2, another Rumanian variety, gave us 100%.
Variety No. 3, the third Rumanian variety, 87% of satisfactory response.
Variety No. 5, Manchuria, 22.9% satisfactory response.
Variety No. 6, Chinese, 13.8% satisfactory.
Variety No. 9, Italian, 98.1%
There is a very decided difference between the Chinese, and Manchurian varieties on the one hand and the Rumanian and Italian varieties on the other.
Now there were some very interesting things in reference to the differences between the three test periods.
It is true that there was one rather decided change, particularly in the second test, but there was not as significant difference between the number of negative plants, nor was the difference worked with reference to category No. l.
The interesting thing was where we had many in category 2 in the first testing, in the next testing a considerable increase appeared in category 4, with a corresponding decrease in category 2.
The actual number of negative plants was not significantly different. I believe the first test gave us 36, the second test 32, and the third test 40.
During the course of our activities we found that molding had no apparent effect on one alkaline test response of either negative or positive plants. We permitted them to mold in a. very moist place for a period of five weeks. There was no change in the Beam test.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I want to ask Dr. Wright a question. In harvesting the plant, Doctor, we understand that the farmer usually harvests it before the resin reaches its highest stage. Is that true?
DR. WRIGHT: I will say yes, not knowing when the highest stage of the resin is reached myself, but from what I could gather from talking to Mr. Wollner and Dr. Link and those most familiar with the subject. It is cut in the mid-blossom stage, and from what I understand the plants are usually expected to have a high content of resin at that time.
DR. WRIGHT: I can only give you some guess on that. It is quite variable, and how long the seed will remain in the soil is simply my guess. If it is harvested the first year, before pollination occurs I would expect that to handle the situation under most circumstances. I am basing that on practical observation and experience, but if there is a repetition and the plant does become a volunteer plant, if the same process as followed for two years we could expect almost complete eradication.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: What seed could replace the hemp seed as bird food? There is a lot of growth throughout the country due to the casting about of bird seed. Now, however we require sterilization of hemp seed. We have not reached the 100% point in sterilization but the seed people tell us they should sell the seed in 5% mixtures; but even 5%, mixtures if the seed is not properly sterilized, might produce some wild growth. Have you any suggestions on that?
DR., COUCH: As a matter of fact, I do not know anything on that point, and we have not gone into it at all. I am extremely interested however.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I think there should be some discussion as to the relative activities between the male and the female plants.
DR. BLATT: May I ask a question of Dr. Robinson? As I understand it, the average production is about 500 tons a year. Is that 500 tons of fibre?
DR. ROBINSON: Yes. This past summer, we had 1300 acres of hemp produced commercially in this country, and it has been running about that acreage with the exception that in 1934 and 1935 this acreage appeared in Minnesota, and in 1936 and 1937 we had a big acreages in Illinois, but those were acreages planted, you might say, for other purposes than the ordinary use, for there was an idea of producing fibre as a substitute for a wool and various things of that nature. Those industries that attempted to do that, for one reason or another, have dropped by the wayside, and 1000 to 1500 acres is the normal hemp production each year in the United States.
DR. WRIGHT: Not actually knowing it, I could not say, of course, but I am sure that is the answer. In the male plant the leaves drop off long before, the female plant, and when the traffickers have reached the plant the leaves have practically all gone from the male, but the females are luxuriant.
MR. LEVINE: Is there any distinction between the fiber of males and females?
DR. WRIGHT: You see, in fibre, they are cut at an early stage when the female plants are just forming the
MR. WOLLNER: Then the male plant would grow as tall as the female plant.
DR. WRIGHT: Yes, they do usually reach the same height.
MR. WOLLNER. When produced for fibre, the plant does not reach the height we experienced in Arlington.
DR. WRIGHT: It has reached its full height when cut for fibre. You planted it in rows, too, which would add to the height.
MR. HERWICK: I should like to ask Professor Wright a question as to whether or not there was any quantity of Cannabis raised in this country for commercial drug purposes.
DR. WRIGHT: I cannot answer that question.
DR. ROBINSON: Undoubtedly there are others here who could furnish that information. I do not know of a single case where any of it has been furnished companies for that purpose, but I think there are companies that get it for that purpose.
MR. SMITH: There was a concern that grew it in Indianapolis several years ago for their own purposes.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Most of the pharmaceutical houses before enactment of Federal Marihuana Legislation obtained their Cannabis supply from the Middle West. There was relatively little importation of Cannabis for medical purposes.
DR. COUCH: In the Food and Drug Administration, we occasionally see a questionnaire sent to the importers more or less of the patent medicine type, and also some well known pharmaceutical houses where cannabis is still found in the formula for certain products. Under the Pure Food and Drug Act, we have some requirements on that, and we are informed what the source of it is, whether gotten in this country or through importation.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I think the stocks of some of the larger houses who are still putting this out are sufficient to carry them over for a considerable period of time. Some of the firms transferred or sold their product to other houses, but I know of a number of occasions where raw material was obtained in this country for the local trade.
DR. WRIGHT: I have been informed by Doctors that they did get a considerable amount of their prepared processed material from Mexico. I was wondering if there was any processing plant in Mexico.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I did not know they imported it for medical uses from Mexico.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I suppose that seed came from Kentucky, which in turn came from China.
DR. MUNCH: That is true, but I have tested material grown in the United States commercially that was more potent in its physiological aspects than that imported from India.
MR. FULLER: I think that came about as a result of the interest that developed in the production of it during the war, or just before we got into the war, because at that time I was in the field myself and grew it com- mercially for four or five years in Virginia from that same stock of seed that Young used in South Carolina, and
The plan we adopted was to cull out as much as possible the tall plants for purely commercial reasons. We could not get so much material from the tall plants. In other words, bushy plants grew up six and seven feet high, giving much more drug than those that grew up taller but not so bushy, When we considered it the proper time, you would grab hold of it. It felt like a sponge. We collected enough material then to produce a drug very much more potent than any imported material that came into the country.
It was our experience that it really did not make much difference where the hemp came from, after it had been grown here and become acclimated to our conditions you could select bushy plants from it, and it was just as potent. It did not make any difference where it came from. We used to cull our plants, particularly the male plants. I used to think it did not have much effect, but be that as it may, that was what we did. I do not think we could have ever used the male plants anyway for, in stripping, the amount of material obtained was so small.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: How did you strip the plant?
MR. FULLER: It was a very easy process. It was done by women, and they used gloves. In all of the years we
I think a great deal of the Cannabis sold in the drug trade came from the wild materials that grew in the Middle West and one of the largest dealers in drugs handled that crop. I knew him very well, and he told me at the time.
DR. BROMBERG: What further preparation was there after stripping for medicinal purposes?
MR. FULLER: We just baled it and sold it.
DR. BROMBERG: Any other processing necessary?
MR. FULLER: In the manufacturing of medicinals, it has to be extracted usually with alcohol end concentrated down to a solid extract. There was no attempt, and I do not think there has been any attempt made, to separate for commercial purposes the active principle, for even with all of the work done, we do not know what it is.
MR. WOLLNER: Did you find, Mr. Fuller, in your growth of the plant commercially, that arid seasons or drier seasons would increase, or produce an increased quantity of resin?
MR. WOLLNER: I would like to offer this thought to the Department of Agriculture. The statement is invariably made by people in Europe and the Far East and Near East that the amount of resin produced by a plant is in a measure proportionate to the rainfall, and the less rainfall the more resin. I wonder whether we are actually dealing with the question of the variation in the amount of resin produced as against the amount of resin exuded. That is to say, isn't it possible as a result of a condition, all that happens is the plant structure, so to speak, shrinks to evaporation and greater amount of resin appears on the surface, but the absolute quantity contained by the flowering tops and the leaves is the same ?
DR. ROBINSON: I think your point is well taken, and it was my intention to go into some of those points
MR. WOLLNER: I am thinking in terms of opium or the poppy. You can get opium from the pod without scarifying, and the thought struck me, in the case of Cannabis, since the leaf is always extracted in this country, and since in the past the process has been of rubbing it from the outside, in the East, they get more resin than we do, due to the fact that more has exuded but not
DR. HIBBEN: There is another factor involved in the question about rainfall, and the formation of resin, and that is perhaps the production of resin would depend upon the amount of sunshine, and the more rainfall, the less sunshine. In tomato plants for example, the Department of Agriculture has done a great deal of experimentation as to foliage, and [it] has been shown that the quantity of foliage depends greatly upon the duration of sunshine the plant has received.
MR. WOLLNER: I had not thought of that.
DR. HIBBEN: Some plants require a great deal of sunshine.
DR. WRIGHT: May I ask you this question, - I was interested in the fact that you selected the bushy plant believing it more profitable to do that.
