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Page 5
While it is tempting to credit Ludlow with introducing hashish to California, there is no record that he ever used the drug after finishing his book.10 Still, the writings of the “Hasheesh Infant” were well known and admired in the state.11 Some time after his visit, the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle reported, "It appears that a 'Hasheesh' mania has broken out among our Bohemians. Yesterday, Mark Twain and the 'Mouse-Trap' man were seen walking up Clay street under the influence of the drug, followed by a 'star', who was evidently laboring under a misapprehension as to what was with the matter with them."12 Twain did not leave a first-hand account of his experience, though he alluded to hasheesh elsewhere in his writings. No further mention of San Francisco's 1860's "hasheesh mania" is known.
A few sporadic stories about hasheesh may be found in the 19th century California press, but they typically concern usage abroad, not in California.13 One exception is an article on "Narcotics and Stimulants" in the Daily Alta, in which the reporter ventured to try hashish as well as smoking opium.14 The experience turned out to be unpleasant. Like Ludlow, the author initially saw beautiful visions of fairyland, but later descended into terrible horror, memory loss and a headache. Despite this, the author claimed that use of hashish "has made wonderful progress in the United States, there being some thirty thousand habitual smokers of the drug" – an intriguing figure for which no source is cited. The author concludes that only alcohol and tobacco are "proper stimulants," and that use of the others is "its own punishment." Such was the consensus of other contemporary observers.
One remarkable exception was a first-hand account published in the Virginia City Territorial-Enterprise, under the title “Hashish: A Story for 1876.” 15 The article is unsigned, but its style bears a strong resemblance to that of the paper’s editor-in-chief, Rollin Mallory Daggett, co-founder of the Golden Era, friend of Mark Twain, and later a Congressman and U.S. minister to Hawaii. Unlike other contemporary accounts of hashish such as Ludlow’s, the author reports no negative feelings of terror or guilt, but poetically described rapturous visions he experienced under a dose of medically prescribed cannabis indica. In a prophetic voice anticipating the counterculture of a century later, he rails against the materialistic excesses of the age: "Great corporations are gathering up your wealth ... a love of wealth, of show, and a contempt for honest labor is growing
10 Some biographers concluded that Ludlow relapsed and died from the hashish habit, but such a death is medically impossible. Ludlow wrote nothing more on hashish, but did write about the dangers of opium addiction: “What Shall They Do To Be Saved?” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 35 (Aug. 1867) pp. 377-87. For biographies of Ludlow, see the Fitz Hugh Library Memorial Edition of The Hasheesh Eater, pp. 85-103 and Donald Dulchinos, Pioneer of Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater (Autonomedia, Brooklyn, 1998).
11 Ludlow’s book was sufficiently influential that copies of it were said to be “jealously guarded” by the University of California after two students took to hashish having read it. Franklin Walker, “The Hasheesh Infant Among the Argonauts,” Westways 35: 18-20 (August 1935).
12 SF [Dramatic] Chronicle, Sept 18, 1865. Like Twain, the "Mouse-Trap" man , aka Tremenheere Lanyon Johns, was a journalist for a rival newspaper. The "star" was likely a policeman. Ellen Komp, "Mark Twain's 'hasheesh' experience in S.F.," San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 2, 2011, p.E-9.
13 For example, the French dramatist Jules Claretie reported on his harrowing experience with three Parisian friends in "Four Hours of Hasheesh" San Francisco Call, July 6, 1890.
14 "Narcotics and Stimulants," San Francisco Daily Alta California Vol. 24#8291, Dec. 8, 1872,
15 Virginia City Territorial-Enterprise, Jan. 9, 1876, p.1.
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