Vintage News Articles & Finds

[Jellyfish]

When I started reading the Biddeford story, and I read "large ziplock bags full of cannabis"I was thinking baggies of pot, maybe ounces. When I realized they were pounds, it blew my mind!
I'd like to think a few lb's got into the hands of some groovy heads!

 

[billycw]

Billy Hayes: It was only two kilos.
Midnight Express

Classic book and good watch, great lengths were gone by many a smuggler to avoid the Turkish trail

When I started reading the Biddeford story, and I read "large ziplock bags full of cannabis"I was thinking baggies of pot, maybe ounces. When I realized they were pounds, it blew my mind!
I'd like to think a few lb's got into the hands of some groovy heads!

The 14 pound prank took some commitment, hoping at least the 15th made it to safe hands. Guessing the prankster intended the same

 

[billycw]

'British officers pose during the Crimean War', Crimea, 1855-1856

 

[Jellyfish]

I'm imagining some eager FFA-er, planting some cannabis seeds for the first time, and giving them all the sweet FFA love he could. And coming out with WAY more weed than expected, hence the generous prank.

 

[billycw]

I'm imagining some eager FFA-er, planting some cannabis seeds for the first time, and giving them all the sweet FFA love he could. And coming out with WAY more weed than expected, hence the generous prank.

Can never count out the feed up ol' timer wanting to cause a stir

Potato farmer on his horse-drawn digger on a small farm. Caribou, Maine 1940

 

[billycw]

That time Popeye decided to grow his own...



King Comics #45, 1936

Forever ending the debate, Popeye indeed prefers indoor...

 

[billycw]

'Interior of Els 4 Gats' by Pablo Picasso 1899

 

[billycw]

Some merry friendly country folks
Together did convene,
To burn their nits upon their stocks,
An hold their Halloween.

- Robert Burns, 1855

Tam O'Shanter and the Witches, illustration by John Faed to the poem of Robert Burns 1855



Halloween's Hemp Seed Sow

Few stories from history capture the essence of a holiday quite like the Halloween Hemp Seed Spell of 1850!

"What fearful pranks ensue! When Hemp and Halloween collide!

Snap-apple Night or All-Hallow Eve in Ireland by Daniel Maclise 1833


In our Halloween tale we meet Jock Maclean, a Scottish boy. Wishing to see his true love on the night of Halloween, the hemp seed sowing spell is tried.

As young Jock sows his hemp seed in the field, a pig follows where his true love's vision should be. As he looks back to see his true love, he finds the hungry pig...

Its unclear if this is a joke played on poor Jock by his friends or just a funny mishap, none the less, his buddies never let him live it down with of course, joking pig calls.



Halloween by John Mayne in 1850 (translated from Scots)

OF all the festivals we hear,
From Handsel-Monday till New Year,
There's few in Scotland held more dear
For mirth, I ween,
Or yet can boast of better cheer,
Than Hallowe'en.

Langsyne indeed, as now in climes
Where priests for silver pardon crimes,
The country 'round in Popish rhymes
Did pray and groan;
But customs vary with the times
At Hallowe'en.

Ranged round a blazing fireside,
Where neither could nor hunger bide,
The farmer's house, with secret pride,
Will all convene;
For that day's work is thrown aside
At Hallowe'en.

Placed at their head the goodwife sits,
And deals round apples, pears, and nits;
Syne tells her guests, how, at sic bits
Where she has been,
Ghost's have forced folk to lose their wits
At Hallowe'en.

Grieved, she recounts how, by mischance,
Poor pussy's forced all night to prance
With fairies, who in thousands dance
Upon the green,
Or sail with witches over to France
At Hallowe'en.

Since, issued from the armchair,
For that's the seat of empire there,
To cover the table with what's rare,
Commands are given;
That all full daintily may fare
At Hallowe'en.

And when they've emptied the heaped plate,
And all things are laid out on gate,
To ken their matrimonial mate,
The youngsters keen
Search all the dark decrees of fate
At Hallowe'en.

All things prepared in order due,
Gosh guide's! what fearful pranks ensue!
Some in the kiln-pat threw a few,
At which, bedene(rightaway),
Their sweethearts by the far end show
At Hallowe'en.

Others, with some uncanny gift,
In an old barn a riddle lift,
Where, thrice pretending corn to sift,
With charms between,
Their joe appears, as white as drift,
At Hallowe'en.

But there a lonesome tale to tell
The gates of every charm and spell.
Ance, gone to sow hempseed himself,
Poor Jock Maclean,
Plump in a filthy peat-pot fell
At Hallowe'en.

Half filled with fear, and droukit well,
He from the mire don't hardly spill;
But from that time the silly chiel (lad)
Did never grien (want)
To cast his spell with the Devil
At Hallowe'en.

