In the first place, I want it distinctly understood that the organizations for which I speak want to go on record as favoring absolutely and unconditionally that portion of this bill which seeks to limit and suppress the use of marihuana as a drug, or for any other injurious purpose. That portion of the bill, it seems to me, can merit the opposition of no right thinking or right-acting man. I agree with the witnesses for the Government that the use of the drug marihuana is a vicious habit that should be suppressed. I understand that the first use of this drug is lost in the mists of antiquity. But we do know that the objectionable principle not to be found in the seed or oil but in the flowering tops of the female plants or in the resins therefrom.
Every country has a little different name for marihuana.
For thousands of years they have been handling the seed from this plant, and have been handling the oil extracted from the seed, but down to this good day no medical authority and no respectable writer on materia medica has ever claimed that this deleterious principle is found in the seed or oil. Neither has any reputable botanist ever found that the male plant of this species carries this deleterious substance. This drug, element, principle, radical, or whatever you want to call it, is defined as the glutinous flowering portion of the female plant. In Bengal, the male plant is weeded out or pulled out in the cultivation of the plants, because they recognize that this principle is not present in the male plants, and by preventing fertilization the yield and quality of the drug in the tops are increased. I think that the Government attorneys will not be able to present to this committee a single respectable botanical authority or a single respectable authority on materia medica, or a singe respectable authority on narcotics or toxicology, who will contend for a moment that the deleterious element or principle which we find in the resinous, glutinous portion of the flowering tops of the female plants, is found in the seeds or in the male plants.