Audio By Carbonatix
By the 1920s, newspapers were no stranger to salacious stories about the evil scourge of drugs and their corrupting force. (Not much has changed, actually). This particular entry in our Cannabis Time Capsule series isn’t so much a story, but a photo — from the Wet Mountain Tribune out of Westcliffe from March 3, 1922 — but it probably still brought home the message.
That said, it seems completely made-up.
The photo (which could possibly be a drawing) is pretty grainy, but you can make out about thirty long pipes at the bottom, a few glass vials, and boxes marked “opium” in vaguely Asian lettering. Because, you know, that’s how illegal opium packages were shipped and all.
We’ll let the photo tell the next 1,000 words:
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The caption reads: “A view of assorted narcotics–opium, hasheesh, morphine, heroin, and cocaine–with a number of opium smoking layouts destroyed the other day at police headquarters, New York. This ‘dope’ which was seized in recent raids by the anti-narcotic squad, could be sold for $3,000,000 to addicts at current illicit sale prices.”
More from our Colorado Cannabis Time Capsule archive: “Cannabis Time Capsule, 1901: German tourist encounters Egyptian ‘hasheesh’ den.”
