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Page 9
Mr. Nahon states that the hashish grown on this coast is much stronger or more rank in its opiate qualities than that grown in Arabia and India, due, he supposes, to the soil being less worked out than in the Orient. The Alameda-grown hashish is almost a deadly poison, it is so rank, and one smoking or eating the stuff is obliged to take it in homeopathic doses for fear of fatal results…
Mr. Nahon states that there are several colonies of Arabs and Armenians in this State who raise hemp and send hashish in the natural and extract form to several parts of the United States, where their countrymen live.
There are slight discrepancies between the two articles. One puts the size of the field at 20 acres, the other at 10. One places it near Stockton, the other near Livermore; but the two cities are close, in the heart of the Central Valley's hemp-growing area. Most likely, the two fields were identical, although the article notes that several hashish farms existed in the state.
“Turks,” “Arabs” and “Armenians” were terms interchangeably used to designate a group of Middle Eastern immigrants later known as the Syrians,29 who had recently begun to immigrate to the U.S. from the region around Lebanon, although their numbers in California were exceedingly small.30 In addition to running tobacco factories and smoking parlors, the Syrians were reputed to be partial to hashish.31 Whether the hashish farmers were truly Lebanese “Syrians,” or came from some other, nearby part of the Ottoman Empire, they were certainly familiar with the indigenous hashish culture of the Middle East. A 20-acre plot could have produced a sizable yield: similar-sized pharmaceutical farms produced 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of medicinal cannabis.32 Assuming an average extraction ratio of 25 to 1, this would have yielded some
29 The category "Syrian" was introduced by U.S. Immigration in 1899, prior to which these immigrants were referred to as Arabs, Turks, or sometimes Armenians or Greeks. Only 5,000 to 10,000 had reached the U.S. as of 1895, almost entirely in the East. (Samir Khalef, "The Background and Causes of Lebanese/Syrian Immigration to the U.S. Before World War I," in Eric Hooglund, ed., Crossing the Waters: Arab-Speaking Immigrants to the United States Before 1940, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC 1987, pp. 17-35).
30 According to one reference, only 13 Syrians were living in California as of 1901! (Phillip M Kayal and J.M. Kayal, The Syrian-Lebanese in America, G.K. Hale & Co., Boston, 1975, pp. 81-3). A separate, more substantial Armenian immigration began to arrive in the state around 1896: James H. Tashjian, The Armenians of the United States and Canada (Armenian Youth Federation, Boston, 1947) pp. 18-21.
31 The manager of the the New York hashish house visited by Kane was said to be Greek, a name often used for Syrians. A so-called "Turkish Smoking Parlor," operated by "Turks or Armenians" - i.e., Syrians - is pictured in the New York Herald, April 28, 1895, and reproduced in the underground hemp classic by Jack Herer, The Emperor Wears No Clothes (HEMP Publishing, Van Nuys, CA 1993), p. 65. Despite the implication that the patrons were smoking hashish, the article actually says they were smoking tobacco. It is unclear whether hashish might have been clandestinely offered at this establishment, or whether perhaps hashish and tobacco were smoked together. The Syrians’ interest in cannabis is attested by Hamilton Wright, among others (see below). On Syrian involvement in the tobacco business, see Louise Seymour Houghton, "Syrians in the United States II: Business Activities," The Survey, August 5, 1911, pp. 654-5.
32 WW Stockberger, "Commercial Drug Growing in the United States in 1918," Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association 8:809 (1919).
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