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For some undefined reason, the inspector asserts, the traffic in marihuano was not placed under the ban at the time the State law was passed forbidding the sale and possession of opiates and other drug intoxicants and if the present plans of the authorities are carried into effect, a determined campaign against the use of the deadly weed will at once be inaugurated.

To this end the law now in force in Mexico will be copied and the possession, sale or use of the drug will be made a penal offense in California, if Boden's recommendations go through…

If placed under the ban on equal terms with opiates it is believed the traffic in the drug can be much diminished, although it is considered an impossibility that it can be stamped out.

The Board's campaign was publicized nationally in a fanciful report that appeared in the Washington Post, American Practitioner, and Pacific Medical Journal: 95

The Loco Weed

It is reported that the Mexican Marihuano or loco weed (astragalus hornu [sic]) is being feared and fought by the California Board of Pharmacy as an enemy no less dreadful than opium or cocaine. This pernicious growth is of the hemp family, and grows up to six feet or more. The leaves yield under high pressure a kind of oil containing the narcotic principle; those of the male plant are preferred because they appear to contain a higher percentage of the narcotic than the leaves of the female plant. Several years ago this plant became so great a public menace in Mexico that drastic laws were passed to govern the production, sale and use of the narcotic; whilst these laws have had some good effect, more than one-third of the people of Mexico are believed to be more or less addicted to the use of the drug. Much of it is brought into California by the Mexican laborers, who are greatly addicted to it... [T]he loco narcotic destroys body, soul and mind. Its immediate effects are said to be a highly exhausted mental state of much longer continuance than that produced by morphine, and followed by sudden collapse. The hasheesh of India (Cannabis Indica) is almost like the Mexican drug plant. The common American loco weed, so troublesome to stockmen in the Southwest, is another variety, containing its own share of the narcotic principle... It is against the Mexican marihuano (an Indian name) that the fight is being waged, in order to have the prepared drug placed in the list of proscribed narcotics, making its sale, use, or possession a misdemeanor, punishable by heavy fine or imprisonment or both. It is purposed to copy the Mexican antiloco laws almost word for word into the California Penal Code.