O Scotland! famed for scenes like this,
That thy sons walk where wisdom is,
Till death in everlasting bliss
Shall make them even,
Will ever be the constant wish of
Jockie *Mein.



*Mein means to call to an animal, in this case a joking pig call of 'Jockie'

Illustration to Robert Burns' poem Halloween by J.M. Wright and Edward Scriven in 1841




Just 5 years later, famed Scottish poet Robert Burns would write an ode to the original Halloween poem. Again the story of sowing hemp can be found along with the cautionary tale of poor Jock Maclean and his pig...



Halloween by Robert Burns in 1785 (translated from Scots)


The following poem will, by many readers, be well enough understood; but for the sake of those who are unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the
more unenlightened in our own.-R.B.


Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
The simple pleasure of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.

- Goldsmith


Halloween

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or over the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly horses prance;
Or for Colean the route is taken,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

Among the bonny winding banks,
Where the river Doon runs clear,
Where Bruce once ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nuts, and pile their shocks of wheat,
And have their Halloween
Full of fun that night.

The lasses feet, and cleanly neat,
More strong than when they're fine;
Their faces happy, full sweetly show,
Hearts faithful, warm, and kind;
The lads say true, with love knots,
Well knotted on their garters,
Some surprisingly shy, and some with chatter,
Cause the girls' hearts to get startin'
Whiles fast at night.

Then, first and foremost, through the cabbage,
Their stocks of wheat are sought at once;
They touch their own, and grasp and choose,
For very strong and straight ones.
Poor fellow Will fell off the drift,
And wandered through the cabbage,
And pulled, for want o' better shift,
A cabbage like a pig's-tail,
So bent that night.

Then, straight or crooked, earth or none,
They roar and cry all throughout there;
The very little children, toddling, run,
With stocks out over their shoulders;
And if the custard's sweet or sour.
With pocketknives they taste them;
Thereafter cozily, about the door,
With clever care, they've placed them
To lie that night.

The girls steal away from among them all
To pull their stalks of corn:
But Rab slips out, and plays about,
Behind the very large thorn:
He grabbed onto Nelly hard and fast;
Loud screamed all the other girls;
But the grain at the top of her stalk was lost,
When cuddling in the haystacks
With him that night.

The old guidwife's well-hoarded nuts,
Are round and round divided,
And many lads' and lasses' fates
Are there that night decided:
Some kindle cozily, side by side,
And burn together trimly;
Some start away, with saucy pride,
And jumpout over the chimney
Full high that night.

Jean slips in between with careful eye;
What it was she wouldn't tell;
But this is Jock, and this is me,
She says in to herself:
He drunk over her, and she over him,
As they would never more part;
Till, puff! he started up the hide and seek,
And Jean had a a sore heart
To see't that night.

Poor Willie, with his little cabbage,
Was stuck with prudish Mallie;
And Mallie, no doubt, thought it rude,
To be thought a match for Willie;
Mall's nut leaped out with prideful fling,
And her own fit it, inpertinent;
While Willie laughed, and swore by jing,
'Twas just the way he wanted
To be that night.

Nell had the haystacks in her mind,
She puts herself and Rob in;
In loving bliss they sweetly join,
Till white in ashes they're sobbing;
Nell's heart was dancing at the view,
She whispered Rob to look for it:
Rob, stealthily, apprised her bonny mouth,
Full cosy in the nook for it,
Unseen that night.

But Merran sat behind their backs,
Her thoughts on Andrew Bell;
She leaves them chattering at their tales,
And slips out by herself:
She through the yard the nearest takes,
And to the fire goes then,
And in the dark grabbed for the box,
And in the blue-spell throws then,
Right afraid that night.

And yes she won it, and yes she swore,
It was what she made no joking,
Till something held within the pot,
Good Lord! but she was quaking!
But whether it was the devil himself,
Or whether it was a shadow,
Or whether it was Andrew Bell,
She did not wait on talking
To ask that night.

Small Jennie to her grannie says,
"Will ye go with me, grannie?
I'll eat the apple at the glass
I'll get free of Uncle Johnnie."
She puffed her pipe with such a column of smoke,
In anger she was so vapouring,
She noticed it not, an cinder burned
Her fine new worsted apron
Out through that night.

"You little scolding woman's face!
I dare you try such sporting,
As seek the foul thief any place,
For him to spy your fortune.
No doubt but you may get a sight!
Great cause you have to fear it;
For many a one has gotten a fright,
And lived and died delirious
On such a night.

"One harvest before the Sherramoor, --
I remember it as well as last night,
I was a young girl then, I'm sure
I was not past fifteen;
The summer had been cold and wet,
And stuff was very green;
And yes a merry harvest home we got,
And just on Halloween
It fell that night.