MR. FULLER: Yes.
DR. WRIGHT: Did you have any observations at all to indicate they were more potent or more satisfactory to the purchaser than the more slender plants; have you any reason to believe there is a difference between the two?
MR. FULLER: No, I do not think there is any difference, for the green leaf from the male plant yields resin, and as far as we could determine, the resin was just as
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: And now, Gentlemen, if we have no more questions on the agricultural phase of the problem we will proceed to a little more controversial subject. The pharmacological phase. I would like to have Dr. Munch give us a little history of the pharmacology of Marihuana.
STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES C. MUNCH PROFESSOR OF PHARMACOLOGY TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
DR. MUNCH: So far as the external effects are concerned of the fluid extract of Cannabis, the effects are hyperesthesia, fomication, and cold extremities. These cause increase in intensity. It is not local.
So far as the gastro-intestinal tract is concerned, there is no effect upon the taste. There is a tendency towards an increase in thirst and appetite, and large doses will cause nausea, emesis, vomiting, and the drugs produced diarrhea or constipation. So far as the effect on the brain, I am only going into that to this extent, to say that in connection with USPVIII which was thirty years ago we were interested
Then through various means, we obtained drugs and
Then as to the method of bio-assay. Contrary to much of the published literature we find that dogs vary as greatly in their response as do humans. On. some 500 dogs I have used, fully one-half were very insensitive, and were discarded immediately. The nervous type or short- haired dog is usually a satisfactory animal but not necessarily the best.
Going back to the pharmacological action, so far as the causes, and effect on circulation, a small dose causes rapid beating of the heart which may be followed by less than normal. The blood pressure is usually unchanged, or there is a slight fall.
So far as the blood is concerned, there is a definite increase in the hypoglycemiacal content. At the same time, there is a definite increase in the blood sugar. Enormous doses have produced death by cardiac failure, but the doses were 100 to 200 times doses, which produced a tremendous physiological effect.
If smoked, there is a tendency to choking or coughing, and all doses tend to decrease the respiratory needs.
So far as the pupils of the eyes themselves, there is a very definite contraction of the conjunctiva, and usually but not always a dilation of the pupil.
So far as the effect on the glands, there is probably a double diuretical effect. There is a question, and the production of the diuretic effect is unsettled.
It has been reported there is a sexually stimulating effect. Some say it does and some say it does not exist.
So far as antidotes are concerned the thought is, if it has been swallowed, the administration of an emetic, caffeine or acid drinks in general.
So far as the habituation is concerned, it has been claimed and denied, and so far as elimination is concerned, I have not been able to detect it in the urine. So, I do not believe the active principle is eliminated by urine.
In the general pharmacopoeia developed by O'Shaunessy in 1843, which reached its peak ten or fifteen years later, it was clinically recommended for all sorts of diseases and later found worthless.
There is a definite decrease in the central Indian
Pharmacology is right I think, when it is said it does not have the same effect, or one effect on the brain, and I may be sticking my head out when I make a suggested answer that the cause of the awful intoxication is largely due to the difference in the rate of absorption, whether the material is smoked or given by solution or in capsules and taken into the stomach, or given rectally, and also the susceptibility on the brain, because in many instances we have given the same material to humans or dogs. Some of the animals it has shown no effect upon, others it has shown an enormous effect with the same dose. So far as animals are concerned, we have made a comparative study and find that dogs and rabbits have proven most suitable for quantitative assays but none can be relied on for qualitative accuracy, that is 10 to 12%. That is a complete change from what I said in my book,1 but it is possible, by running from 14 to 20 bio-assay, to obtain results accurate within plus or minus 11 to 20%. But, it never has been done commercially and can only be done in connection with research.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Before we enter into a general discussion, I would like to call on Dr. Loewe of Cornell University to give us a statement on the bio-assay method.
STATEMENT OF DR. S. LOEWE PHARMACOLOGIST CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDICAL COLLEGE
DR. LOEWE: The bio-assay, in my opinion, is the point where the pharmacologist has to enter this manifold picture at which we arrive in this conference for a very significant reason.
Dr. Munch has thoroughly depicted the many aspects of the pharmacological action of Marihuana. That is what we can call the pharmacological spectrum of this drug, But it must be emphasized, that the spectrum of the drug as such and not on one certain active principle necessarily, for nobody knows the active principle, and nobody ever knows whether there is only one active principle or more than one active principle.
It can be assumed from the beginning that there is more than one active principle but this must not necessarily concern the Marihuana interests, because the problem is narrowed to that active principle among possibly many active principles which produces the narcotic or "dope" action in humans.
Even with respect to this point, of course, we are not one hundred percent sure that this is the action of one principle or more than one.
Now, bio-assay has to start, therefore, with this, which one of these actions is preferable for the Marihuana problem for studying the narcotic principle, important for humans?
We have much evidence that the ataxia action is fairly well related to the narcotic action.
The mode of administration has been emphasized by Dr. Munch. I would prefer and do prefer, for bio-assay, intravenous administration because the Marihuana action has a very long period of latency without the means of elimination from the system, so that the results seem to be fairly well comparable.
Now, I am of the opinion, just like Dr. Munch has emphasized, that the bio-assay method of the drug is not definitely eliminated. I have the impression that the method will result in fairly good accuracy, but it is an accuracy of plus or minus 15 or 20%, and which will suffice, I suppose, for the period in which bio-assay is necessary.
It is the unfortunate situation of the pharmacologist that in certain periods of development of active princi-
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Well, Doctor, we are going to have the chemists confer among themselves, and they will then give us some of their views. I think we can reserve the general discussion for the afternoon.
We will now hear from Dr. Walter Bromberg, Senior Psychiatrist of the Department of Hospitals, City of New York.
STATEMENT OF DR. WALTER BROMBERG SENIOR PSYCHIATRIST DEPARTMENT OF HOSPITALS, CITY OF NEW YORK.
DR. BROMBERG: To start with, my interest in this Marihuana problem began in 1933 when I reported at Bellevue Hospital a group of 11 cases of mental reactions induced by smoking Marihuana and I reviewed the literature and medical knowledge at that time. Also, the experience which I obtained was at the Psychiatric Clinic of the Court of General Sessions over a period of six years. Persons showing overt mental symptoms were brought to the hospital by interested relatives and occasionally on a magistrate's order. For that reason, the vast majority of Marihuana smokers did not reach the hospital. Cases which came before the Clinic had passed through the Court of General Sessions and had been arraigned, indicted and
There has been considerable literature on the intoxication and insanity-producing effect of Cannabis, in papers from Asia, Europe, and the United States. To sum up this material concisely, it can be said that the several types of syndromes recognized fall into three groups: (a) intoxication, (b) toxic psychosis with or without admixture of other types of mental reactions (schizophrenia, manic-depressive) and (c) according to Eastern European and Asiatic observers, chronic dementia and deterioration following prolonged use of the drug. Apparently this latter type of deteriorating process has not been observed in American clinics.
Our experience with mental conditions following Marihuana indicate to us that there are two categories of mental reaction. The following classification is suggested:
Acute intoxication (Marihuana Psychosis) Containing sensory, motor and subjective elements, lasting hours to several days, often with anxiety or hysterical reactions, and panic states and depressions of transient nature. Toxic Psychoses (a) in which there are many admixtures of disturbed sensorlum, delusional and emotional reactions amounting to psychosis, but with the common characteristic
There were 14 cases of Acute Intoxication and 17 of Toxic psychosis.
