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Press reports of marijuana remained highly sporadic throughout the 1920’s. Not until 1928 did the San Francisco Chronicle first report a marijuana arrest.139 Prior to this, its Hearst press rival provided occasional colorful nuggets of misinformation in the course of its ongoing anti-dope crusade. According to the San Francisco Examiner, marijuana cigarettes were a "short cut to the lunatic asylum" for adults and "sure death" for children.140 In a prelude to the famous "reefer madness" campaign of the 1930s, Hearst's "sob sister" columnist, Annie Laurie (a.k.a. Winifred Black), warned that "Marihuana makes fiends of boys in 30 days."141 Picking up on Mexican marijuana mythology, Laurie warned, "Hasheesh will turn the mildest man in the world into a blood-thirsty murderer. The man who takes hasheesh ‘runs amuck’ with his bloody knife in one hand and his strangling cloth in the other, and he kills, kills, kills, until the hasheesh has burnt out its deadly flame. Heroin is almost as bad."142 Despite such comments, the brunt of the Hearst press’ anti-dope crusade was directed against opiates and cocaine.

As anti-narcotics sentiment hardened in California in the 1920s, so did penalties. Illegal sale, which had initially been a misdemeanor punishable by a $100-$400 fine and/or 50-180 days in jail for first offenders, became punishable by 6 months to 6 years in 1925. Possession, which had previously been treated the same as sales, became punishable by up to 6 years in prison. In 1927, the law against opium dens was finally extended to Indian hemp, as originally envisioned in the 1880 Walker bill. In 1929, second offenses for possession became punishable by sentences of 6 months - 10 years.

Ironically, Henry Finger would probably have disapproved of such draconian prison terms. Finger had advocated that drug habitués be sent to state hospitals for treatment rather than confined in prison.143 However, efforts to this end were frustrated by lack of funds and political will. 144

In a preview of things to come, the campaign against marijuana began to impinge on California’s hemp fiber industry. In 1928, public hearings were called by the state Commissioner of Corporations to determine whether the Imperial Linen Products Co. should be granted a corporate license to raise hemp in the Imperial Valley, after officials raised public safety concerns that Mexican laborers might use the hemp for marijuana.145 The company was supported by

140 Annie Laurie, "Report Bares Dope Problem Facing U.S.," San Fuancisco Examiner, January 21, 1923, p. 12.

141 San Francisco Examiner, Jan. 31, 1923, p.11.

142 "Heroin, Once Heralded as 'Safe,' Now Regarded as Worst 'Narcotic,' Drives Victims to Bold Crimes," San Francisco Examiner, Feb. 27, 1927, p. 9.

143 Henry Finger, “Pharmaceutical Legislation in California - Inebriates and Drug Habitues Law,” Drug Clerk’s Journal 1(1):21 (Oct 1911).

144 On the failure of California’s efforts to establish a system of hospitals for inebriates, see Jim Baumohl and Sarah W. Tracy, “Building Systems to Manage Inebriates: The Divergent Paths of California and Massachusetts, 1891-1920,” Contemporary Drug Problems, 21:557-97 (1994); and Jim Baumohl, “‘Now We Won’t Call It Lobbying: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the Depression-Era Maintenance Controversy in California and Washington,” paper presented at Conference on Historical Perspectives on Alcohol and Drug Use in American Society, 1800-1997, College of Physicians, Philadelphia, May 9-11, 1997.

145 Letter to Dr. W.W. Stockberger, Bureau of Plant Industry, from Edward Cormack, Secretary of Imperial Linen Products Corp., Jan. 27, 1928 (courtesy of John Lupien).