"Our chief reaper was Rob McGreen,
A clever sturdy fellow:
His son got Eppie Sim with child,
That lived in Achmacalla:
He got hemp-seed, I remember it well,
And he made little fuss of it;
But many a day was by himself,
He was so sorely frighted
That very night."

Then up got fechtin' Jamie Fleck,
And he swore by his conscience,
That he could sow hemp-seed a peck;
For it was all but nonsense.
The old guidman reached down the bag,
And out a handful gave him;
Then asked him slip from among the folk,
Some time when no one would see him,
And try it that night.

He marches through among the stacks,
Though he was something frightened;
The dung fork he for a weapon takes.
And hurls it at the buttocks of his horse;
And every now and then he says,
"Hemp-seed, I saw thee,
And her that is to be my lass,
Come after me, and draw thee
As fast this night."

He whistled up Lord Lennox' march
To keep his courage cheery;
Although his hair began to stand on end,
He was so scared and eerie:
Till presently he hears a squeak,
And then a grown and grunting;
He over his shoulder gave a peek,
And tumbled with a stagger
Out over that night.

He roared a horrid murder-shout,
In dreadful desperation!
And young and old came running out
To hear the sad narration;
He swore it was hobbled Jean McCraw,
Or hunchbacked Merran Humphie,
Till, stop! she trotted through them
And what was it but a pig
A'stir that night!

Meg gladly would to the barn have gone,
To win three measures of nothing;
But for to meet the devil her alone,
She put but little faith in:
She gives the herdboy a little nuts,
And two red-cheeked apples,
To watch, while for the barn she sets,
In hopes to see Tam Kipples
That very night.

She turns the key with quiet twist,
And over the threshold ventures;
But first on Sandy gives a call
The boldly in she enters:
A rat rattled up the wall,
And she cried, Lord, preserve her!
And ran through gutter at the bottom of the dung hole,
And prayed with zeal and fervor,
Full fast that night;

They hoisted out Will with strong advice;
They promised him some fine handsome one;
It chanced the stack he fathomed three times
Was timber-propped for twisting;
He takes a twisted, old moss-oak,
For some black gruesome witch;
And let a curse, and drew a stroke,
Till skin in shreds came trailing
Off his fists that night.

A wanton widow Lizzie was,
As cheerful as a kitten;
But, oh! that night among the woods,
She got a fearful settling!
She through the furz, and by the grave,
And over the hill goes careering,
Where three lords' lands met at a rivulet
To dip her left shirt-sleeve in,
Was bent that night.

While over a waterfall the river plays,
As through the glen it meandered;
While round a jutting rock it strays;
While in an eddy it dimpled;
While glittered to the nightly rays,
With bickering, dancing dazzle;
While hidden underneath the slope of a hill,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night.

Among the brackens, on the slope,
Between her and the moon,
The devil, or else an unhoused cow,
Got up and gave a moo!
Poor Lizzie's heart most leap out of her chest!
Near lark-height she jumped;
But missed a foot, and in the pool
Out-over the ears she falls in,
With a plunge that night.

In order, on the clean hearth-stone,
The porrigers three are ranged,
And every time great care is taken,
To see them duly changed:
Old Uncle John, wanted wedlock joys
Since Mar's year (1715) did desire,
Because he got the empty dish three times,
He heaved them on the fire
In anger that night.

With merry songs, and friendly tales,
I know they didn't weary;
And many tales, and funny jokes,
Their sports were cheap and cheery;
Till buttered scones, with fragrant steam,
Set all their mouths a'stirring;
Then, with a social glass of liquor,
They parted off careering
Full happy that night.



Jockie! Happy Halloween everyone!

 

[billycw]

'The pipe smoking mime, Pilar Morin' photo by B.J. Falk in 1895

 

[billycw]

"Hasish shop" Kathmandu, Nepal, August 1971

 

[billycw]

'Sharing a joint at a concert' in Portland, Oregon 1969

 

[billycw]

'Stacks of hemp stalks in a hemp field' Kentucky, 1898

 

[billycw]

'Dr Poppy's Wonder Elixir', sign dated to 1903. Dr. Poppy's wonder elixir was sold in Australia up until WW2, this sign in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia

 

[Elmer Bud]

G `day BCDub

As far as I know there was a weekly cocaine ration for retired army officers in that era as well .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

 

[billycw]

G `day BCDub

As far as I know there was a weekly cocaine ration for retired army officers in that era as well .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

Lets not forget the widespread distribution of amphetamines for active duty soldiers on both sides of the war

Geisha Girls in pose, Tokyo, Japan 1920

 

[Elmer Bud]

Blitzed: how the Nazi’s conquest of Europe got a chemical boost

“I demand that you do not sleep for at least three days and nights if that is required,” General Heinz Guderian is said to have told the thousands of German troops who had massed to cross the Meuse river and push into Belgium and France in 1940.