The point at which the line is drawn between acute intoxicating due to Marihuana and psychosis due to Marihuana depends on the degree and severity of the symptoms. Acute intoxications, induced by smoking one to four cigarettes, bring about after an interval varying from one-half to five hours in the individual one or all of the following symptoms: an increase in motor activity, a feeling of excitement, mental confusion, disorientation, crowding of perception, elementary visual illusions and hallucinations, euphoria and talkativeness. In addition to these symptoms, numerous subjective experiences occur, such as increased speed of thought processes, a feeling of intellectual brilliance, change in time perception, various somatic feelings, dizziness, hunger, a feeling of swelling of the head, lightness of the extremities, a sensation of walking on air, lengthening of the limbs and sexual illusions. More often sex excitement consists
The speeded-up physical motility has its counterpart in rapid speech. There is a feeling on the part of the individual that he is witty, even brilliant; his ideas flow quickly and words come readily to the tongue. Conclusions and answers seem to come to mind ready-formed and surprisingly clear, without the effort of thinking. This feelings of clarity is, of course, spurious. Actually the productions of the intoxicant are hard to follow, for when he wishes to explain what he has thought there is
The smoker finds it pleasant to be with others and to impart his experiences to them. This is reflected in the fact that Marihuana is ordinarily smoked at parties or in groups. It is felt that this need for a social setting is a reaction to an inner anxiety arising from the threat of bodily destruction implied in somatic illusions induced by Marihuana In the ordinary case of smoking Marihuana, especially with one who is used to the drug, this threat becomes converted to euphoria which develops to uncontrollable fits of laughter. Nevertheless inquiry shows that almost every smoker is aware of definite uneasiness at the outset of the intoxication. The description from smokers in Harlem and from experimental subjects agrees on this point. In the words of a user of two years' standing, initiates "shrink together, feel tight inside and get frightened." After they smoke it more than once, the reality of these frightening somatic illusions becomes less. In occasional instances, and these are the cases
Notes taken on experimental subjects who were psychologically trained illustrate these points:
Subject l. Two cigarettes were smoked within 40 minutes. Immediately after the second a feeling of lightness in vertex of head was felt. Head was expanding; there was a feeling of mild excitement. Now the head felt heavy and there was a definite feeling of lengthening in the legs and a tension in the back muscles of the thigh. Head felt alternately light and heavy. There was a sensation as though the top of the head were lifted with about four inch increase in height, accompanied by optic images of skulls and skeletons. Feeling of the arms rising up in the air. Subject was aware of a feeling of confusion. Suddenly he saw images of legs and arms in a dissecting
It is remarkable how much anxiety is developed when one looks for experimental subjects among laymen. The drug is popularly supposed to release aggressive and sexual impulses beyond the point of control; it is also regarded as being habit-forming. The legendary history and social connotation of hashish smoking may help to de-
In clinical material as indicated, Marihuana effects may range from mild intoxications to transitory psychoses which require psychiatric aid. The effects vary and not all the symptoms occur in every case. Illustrative of the Marihuana psychosis with anxiety reactions, and somatic sensory distortions: A 31 year old white man, admitted March 27, 1934, with a history of having smoked just one cigarette. On admission the patient was depressed, retarded, apprehensive. He admitted smoking Marihuana. Was oriented and memory showed no defects. Physical examination was negative. The patient states, "My hand began to feel blue all of a sudden. I felt like laughing and I felt
This case demonstrates visual illusions, which recall the megalopsia (perceiving objects larger than they are), and more common micropsia, which has been reported experimentally and clinically. It is this type of illusion, induced by hashish, that may have been the basis for the story of Aladdin who saw the tremendous genie emerge from his lamp spout in the Arabian Nights' tale.
A 32 year old Irish-American, admitted September 17, 1937, with a history of smoking Marihuana cigarettes two hours prior to admission. He felt dizzy, wanted to commit suicide by jumping out of windows, bumping head on the wall, floor, etc. On admission was uneasy, ap-
A common type of intoxication is indicated in the following case:
A 38 year old Negro, admitted April 13, 1934, with history that he had run out of the house poorly clad and that he had smoked "artificial" cigarettes. He was confused on admission, was dazed in appearance and disoriented. He described a lightness of the head, dizziness and seeing star-shaped figures before his eyes after smoking a "doped" cigarette. He was apprehensive on examination. On the second or third day after admission, apprehension had disappeared and he was discharged as recovered, being clear, composed, but unable to account for his earlier excitement.
It is not uncommon to find the history of admixture of other drugs or alcohol in Cannabis intoxication. Frequently alcohol intensifies the Cannabis symptomatology.
A 27 year old man of old American stock, admitted on June 18, 1933, at his own request. He had been a chronic alcoholic and displayed definite evidences of psycho-
The second group comprises cases of toxic psychosis due to or initiated by Cannabis. There may be other
A boy of 16, admitted February 27, 1934, with statement from the family that for two months he had been depressed, apprehensive, worried, scratching his hands in a nervous manner, prayed constantly. He complained that somebody read his thoughts. On admission was well developed and showed no physical signs. Patient was agitated, depressed, talked constantly in a bizarre manner about the devil influencing him, etc. Said: "I felt lightly when I was walking - as if I weighed only 10 pounds. I felt like running my whole body was light. I felt like jumping. As if I was walking on air. I felt happy. Then I saw yellow lights all around me. I saw blue and green
Patient was readmitted August 1st of that year with a picture of a depression with schizoid features. On this admission there were no evidences whatever of the sensory illusions and somatic feelings that he had previously when he smoked Marihuana. He was transferred to the state hospital, where he remained four years, being diagnosed as Paranoid Schizophrenia with Catatonic Features. There he was restless and overactive. He had a marked push of speech, expressed ideas of reference and religious delusions and was manneristic. Said: "I figured the devil was trying to pull me away from God so I cut a cross on my arm. Physically I am the same, but mentally I am another person. ...I feel that people influence me by touching me - like injecting dope." Later he was manneristic, grimaced, was untidy, repeated practically all questions asked, answered briefly and usually vaguely and would say, "I don' know exactly," or "I don't
The personality factor is of undoubted importance in this group of individuals. After the toxic state passed off in these patients in whom the intoxication reaches deeply enough into the personality, a basic psy-chotic state developed. At times, the toxic features are in the background, the personality reactions being pre-dominant. What the inner relationship is between Cannabis and the onset of a functional psychotic state is not always clear. From our observation, the inner reaction to somatic sensation seems to be vital. Such reactions consisted of panic states which disappeared as soon as the stimulus (effects of the drug) faded. It is generally known in psychopathology that when the perception of our own bodily sensations is disturbed we are liable to be profoundly affected psychologically. Disturbances in perception of the body-model (Korperschema), which is built up of kinesthetic, tactile, visual and other stimuli, and integrated into the core of the personality, elicit some type of reaction. Such disturbances act as a blow to the ego, invoking defensive reactions of anxiety, apprehension, projection, etc., which approach or are schizophrenic in their clinical manifestations. The
A 20 year-old colored man admitted February 22, 1936. He is said by his mother to have been "nervous" for some time, said he wanted to die, wanted to kill himself. Prior to admission his mother caught him with a bottle of lysol. He had been depressed and despondent. He was a boy of superior intelligence as measured by the Army Alpha test. On admission he stated that he used Marihuana for several months and during this time he had heard people talking about him They said' "Oh, what an ugly boy. How mean-looking he is." For four months, August to October, 1935, he smoked three to four cigarettes a day until he began to feel ill. At first Marihuana made him happy. Then he felt that he made a peculiar noise in his throat; ate once a day; was unable to sleep; and experienced auditory hallucinations. The hallucinations started four months ago and increased gradually. He thought his face was changing. He looked thin, mean, and ugly; he became self-conscious. He felt that every-one in the neighborhood knew it. He stated at times he seemed speeded up, but his mind was keenly alert with the development of the ideas of reference, he became self- reproachful, apprehensive and fearful.
He was then transferred to a state hospital on March
Some cases showed the manic-depressive reactions, but these were in the minority. It is perhaps to be expected that schizophrenic-like psychoses are more common because individuals who take to drugs have some deep inadequacy to start with. The cyclothymic personality is less prone to require the drug.
A man of 28 who was brought to the hospital by his mother on February 13, 1938, with the history that he had been smoking reefers for some time. A year ago he had an episode, was not hospitalized and improved from it. On admission patient was confused, restless, apprehen- sive. He engaged in violent daydreamings. At times he appeared to be reacting to hallucinations. He said he
He was transferred to a state hospital on February 24, 1938. There his condition persisted and he became somewhat depressed, but showed promise of recovery a few months after admission. Diagnosis at State Hospital was Manic Depressive Psychosis, Manic Type.
Mixed reactions merge with the toxic psychoses. These reactions vary clinically, some occurring in chronic alcoholics, some in schizophrenics and some in psychopathic personalities, and in all of them Marihuana usage was a factor. It can be clearly seen that aside from the direct toxic effect of the drug, the personality of the patient plays a tremendous role in psychotic states following Marihuana usage.
A Cuban, age 34, who was admitted on March 6, 1938, to Bellevue Hospital. He had been taking Marihuana for one and a half years. He had jumped in front of a south-bound subway train without injury. He was very depressed, dull, lackadaisical, despondent in attitude.
His friend corroborated the history, stating that he had been in this depressed condition for 3-4 years. He had a work-house sentence for 2-3 months for Marihuana. He was transferred to a state hospital March 18, 1938. At that time he was dull, preoccupied, but lost his hallucinatory and delusional trends. The State Hospital diagnosed him as Schizophrenia, Hebephrenic Type (?) and he was released after two months.
