No amount of vigilance can stamp out marijuana. It grows anywhere. The Negro chauffeur of one of the authors of this book saved enough money to buy a farm—to grow nothing but marijuana. Acres of it have been found within the city limits of New York and in its environs. It can be grown in back yards and even in window boxes and will flourish.
Because this innocent-looking weed is so prolific and so hardy, a special police class has lectured on its idiosyncrasies. The students were ordered then to keep a keen eye out and if they saw any of it to report it to a specified bureau.
Only one turned in a holler. He had discerned it on a lawn. He gave the address.
An expert was rushed there by auto. He found it, all right—it was in the front yard of a police station!
One plant, which does not occupy more than a square inch of dirt and does not require more than four times that much for nourishment will grow 100 seeds (pistilates). Crushed with the pods and leaves and rolled, that plant will make ten reefers.
The cigarettes come in three qualities—"sars-fras"—the cheapest kind, sold to thousands of school children at about two bits each; the "panatella," or "messerole," retailed at fifty cents; and the top grade, the "gungeon," which produces a voluptuous "bang," bringing as high as a dollar.
There are about 500 apartments in Harlem, known as "tea pads," set up exclusively for marijuana addicts. They are darkly lit, the colors are usually deep blue, there is a juke box or victrola with the jumpiest of jive records. An insidious incense pervades the stuffy air; windows are always closed. The walls are usually scrawled with crude nudes and pornographic sketches.
Here gather the reefer smokers for their "binge." That's the origin of the word for a drunk in modern slang. And drunk is how they get. The first few puffs create an almost painful parching of the throat. This calls for liquor to wet the whistle. The combination of marijuana and alcohol brings on a complete flight of conscience, restraint, decency and shame.
What occurs after such a debauch gets going, in a small flat, with two or three bedrooms and an assemblage of interracial participants of both sexes, will not be described here.
Broadway and theatrical women are not necessarily looser than other women. But for many years, and especially during the 20's and 30's, in vaudeville and musical revues it became the custom to introduce Negroes into companies with whites; especially Negro musicians, who undoubtedly have certain generic talents which white men cannot match.