Pot considered 'murder weed' in 1937
November 5, 2005 - RockyMountainNews.com
Offenders got more than token citations in Denver
On Oct. 2, 1937, in the somewhat shady Lexington Apartments at 1200 California St. in Denver, Samuel R. Caldwell became the first person in the United States to be arrested on a marijuana charge. Caldwell, a 58-year-old unemployed laborer moonlighting as a dealer, was nailed by the FBI and Denver police for peddling two marijuana cigarettes to one Moses Baca, 26.
If you're wondering why it took the U.S. government so long to bust a pot dealer, it's because until the Marijuana Stamp Act was passed - on you guessed it, Oct. 2, 1937 - cannabis wasn't illegal. Certainly, it had been vilified in newspapers with headlines such as "Murder Weed Found Up and Down Coast: Deadly Marijuana Plant Ready for Harvest That Means Enslavement of California Children."
Neither was it deemed as some benign recreational drug by the nation's law enforcement hierarchy.
Harry J. Anslinger, for example, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a vociferous foe of cannabis. In his book, Assassin of Youth, he labeled marijuana "dangerous as a coiled rattlesnake," and anguished, "How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries, and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can be only conjectured."
Indeed. Texas cops insisted that because it fueled a "lust for blood" and imbued its imbibers with "superhuman strength," pot was the catalyst for unspeakably violent crimes.
Anslinger and many others would have dismissed the possibility that, 68 years later, Denver's law-abiding citizens would vote to decriminalize the possession of an ounce-or-less of marijuana as nothing more than a pipe dream.
Much more real was the racism that anchored some of the original hysteria surrounding cannabis. At least that's a contention of John C. McWilliams, a professor of history at Penn State University specializing in 20th century social-political American history and drug policy, who has written a book on Anslinger.
"Marijuana was associated with black jazz musicians and Mexicans in border towns - clearly racist stuff," said McWilliams, who says Anslinger's files are chock full of letters linking marijuana and minorities.
In fact, he cites part of a 1936 correspondence from Floyd Baskett, editor of the Daily Courier in Alamosa.
"I wish I could show you what a small marijuana cigarette does to one of our degenerate, Spanish-speaking residents," Baskett wrote to Anslinger.
Certainly District Judge J. Foster Symes didn't need convincing about the nefarious effects of the "murder weed." In a dizzying swirl of law enforcement, Caldwell and Baca were busted on a Wednesday night, indicted on Thursday (they pleaded guilty) and sentenced on Friday.
"I consider marijuana the worst of all narcotics, far worse than the use of morphine or cocaine," thundered Symes from the bench. "Under its influence, men become beasts, just as was the case with Moses Baca . . .
"Marijuana destroys life itself. I have no sympathy with those who sell this weed. I will impose the heaviest penalties. The government is going to enforce this new law to the letter."
Then Symes backed up his tough talk by sentencing Caldwell to four years' hard labor at Kansas' mighty Leavenworth Prison.
And just to show Caldwell he was no softy, Symes tacked on the astronomical fine of $1,000.
However, Baca, beast though he may have become, got off relatively easy. Maybe Symes' wrath had been sated somewhat: he sentenced the married father of three to a mere 18 months in prison.
And if you're thinking there was any plea bargaining or reduced time for good behavior, both men served every single day of their sentence. Although history is unclear about what happened to Baca, Caldwell died a year after he was released from prison.
So great was the government's indignation over marijuana that it didn't seem to matter that, as McWilliams points out, "Marijuana is not even a narcotic."
And so, today, as proponents of Denver's Initiative 100 celebrate, it seems only fitting that they should perhaps pause, take a deep breath, and reflect upon the sad saga of Sam Caldwell.
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