In some cases the drug makes relatively little difference in the content of the psychosis. It is for the clinician to determine how much Marihuana influences the clinical picture. In South Africa, where dagga (equivalent of Marihuana) smoking is very widespread, a diagnosis of Marihuana psychosis is made in any "toxic psychosis where there are very good grounds for assuming addiction to dagga smoking." It is felt that there should
A white man of 28, admitted January 23, 1938, to Bellevue Hospital with a history that he was in a state hospital in Arizona for 3 months about two years ago and one in Indiana for 9 months four years ago. "I was smoking this Marihuana weed (at time of admission to State Hospital in Arizona). I ran around the desert for a time, ran out nights and one day knocked on a door and told a woman I was Dillinger. I tried to see how much water I could walk in. I was just like hypnotized and walking in my sleep. Sometimes I feel like something's controlling me. Sometimes I feel just like I'm talking to somebody with my mouth closed. I just ask them a question with my brain and they answer. Sometimes it's a man, sometimes it's a woman's voice; it just works in my temple. I think it's imagination. It's just like a dream. People stare at me. Sometimes I see different colors. I had that years ago - just like a light coming towards me; it's not a light, it's an arc.
He was transferred to a state hospital, where he was noted as being preoccupied, under productive and somewhat dissociated. He stated that he had some sort of seizures that were not really fits, but that when he had them if he had a sword he would not mind cutting everybody's head off. He also believed if anybody got killed near the place where he worked he would be blamed for it. Said that when he looks in bright lights he sees visions like all sorts of different colors, blues, whites, and these seem to blind him. A diagnosis was made of Dementia Praecox, Paranoid Type, and he was still in State Hospital after five months.
In psychopathic personalities, those with deep inferiorities, use of drugs is a method of supporting the ego. In these cases Marihuana does not always produce the desirable effect. Apparently it is not strong enough to affect the problems which have involved deeper layers of the personality. Such individuals adopt heroin or morphine very soon after a short experience with Marihuana. The experience of drug addicts seen at the Court of General Sessions confirms this. Persons addicted to
A white man, age 23, admitted to Bellevue Hospital on March 31, 1938, with a history that he felt unworthy and thought he had a venereal disease. He held ideas of infidelity against his wife and was assaultive. Threw a four month old baby across a room. He turned gas jets on. On admission he was rambling, talkative, evasive, depressed, self-absorbed and had somatic complaints.
He said: 'I was sentenced to the Workhouse for 4 months for smoking Marihuana. I knew then I was not satisfying my wife and I thought it might help. A year ago some friends gave me the weed, I smoked several. I felt calm and liked to listen to music - very happy - exhilarating feeling - that's all."
In the hospital he was talkative, discussed his problem in detail and showed some depression, which improved. The infidelity ideas and his sexual inadequacies concerned him most. He was transferred to a state hospital with a
Often Cannabis intoxication represents a stage in the incipiency of a psychosis. The patient who is developing a functional psychosis strives in the incipient stage to overcome the unconsciously perceived difficulties. In this sense Marihuana usage represents a healthy reaction tendency, even though the mechanism may be unknown to the patient. The next case illustrated this problem. A boy who had made a successful adjustment on a moderate level of social attainment began to show schizoid behavior shortly after the usage of Marihuana. The process continued to a psychotic state. What role did the drug play? Could the psychosis have begun without the drug? Was the use of Cannabis the patient's attempt to cure his developing psychosis? These are problems needing careful judgment and study and wide clinical experience.
A young Negro, 20, admitted October 2, 1936 to Bellevue Hospital with a history of having been dull, indifferent for some time. Insisted upon keeping the windows closed, would not leave the house, but denied he heard voices. Would masturbate openly and made sign with fingers, and actions were decidedly peculiar. Mother states she caught him. smoking a sweet-smelling
Observation in the hospital confirmed his withdrawn, retarded attitude. Psychometric gave an IQ. of 75 with rating of Borderline to Dull Normal Intelligence. Was pre-occupied on ward; difficult to obtain his attention; evasive; offered many excuses for closing window and putting out lights. About 10 days after admission he appeared a little more alert and cheerful. He was discharged in custody of mother as Incipient Schizophrenia (?) or Psychoneurosis, Reactive State, on October 13, 1936.
He was readmitted a year later, October 15, 1937. At that time mother gave a statement that for past year, since he left hospital, he had been dull, staying in the house in a "deep study." He seems to listen; does not say anything'. At one time he beat up an old man in the house who, he said, called him names. Prior to admission he had attacked a woman for no apparent reason. Sleeps day and night. Often looks as if he is in a dream, Changed personality reactions for more than a year. For two weeks distinctly worse.
On admission he was sluggish, dull and lethargic, spoke in a quiet, low voice, showed empty affect, but was
Gradually he acquired an interest and socialized with other patients. At all times he was neat and tidy in personal appearance and habits. He improved after five months and was ready for parole.
Now, so much for the psychopathic. We now come to the criminology.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I thought we would cover that in another subject.
We will now adjourn for lunch and come back at 1:30.
(Thereupon at 12:20 o'clock p.m., a recess was declared, the conference to resume discussions at 1:30 p.m.)
The conference was resumed at 1:30 o'clock p.m., pursuant to the taking of a recess at noon.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Gentlemen, the Conference will be in order. We may very well start with the general discussion on the pharmacological phases of the problem, and you can direct your questions to Dr. Munch, Dr. Loewe, or Dr. Bromberg.
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Munch, I would like to ask you, in respect to the statement made by Dr. Walton that Cannabis has been used as a relief during labor in the Far East, are you familiar with that general picture?
DR. MUNCH: Yes. I think that the product that is actually used there is not Cannabis itself, but one of these peculiar mixtures of datura and opium and hashish and other things.
Some of the reports refer to the women smoking the cigarettes for a period in labor, but they are not in agreement with the information I have gotten from the Mexicans or out in Nevada, for example, where they have tried it and found it of no value.
On the isolated tissues the solutions of the drug have no effect, or have a very mild, quieting action.
If I remove the alcohol, they have little effect,
MR. WOLLNER: Who is Willis? One of them refers to the fact that Willis recommends its use in tedious labor where the patient is restless.
DR. MUNCH: Let me look at my copy of this book.
MR. WOLLNER: It is on page 156.
DR. MUNCH: Did you say "Willis", Mr. Wollner?
MR. WOLLNER: Yes. On page 156, "EFFECTS DURING LABOR". It starts out, "Willis recommended".
DR. MUNCH: Willis has written a book on obstetrics and gynecology, but I cannot give you the reference to it right now.
MR. WOLLNER: All right.
DR. MUNCH: But he is one of the authors in that field. However, the work I was referring to more particularly was done by Watt (?) and Breyer-Brandwijh, which [sic] I believe is the co-author of the publication on poisonous plants in South Africa. I have had correspondence with Watt along that line.
MR. WOLLNER: The reason I ask you that question is because of Dr. Bromberg's remarks, which I interpreted as being indicative of the production of a hypersensitivity. Am I wrong in that, Dr. Bromberg?
DR. BROMBERG: A hypersensitivity?
MR. WOLLNER: On the part of an individual who uses Marihuana; that is, an increased agility.
DR. BROMBERG: The effects I refer to are on a motor activity. You refer to those, I presume?
MR. WOLLNER: Yes.
DR. BROMBERG: By which we mean the promptness to move either aimlessly or purposefully; that is, in acute intoxication the smoker is apt to dance around and move or wave his arms, or go through movements that are more rapid than he would move ordinarily; move his chair, knock it across the room, talk to people, show a general output of activity.
Many of those prisoners whom I have contacted state that they rather slow up or would rather be quiet during this period. There are two effects, in other words.
The hyperactivity is not universal. The great, ex-
MR. WOLLNER: Yes, sir.
DR. BROMBERG: Certainly the effects are not uniform and cannot be counterbalanced.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Doctor, regarding these 31 admissions out of 100,000, I think it would be interesting to know just what period they cover. Are they of recent origin, or are they scattered pretty well throughout the years? The reason that I bring that up is that the mental hospital at Burma showed, with the increased illicit traffic in Marihuana, the total admissions of insanity cases rose from .87 to 4.35%. I am wondering whether we can expect an increase in such cases, and also whether these 31 cases are more or less of recent origin.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We have been getting some reports from various sections of the country showing cases of alleged insanity due to Marihuana which have been brought to light. For instance, there were interesting developments in a case in Findlay, Ohio, concerning a fifteen-year-old boy who showed signs of being insane. When asked about his condition he made statements that he had been smoking cigarettes, and an investigation developed the information that there were two defendants, who were brothers, who were in charge of a playground, and they had been selling drugs that is, Marihuana cigarettes, to boys around there; and we found about sixteen pounds concealed above a garage owned by them. These fellows had
MR. WOLLNER: I was wondering whether it would not be better, unless there are other specific questions, to postpone this portion of the Conference, which relates to bio-assay, which pertains to a chemist, because all of those questions are related, and go on with the rest of
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: All right, unless there are questions.
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Loewe, do you wish to say some thing?
DR. LOEWE: Among other things, I have tried Marihuana's action on a monkey, and I went to it with great hopes because I thought really that the psychic action would come out in this patient. The observations were that the monkey reacts like the dog, and is one more of the few laboratory species which really show the ataxia action. The other observation was that the monkey required higher doses per kilogram body weight than the dog, which was somewhat unexpected, and that all of the lower doses to which I have climbed up through the ratio of higher doses did not show anything which indicated a psychic action. The monkeys do not show this type of abnormality which occurs in Dr. Bromberg's material. MR. WOLLNER: What is the relation in the dosage per kilogram of weight of dog and human being?
DR. LOEWE: The dog dosage per kilogram of weight and the human being per kilogram of weight, are fairly
DR. MATCHETT: This ataxia is never apparent in humans at all?
DR. LOEWE: I have no experience; I never saw it.
DR. BROMBERG: I never saw it either.
MR. WOLLNER: Have you any observations about ataxia symptoms comparable to those in dogs as to humans?
DR. BROMBERG: No; but I have never seen a large enough quantity, certainly not the tincture or the fluid extract.
Dr. Munch can perhaps answer that.
DR. MUNCH: I have given doses up to twice that re-cognized, but I have not noticed ataxia in students.
DR. LOEWE: There is one factor which, of course, is important, and it is a fact which we notice from tobacco smoking, and that is that the dosage in the form of the cigarette is probably high enough to produce great ataxic symptoms in humans by way of the administration of inhala- tion.
DR. HERWICK: I should like to ask Dr. Bromberg, clinically, whether there is a direct physiological addiction to this; that is, are withdrawal symptoms produced or do
DR. BROMBERG: My idea of habituation on this matter is different, and there happen to be several, and we should have the thing clarified. Habituation must rest on three cases, two of them being habit forming. The first are the symptoms appearing of withdrawal of the habit forming drug. The second is that the patient develops tolerance. The third is that because he needs more drug he gets the pleasure of addiction, and all medicine agrees that there must be withdrawal. A morphine addict becomes intolerant of withdrawal. He has abdominal pains and various symptoms. When morphine is given he feels better. And that is the basis of a well known treatment. Secondly, there are the people who take increasing doses to feel well. Those two are well acknowledged criteria. In the New York County jail, the physician in charge thinks he sees withdrawal symptoms, but the offenders are not allowed to discuss the offense with anyone except counsel. They say they did smoke it, or they did not. You do not know whether the symptoms are tied up with the
So, I dare say that there are no clear withdrawal symptoms. The thing is not settled. Patients come in after being cut off without the drug. The third is addiction of pleasure-loving, and in that category comes smoking and colorful music and things of that nature. You can say that one has to have pleasure after he becomes addicted to luxury, and that can be looked upon as a valid psychiatric observation. So I would stop there and say that we can say that in the absence of other evidence, that it is essentially hedonistic addiction.
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Loewe, you mentioned in your experiment on dogs that you had injected some of these extracts, but, nevertheless, in most of the experiments that had been previously done, I gather, the drug had been taken orally. Of course, we know the stuff is smoked. Your introduction of injection as a method of administration raises the question in my mind as to whether we might, at some future date, anticipate the use of that on humans, in this way? Is there any possibility of this sort? Similar to that which obtains in heroin, for example?
DR. LOEWE: Only after the isolation in pure form
MR. WOLLNER: Why were you impelled to use it as an injection as a method of administration, rather than giving it to your dogs orally, Dr. Loewe?
DR. LOEWE: It goes faster. In view of the long period of latency, it is much more convenient to use it intravenously injected, because the peak of the curve is reached sooner.
MR. WOLLNER: Would you conclude from that that on dogs, for example, as a medium for standardization, that they are not as radically different when the stuff is in-jected as compared to when it is administered orally?
DR. LOEWE: Probably that is true, but only to an inconsiderable extent. In a slighter extent the variations have been reported by various examinators [sic] after oral administration.
MR. WOLLNER: Will you recommend it as the preferred procedure for bio-assay.
DR. LOEWE: I am not sure that I should give the preference to the intravenous way. I have to collect more
DR. MATCHETT: Are the effects otherwise identical?
DR. LOEWE: Identical.
MR. WOLLNER: The curve is more rapid; I mean you achieve the peak of the curve more rapidly.
DR. LOEWE: Comparatively more rapidly. Beginning after only twenty minutes, and reaching the peak after half an hour or an hour.
MR. WOLLNER: Your experiments with mice were continued under the same circumstances?
DR. LOEWE: No. As to mice, they were injected orally only.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We can now go on to the sociological phases. In 88 users there were 86 males and only 2 females. I do not know if that holds true generally. We might have got off the rails on the selection, but that is what those figures show. There were 47 white, 20 colored, 15 Latin Americans. The age, of course, is much younger than among opium users. Most of the users were between 17 and 35. The greatest number was between 21 and 25. I believe that was true of a survey made in New York City of the users.
MR. WOLLNER: What is the distribution in sexes, there, Mr. Smith?
MR. SMITH: I have not the age nor sex distribution on those.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Do you have anything on occupations of the users? MR. SMITH: We have four as musicians, two as farmers, and those two farmers were actually growing Marihuana on their farms. Many of them state "unemployed". But where most of those that report unemployed are laborers, they usually are associated with prostitution, policy, and some of the allied types of minor grade crimes. Prostitution, to me, seemed the most evident connection.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: In our 88, the occupation runs anywhere from bartender to unemployed. There are probably 50 different occupations, musicians are second to laborers,-of the 88.
The rest were distributed throughout the various
MR. SMITH: I can give you a breakdown on that section. I have it here in another portion of my data. There were 5 women arrested as sellers, and 8 women arrested for possession, and 147 males arrested for possession, and 7 for selling.
MR. WOLLNER: About 10 per cent.
MR. SMITH: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: In our geographical distribution, we show the larger number of these around New York; a few in the New England areas; a few in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, several in the Middle Atlantic States, about 5 in the South, Kentucky and Tennessee, four; Michigan-Ohio, 13, Michigan-Ohio is second to New York. And then they string out through the rest of the States, with California probably third.
MR. SMITH: In States with equal population ratios, as to the metropolitan district, as against up-state New York, our arrests for Marihuana violations in the State, excluding New York City, are about 10 per cent; 15 cases, actually, against 160. They probably will vary, though, as to the development of prosecution and apprehension, as in the various up-state cities they are just beginning to realize in the
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Dr. Bromberg, you were about to start on the sociological phases. Will you give us the benefit of your views on that?
DR. BROMBERG: The material that I have collected comes from the Court of General Sessions. This is the criminal court of New York City. Our material is limited to New York County, although it must be remembered that the courts clientele comes from many sections of the country. We must also note that there are many racial types in our material. This is important, because the British investigators have noted in India that Cannabis does not bring out the motor excitement or hysterical symptoms among Anglo-Saxon users that occurs among natives. There are several other difficulties in selecting reliable material, one being the dependence on statements from prisoners without opportunity for objective tests or other corroborative checks, as in the case of other drugs, e.g., heroin or morphine. During the routine interviews of some 17,000 offend-
Of this group of 200 drug offenders, 67 were indicated to be users of Marihuana in any degree and for any duration of time whether convicted of the crime of selling Marihuana or another crime.
The medical diagnosis of habituation depends on the accepted criteria of acquired tolerance and after-effect upon withdrawal of the drug. Regarding the subject of tolerance, users of Marihuana examined in the clinic universally state that an increase in dosage is not neces-
It has not been possible to observe satisfactorily Marihuana users upon their entrance into custody to establish their behavior after cessation of usage. For one thing, the law does not allow questioning of a defendant prior to trial regarding his charge. The history of the offense cannot be discussed except with counsel, but an offender can be questioned in the course of medical treatment. The fact that Marihuana cases do not request medical treatment upon their incarceration argues for the absence of withdrawal symptoms. As is well known, morphine, opium, etc., users become violently ill upon being taken in custody, away from the
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We have observed two cases of sex crimes where we have been able to prove the connection with Marihuana.
MR. SMITH: We have had one case in the last two or three months, which has been of great interest to the Motor Vehicle Department. A youngster in Mount Kisco, close to New York City, was involved in an automobile accident in that village by hitting three parked cars during the evening. When he was apprehended by the police, he literally tore the officer's blouse from his shoulder,
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Is that in your State law now?
MR. SMITH: No, sir, it is not in our State law now. In fact, I do not know if it was decided that we could get away with it, but through the Motor Vehicle Department we could, as one of the requirements in the matter of
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Marihuana users, when arrested, want to fight. Their motor impulses seem to be working It takes, sometimes, four or five officers to subdue a man, and they sometimes wreck the living quarters in doing so. We do not have anything like that in arresting opium users. The agents proceed very cautiously when arresting a Marihuana user.
MR. SMITH: It conflicts with alcohol which seem to be the worst cases yet, and we have had a few cases who used both. Those are perhaps the few that you have run across. Then, of course, we have those who have just been on the reefer alone.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER, I have noticed a tendency towards more gunplay among Marihuana users than among opium users.
MR. SMITH: Than among opium users?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Yes. And there has been some gun play. The first case that we arrested under the Marihuana Act, (I happened to have been present in the Denver court
MR. SMITH: I have four out of twelve in one city where the charges, in addition to possession, are assault.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: In many cases, particularly around Ohio, the officers are called in cases of disturbance and they find a Marihuana user with some stuff on him.
DR. MUNCH: A chap I talked to told me that the use of gin came in very particularly with the use of a reefer. Is that true with opium? Do Marihuana users tend to take gin along with smoking of the reefer?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I do not know about that. We have not run into that.
DR. MUNCH: The point I am asking could be that the alcohol there would tend to increase the solubility of any material that has been swallowed, and, therefore, they would get greater effect under such conditions than if they. had not taken the alcohol.
MR. SMITH: Still, there is a good deal of fancy on the part of some officers, whose experience with Marihuana is new. I have had some experience with one or two sheriffs. I know of one who recently employed the services of two other sheriffs and four deputy sheriffs to secure the arrest of a farmer on a farm where the material was growing. Any youngster, 18 or 19 years old, could have gone there and done it alone. This was because of the first experience of those officers with it. I think the men were anxious to capitalize on the possible publicity which might attend the arrest. So that sometimes you run up against that problem, where they report that it is necessary for a number of them to subdue an individual. That may be an effort to make it appear a more serious type of crime. So that I think we have to put our tongues in our
DR. MATCHETT: This story came from Deputy Commissioner Berkshire, of the Alcohol Tax Unit.
MR. SMITH: We did have in White Plains this additional situation: The fact appeared there that with children of high school age with good financial and social background, that two of those individuals, who were in difficulties there, stated that the smoking of reefers had become a part of the initiation in certain clubs or school fraternities.
That probably is a little bit unusual, as an incident, but that has been definitely reported in that vicinity.
DR. WRIGHT: Where was that?
MR. SMITH: That was in White Plains, New York.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Did you not arrest a youngster sixteen years old for selling?
Mr.. SMITH: Yes, sir. There were two youngsters of excellent background, and fine social connections. That was probably a larger factor, as compared to anything else, I think, and that was that they probably had too much financial and social backing. That may be more true in that particular county than in other counties in that State.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: You mentioned a case of a
MR. WITH: Yes, sir. That was in New York City. COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: What had he used first, do you know?
MR. SMITH: I do not know. That, I extracted from the Police Department records last Tuesday, but I did .not have time to go back and get the individual cards, and I doubt very much whether the information which appears in the police cards will show that.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We have not run into many peddlers of heroin who also handle Marihuana, and we have not run into many users of Marihuana who are also heroin users. However, as Dr. Bouquet points out, in Tunis there is a tendency to switch from Marihuana to heroin. Have you run into any cases like that, Doctor?
DR. BROMBERG: I have seen many drug addicts, who have, once or twice, they say, tried Marihuana, and have dropped it, because it was not strong enough. Most true addicts start with heroin or opium.
MR. SMITH: Do you not think that that might be more the association with individuals than the association with the drug?
DR. BROMBERG: Perhaps. And there is one other fact, and that is that alcohol and Marihuana have a more potent
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: As to this question of using alcohol with Marihuana, I recall a case in Indiana where a man was arrested who had an infusion of the drug in alcohol. How do they do that? Drink it and smoke a cigarette?
DR. BROMBERG: No. I think it is a sociological matter. He uses the gin with it, or otherwise, and it depends on the amount of money and the locality, and they smoke, and it represents having some fun, the effect which they look for.
MR. WOLLNER: I wonder how much can be deduced from the present figures in the matter of crime, in view of the fact that these figures represent a static picture whereas the entire Marihuana picture, so far as I know, is on an up-curve. Have you noticed any tendencies that are not static over a period of years Dr. Bromberg?
DR. BROMBERG: That is a very good question, because the alcohol thing depends on the relationship between the two.
MR. WOLLNER: In what order, would you say?
DR. BROMBERG: It is impossible to say. These are only approximations, I admit. It all depends on the police activities. They make a drive, and the figures go up. They forget about it, and there are no figures.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Are there any questions as to this phase of the problem? I must say that we are still sort of groping as to a lot of those questions.
DR. MUNCH: May I intrude there, just as a matter of difference in mind, as to any sort of figure representing the total number of users of Marihuana? I mean, has anybody said anything as to the number of heroine users being the same as the opium addicts, or less or more, or as to the Marihuana?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: It is impossible to say. The eradication of 16,000 acres of Marihuana during the past year means nothing as to numbers of users. We are sure it was never meant for the illicit traffic. Probably
DR. BROMBERG: You mean additional acreage than that which had humans on it?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We have arrested over 1,000. The Bureau of Prisons is a little concerned about that, because it is causing a definite increase in their jails. Puerto Rico is starting to send a lot of these sellers and users to jail, which they did not do before. There has been a tremendous up-grade in apprehensions. I do not recall just what the arrests have been by states throughout the country. These are Federal arrests. State arrests are probably over that figure. I should say that the 16,000 acres represent only a drop in the bucket, because I know in one State there are 300,000 acres of the wild growth. We have a job here on eradication that is just stupendous. Fortunately, a lot of this acreage that is discovered we hear about through people who do not tell anybody else about it. The illicit trafficker is looking for growth. I cannot understand why the New York trafficker had to go out to Minnesota and strip some of those hemp fields.
MR. SMITH: We had two instances where the material was either reported to be, or actually was, of western
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I think within a couple of blocks from where Dr. Munch lives you can walk into as much [as] fifty acres that has not been destroyed.
DR. MUNCH: They went over about 300 acres of that this year and ran out of C.C.C. men and then stopped.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: That is a tremendous problem with us. We have used many of the agencies of the Government, the W.P.A. has helped, and other agencies. We have discouraged all of these well-meaning people throughout the country who want to use Boy Scouts in the removal of' Marihuana.
DR. MUNCH: We have had considerable cooperation through Admiral Foote, and the Automobile Vehicle Department of our State.
DR. WRIGHT: May I ask Dr. Bromberg whether or not his contacts with these patients show whether or not there is any indication of whether these cigarettes used were tobacco which had been adulterated with Marihuana?
MR. SMITH: I would like to ask Dr. Bromberg, or anybody else who has had experience as to the likelihood of development of perversion. Has anybody had any experience on that?
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Dr. Kolb, have you run into anything on that?
DR. KOLB: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: How many of these users have you in Lexington?
DR. KOLB: There are about one hundred patients who have used it occasionally, but they are mostly opium and heroin users. About twenty-five have used nothing but Marihuana alone. But, just as Dr. Bromberg has stated they use it occasionally, just to see if it is another drug that they need.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Are these Marihuana users, as such, a younger group than your opium smokers?
DR. KOLB: Most of the time.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We have noticed the tendency in Puerto Rico, even with heroin users, to give them five years for use only.
DR. KOLB: Yes, they give them a very severe sentence. The district attorney wrote me and wanted to take it up with judge Cooper. I told him that, from the stand-point of rehabilitation, it was a rather harmful matter to put a man in prison for four years. He is liable to learn a lot of things in prison and then go out and hate society and use them against society. It is my idea that users should get one year, and especially the fellow who does not have a criminal record.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: I do not think the courts here are being too severe.
DR. KOLB' No, they are not.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: They are giving the seller
DR. KOLB: Of course.
MR. WOLLNER: What does your investigation represent as to these twenty-five users of Marihuana alone, as compared to those who use other drugs other than Marihuana?
DR. KOLB: Of course, we get them after they have stopped using the drug, and after they have escaped the acute effects of the drugs, There is only one psychiatric case, which we are not quite sure of, that has been due to using the Marihuana drug.
MR. WOLLNER: I am going to ask an awfully unfair question. What percentage of these people would have been in jail if they had not smoked Marihuana?
DR. KOLB: Well, very few of them.
MR. WOLLNER: They would hot have been in jail?
DR. KOLB: That applies to a great many users of drugs. A great many of them have done other things, particularly thievery, or other slippery types of work.
MR. WOLLNER: Are they slightly impaired?
DR. KOLB: They are slightly impaired, partly due to the psychiatric condition, and to the distress of needing the drug.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: There was a case in Canada, Mr. Lancaster, there a Marihuana user had withdrawal symptoms similar to those of an opium user.
MR. LANCASTER: Yes, sir. That was the boy who was picked up and had used Marihuana for a long time. He was out of work, had no continual employment. He tried to smoke Marihuana, rather liked it, and after several months of usage, he was jailed, and kept there for about a week. His case was remanded, and he reported feeling tingling pains and needles in the hands and feet, and he was greatly upset and pleaded for a narcotic again. He was suffering with an imparity of that order. I do not think it was tried to see whether giving him Marihuana should relieve that case or not. The general impression is that there is no great suffering, and if they are relieved from it after the first five days, naturally they want it again, but they do
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Bromberg, have you come across any occasion of drinking Marihuana in the form of tea extract, or something of that sort?
DR. BROMBERG: No.
MR. SMITH: Is there any evidence of it being used in Canada? On any convictions, have you had any evidence of it ?
MR. LANCASTER: Not there, no. No, sir, so far there have been no samples submitted to us as yet.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: None that I know of. But I understand they do mix them, mix it with sweets, in northern Africa.
MR. SMITH: There have been one or two reports that they do mix it in California.
MR. WOLLNER: For your ears, I can tell you, Mr. Smith, that all of the chemists are sitting on the edge of their seats, worrying about that happening
MR. SMITH: And there is a question as to the toxic effects which could be present.
MR. WOLLNER: And there may not be any way in which we can examine it. We are hoping that they do not guess that gasoline will extract it.
DR. MATCHETT: Is it true that that is a common form
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: No, not in The Far East, but in the Near East.
DR. MATCHETT: In the Near East, yes.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: We seem to have covered the sociological phases, so far as we are able to and I am going to turn the choir over, at this point, to Dr. Wollner, who will proceed with the chemical phases. This is where most of the spade work has got to be done, anyway.
STATEMENT OF MR.. H. J. WOLLNER, CONSULTING CHEMIST, TREASURY DEPARTMENT
MR. WOLLNER: The problem is not yet resolved. We are not yet in a position to know exactly what it is we are looking for, and, within four walls, I am perfectly frank to admit that al]. the chemists I have met, who are interested in this field, are at a complete loss when asked to prophesy the character of the narcotic principle, which we are going to eventually disclose. The situation is as bad in the chemical literature as it is in all of the other phrases. I should certainly be within the reasonable bounds of correctness when I say that ninety percent of the stuff that has been written on the chemical end of Can-
In this work the evidence, by force of circumstance, compels us to turn to the pharmacologist for guidance.
As Dr. Loewe ably expressed before, since we have no test in the chemical laboratories for indicating the presence or absence of the narcotic principle, every bit of the exploratory work of consequence that has been engaged upon had to be paralleled with work in the field of bio- assay.
The chemical problem is so obvious that it does not require much delineation.
Chemists, enforcement administrative chemists, are interested in two things. First, and immediately, they want to know how to find and detect the presence of Cannabis sativa, or any of its products that are narcotic in character.
In other words, most enforcement officers will make
STATEMENT OF DR. A. H. BLATT, HOWARD UNIVERSITY.
DR. BLATT: That will not take very long, because as Mr. Wollner has said, we are only dealing with two-
MR. WOLLNER: I think that adds oils to the fire.
DR. MUNCH: Is there an active substance there?
MR. WOLLNER: I will take your word for it, and Bromberg's on the basis of his research in New York It leads us pretty much to where we started. I think if all the research work done so far were dumped together by a group of chemists, or if they started out today on this investigation, that they would be exactly the same as they are now inside of six months;
STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN R. MATCHETT, TREASURY DEPARTMENT.
DR. MATCHETT: The problem is clarified a little bit by recognizing that there are two distinct phases involved, the first of which must be pretty well finished before the second can begin. First of all, there is the separation of the active principle from other material, and second, the characterization of it. Before a competent separation can be undertaken, we must be in possession of suitable assay methods. We, of course, are interested in those manifestations of Marihuana that lead to the effects, which have led in turn, to the passage of the Act We are not sure, I take it, whether the substance produces ataxia in the dog, or sleep in the mouse, or corneal(?) anesthesia in the rabbit is the same as the one in which we are interested.
144
Nevertheless, something must be adopted, and by common consent, a dog assay, with all its faults, has been the method of choice. It seems obvious that these various principles, if more than one exists, will be each characterized on its own merits. In considering this phase of it, also, it must not be forgotten that any one of the effects may be combinations, and any of the effects that we are able to measure may possibly be combined effects, of which the bad effect of the drug itself may be only one. With that so disposed of, it is possible to recognize that certain characteristics of the so-called resin are fairly well defined already, although I think we must recognize that the resin itself is variable, and to what extent, we are not yet able to say very definitely. As Dr. Blatt said, there have been certain individuals isolated in pure form, of which the most important are Cannabinol and the hydrocarbon nonacosame. There is also present definitely in the resin a substance that responds to the alkaline Beam test. There are still other substances among all those responsible for the psychological and physiological activity; of such there may be one or more.
There is evidence on the other hand that it forms esters and that it is an aromatic substance, the latter from the refractive index of the most active fraction. From that it would appear to be a phenolic compound. The substance is thermostable under rather rigorous conditions, but it is quickly destroyed in the presence of oxygen. It is also quite likely that it is unsaturated since reduction by hydrogen is possible. But all those, unfortunately, are properties of the active mixtures that Dr. Blatt referred to, rather than of any chemical individual. They are all of some assis-
MR. WOLLNER: I would like to make a couple of announcements. Those of you who are not particularly interested in the chemical attack here may find this part of the program a little arduous, and I want you to understand that you are at liberty to leave and interrupt if you want to, as I think this part of the program might be a little obtuse at certain points. Dr. Blatt has just indicated that there are some errors in the material which he distributed on the critical review. Do you want to indicate those?
DR. BLATT: There is one error in the literature, for example on page 469 in the middle of the page are three
MR. WOLLNER: As you gathered, Dr. Matchett's attack there is directed at the heart of the problem; that is to say, the isolation and characterization of the extreme number of active principles. I indicated at the beginning that there is another phase of the problem, and that was identification. We at this time do not know whether the chemical attack is destined to determine the active principle in one year or sixty years. The Treasury has issued a little manual of identification, consisting largely of photographs, and it is being distributed. In this country we are mostly dealing with the drug in its plant form, and in this manual they are showing the separate parts of plants, and so on, and it is helpful in that direction. I am going to ask Mr. Levine to give us a picture
STATEMENT OF MR. LEVINE, CHEMIST, BUREAU OF NARCOTICS.
MR. LEVINE: The Beam test seems to be the most widely used chemical test for the identification of Marihuana, and was first introduced by Dr. W. Beam, of the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratory, of Khartoum. The alkaline test in 1911 and the acid Beam test in 1915 have come to be accepted as specific for Marihuana, although a lot of samples have failed to respond. Workers in Europe and north Africa have used it and tried it on a large number of plant materials. In general it is agreed that no other material responds characteristically to the test. It has been attacked by some chemists, notably Trolle and Rende, who said they obtained the Beam test on a mixture of drugs consisting of ginger, coriander, licorice, nutmeg, and several other things. Other workers, notably Fahamy and Keiy in Egypt, and Papavassiliou and Liberato, in Greece, applied the test to these materials, both individually and in the mixture, and failed to get a positive response to any of them. As I stated before, a large number of authentic samples of Marihuana failed to respond to the Beam test, or
MR. WOLLNER: I think we will have a recess now for about five minutes before we resume.
(A short recess was taken, after which the proceedings were resumed as follows:)
MR. WOLLNER: Now, after that rather exhaustive
Mr. Benjamin, will you tell us briefly about the Duquenois test and what our experience has been with that.
MR. BENJAMIN: I think this was proposed in the early part of 1938. Reagent number 1 is an alcoholic solution with vanillin and acetaldehyde. The second reagent is concentrated hydrochloric acid;
MR. BENJAMIN: I must emphasize the fact that not one sample of Cannabis or fluid extract of Cannabis or solid extract has failed so far.
MR. WOLLNER: Would you recommend the test as an eliminative test for hemp; that is to say, hemp would have to give a positive test of the Duquenois agent in order to be considered hemp, and then proceed?
MR. BENJAMIN: Yes.
MR. WOLLNER: To apply another test to see whether it is another substance?
MR. BENJAMIN: I think the fact that ia the Duquenois test for Cannabis fails to respond, then one should hesitate to call the sample Cannabis.
MR. WOLLNER: That is predicated---
MR. BENJAMIN: (Interposing) On the 165.
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Munch, you have had some experience with some other tests, which we do not think very much of.
DR. MUNCH: That is fine.
MR. WOLLNER: What is your experience with that test?
DR. MUNCH: I started about three or four years ago with the method developed by an official in the British pharmacopoeia for ergot, using paradimethyl amino benzal-
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Matchett, what is your experience with that Ghamrawy test?
DR. MATCHETT: We found too many other substances, which we regard as giving colors too similar to that
DR. MUNCH: Even with tobacco?
DR. MATCHETT: Tobacco was very close.
DR. MUNCH: Is that right?
DR. MATCHETT: This was not used with charcoal.
DR. MUNCH: If I do not use charcoal, I get inconclusive results along that line.
DR. MATCHETT: I am coming 'to that. It was our experience that the U.S.P. activated charcoal would remove either the hemp or tobacco test substance from petroleum ether. The result being that the test in hemp was about the same as it was in tobacco. I will ask Mr. Benjamin if that is a correct statement.
MR. BENJAMIN: That is correct.
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Lancaster, have you had any experience with these tests in Canada?
MR. LANCASTER: Yes, Dr. [sic] Wollner.
Our experience with the Beam test has been that it is somewhat erratic, and does not always give the equivalent results in the hands of different operators, for some reason. Of course, there again, we have run some of our tests on plants where we know we have had them in storage for some years. It is rather puzzling there is no reaction there.
MR. WOLLNER: No reaction?
MR. LANCASTER: On prolonged storage.
MR. WOLLNER: Under what conditions was that hemp stored?
MR. LANCASTER: In a large glass stopped bottle. However, we have to check that again, because of the results of this vegetation which remained an open field, which is another puzzle.
MR. WOLLNER: That is where we all find ourselves at the moment. What I would like to hear from the group is something in the way of suggestions as to how this problem can be
DR. HIBBEN: That is rather a difficult question. I think we are proceeding correctly. I think the first thing that has to be done is developing an adequate method for determining the content of the active principle, and until such a method is developed, there is not going to be very much room for improvement.
MR. WOLLNER: The only difficulty has been that this problem has been very much the problem of peeling an onion--the more you peel, apparently the more peels you can take off, until you peel away the onion and then there is nothing left.
DR. HIBBEN: That is quite true. But I do not think there has been any comprehensive, systematic work done on the problem, by an adequate chemical staff, under ade-
MR. WOLLNER: The first thing seems to be to find the active principle. That is a different proposition.
DR. MUNCH: Has any work been done on the chlorophyl of the leaf?
DR. MATCHETT: All the work we know of is what you have done.
DR. MUNCH: The only thought I have is, if the chlorophyll of Marihuana happens to be different from all other chlorophylls in the universe, it can be identified microscopically.
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Hibben, you have run some microscopic tests on Cannabis direct for the chlorophyll.
DR. HIBBEN: I did not look for chlorophyll. I say that is very desirable, but I say they would be very doubtful on the chlorophyll alone.
DR. MATCHETT: Of course, there are some points about that.
MR. VALAER: The chemistry of opium was very uncertain for a long, long time. We had a crude mass to work with, and gradually they pulled out one hundred pieces or more. I believe, after all, we have not been interested in this more than about two years. I believe the chemical crude resin Marihuana will work out in the same way. We have two stills upstairs. We have a good many people
MR. WOLLNER: Dr. Couch, do you have anything to offer?
DR. COUCH: I would like to say that this problem is in no more desperate condition than a great many other problems in which a solution has not been reached. They all present this picture before the real work is done in solving it which makes it all seem extremely baffling. It is very curious that by plugging along and keeping infernally at it, that one of these days the problem is solved almost before it is realized, and it seems to me that the lines that have been projected here and the lines that have been followed are exactly those that should be followed, and will, in the course of time, lead to the solution of the problem; I mean the information that you desire to have. There is one thing that occurs to me that has not been mentioned, and that is if any work has been done upon the smoke from Marihuana, as the smoke is physiologically active.
It may be different from the resin taken by mouth or injected into the veins. That is another matter. But it seems to me that there is something there that might
MR. SMITH: I think Dr. Hershfield did something on that chlorophyll work which he did two years ago.
DR. COUCH: Of course, along that line is also the possibility of reaction from the protein. It simply rests on the possibility and probability that that is, of course, the leafy tissue, and the extract probably would not serve. The leafy portion would contain some propein. That with a water extract or salt extract of the plant itself, in a very short time would get positive results, one away or the other. The difficulty there is there may be present some protein that is also present in another plant. That difficulty arises, but the precipitation reactions are amazingly specific and amazingly direct. When one goes from one animal tissue to another he has to wash his hands extremely carefully as he changes over from one to another, so as not to spoil the test in the next tissue. There is that sort of delicacy. I simply offer that as a test. I presume there has already been a lot of thought discounted on that subject.
MR. WOLLNER: I do not know of that test. Dr. Loewe?
DR. LOEWE: If I may bring up the encroachment which
MR. WOLLNER: Do you know of any experiments, Dr. Loewe, that have been performed on the smoke itself?
DR. LOEWE: No.
DR. BLATT: I know of where they took the Marihuana smoke and passed it through solvents.
DR. LOEWE: Through chloroform?
DR. BLATT: No, through water.
DR. LOEWE Water, rather than chloroform?
DR. BLATT: Yes.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: There is a great deal of work being done at the present time with respect to the use of opium smoke. A paper has just been prepared by someone in a laboratory in London, which has just been issued. Are you familiar with Dr. Nicholls?
MR. LANCASTER: Yes, Dr. Nicholls was mentioned in connection with the research today.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Is that the same Nicholls who is on the Opium Assay Committee?
DR. BLATT: I was going to say very much the same thing as Dr. Loewe said; that is, that I can not see any reason for being discouraged as far as chemistry is concerned. Now, you have got a perfectly good point of attack.
MR. WOLLNER: Of course, there has been no commercial demand in that respect, .and that is one of the reasons for that.
DR. BLATT: It is difficult to get hold of the material.
DR. HIBBEN: If you want to get something on spectroscopic methods, when these chemists leave the point where there are spectroscopic methods for determination and for determining the structure, they would aid greatly in facilitating this problem.
MR. WOLLNER: It would aid greatly.
DR. MATCHETT: We would like to ask Dr. Hlbben if there are not some such methods which may be correlated to the bioassay?
DR. HIBBEN: Yes, I think it would. You can start in by that procedure on hormones.
DR. MATCHETT: And I believe also carotenoids.
DR. HIBBEN: Yes.
DR. MATCHETT: As the fractionation goes further and further, the number of bioassays increases almost without limit, and that is one reason we were particularly interested in it. Also, the quantitative phase has to be considered.
DR. LOEWE: But, as an economic matter, and the rational method is to proceed in an economical way, which can be done by carefully choosing fractions to test.
DR. MATCHETT: I do not believe we could quarrel about that.
DR. MUNCH: Doctor, there is the other thought, and that is that we have not been picking on any of the prisoners lately.
COMMISSIONER ANSLINGER: Doctor, we are not dealing
DR. WRIGHT: Dr. Wollner, I will not be very long now, but I just want to clarify a point, and it would seem from reports and other information that the tests are rather indicative of hemp rather than of the active prin- ciple.
I am saying that for this reason: We would like to be in a position to approach the development of strains that were free from the active principle, Now, until we have a test it seems to be that we can not do anything.
MR. WOLLNER: Yes, and no.
DR. WRIGHT: I will say it is possible that one of these tests may be useful from a breeding standpoint, but it seems to me it is working entirely on a guess, It would seem to me that any approach would be resolving the strains in pure breeding alone. In other words, approach the inbreeding situation in a hybrid manner;
In other words, set up as many facilities as we could for pure breeding lines. Any individual plant that would be tested would be very indefinite as to what its progeny would be, and it would seem to me that that is more or less a blind approach; shall I say a lick in the dark; and we would have to develop as many as we could. We can do that, develop as many lines as possible, like in Prussic acid in Sudan grass. My point is, and I am mentioning it to you chemists, that we can get nowhere without a test of consequence. We might be lucky. About ten thousand chances to one, we might be lucky until we have a test.
MR. WOLLNER: In the last analysis, you are unquestionably correct about that. Really, before significant progress can be made by the agricultural people, we will have to provide you with a formula. Before we adjourn, I would like to invite any of the visiting friends present to come upstairs for a few minutes and see our laboratory set-up for tackling this job, the molecular stills, and extraction equipment, and I am quite sure you will enjoy it.
(Whereupon, at 5:10 o'clock p.m., the Conference was adjourned sine die.)
1Wollner's book???