The largest motorised unit in military history had assembled, comprising 41,410 vehicles and including 1222 tanks. Its goal: to reach the French town of Sedan before the French army did. However, only by fighting non-stop for at least 72 hours would that be possible. As General Franz Halder noted in his diary: “We have to resort to unusual means.”

According to German author Norman Ohler, that meant one thing: drugs, specifically methamphetamine. In his book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, translated from German and praised for its meticulous research, Ohler advances the claim that the Nazis used stimulants and narcotics as military strategy. On this particular night on the Meuse, he writes, a supply of 20,000 pills was distributed to the soldiers, who collectively consumed the entire stock during the course of the night.

“Twenty minutes later, the nerve cells in their brains started releasing neurotransmitters. All of a sudden, dopamine and noradrenaline put the soldiers in a state of absolute alertness. The night brightened, no one would sleep, lights were turned on and the Wehrmacht started eating its way tirelessly towards Belgium. The listlessness and frustration of the first few hours made way for new and strange feelings. Something started happening, something no one could readily explain. An intense chill crept across scalps, a hot feeling of cold filled everyone from within. There were as yet no storms of steel, as in the first world war, but instead a storm of chemicals broke out, punctuated by euphoric flashes of mental lightning.

“The level of activity reached its peak. The drivers drove; the radio operators’ decoding machines, like futuristic typewriters, radioed; gunners in black combat trousers and dark grey shirts crouched behind their weapons, ready to fire.

“There were no more breaks; an uninterrupted chemical bombardment had broken out in the cerebrum, the body released greater quantities of nutrients, boosting its sugar production so that the machine was running at maximum output and the pistons were going up and down exponentially.

“The average blood pressure increased by up to 25 per cent and hearts thundered in the cylinder chamber of the chest.”

Ohler, in Australia recently for the Sydney Writers Festival, says chemical assistance such as the stimulant Pervitin — akin to the street drug crystal meth — stretched all the way to the Nazi high command and Adolf Hitler.

Endorsed by British historian Ian Kershaw, who wrote Hitler: A Biography, Ohler says soldiers were able to stave off sleep for as long as 17 days to catch Allied *forces off-guard in key battles.

“We felt a kind of high, an exceptional state,” relates a German soldier, whose unit had fought without a break for three days. “We were sitting in our vehicles, covered in dust, exhausted, wired.”

Ohler mines rare documents and archival images for his book and bases his thesis on a close examination of notes and correspondence from those in the field. He describes how methamphetamine became an indispensable component of German battle plans, one tank group consuming 30 million pills within months, the mental high and military victories giving troops a sense of arrogance, fearlessness and uninhibited invincibility. Ohler writes of the French campaign: “In less than 100 hours the Germans gained more territory than they had in over four years in the first world war.” Winston Churchill, he writes, was dumbfounded. Of course, there were consequences for the soldiers: cardiac arrests, heart attacks, physical collapse.

Ohler asserts German pilots also used the drug, enabling their Messerschmitts to keep flying for longer than Britain’s Spitfires, as did the navy, with Hitler Youth recruited to pilot one-man torpedo vehicles while ingesting cocaine-spiked chewing gum. Many drowned at sea, he says. Drugs also were used as a form of torture, with cocaine administered to Sachsenhausen inmates to test how long they could keep walking, some managing four days non-stop.

Hitler reportedly became increasingly dependent on drugs including methampheta*mine sup*ple*mented with barbiturates, co*caine, steroids, sex hor*mones and an early form of OxyContin. His physician, Theodor Morell, was administering 28 pills a day at one stage, in addition to a barrage of injections, scarring his patient’s arms where the skin was perforated. As the pressure of losing the war mounted, Hitler’s physical decline belied his unrealistic drug-imbued optimism and he began experiencing tremors, regularly placing his right hand over his left and right leg over his left to conceal the shaking when seated.

Despite five years of research and much hard evidence, large parts of Ohler’s thesis are impossible to corroborate. It is worth noting that he emphasises that Hit*ler’s “goals and motives were not the result of drugs but established much earlier. Hitler did not murder because he was living in a haze. Quite the contrary … Hitler was always the master of his senses and knew exactly what he was doing. He acted always in an alert, cold-blooded way. He acted systematically and with terrible consistency to the end. He was anything but insane. He could go on taking as many drugs as he liked to keep himself in a state in which he could commit his crimes. It does not diminish his monstrous guilt.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/ne...t/news-story/e930b9cb01bbcea3a6dca71783e724f3

 

[billycw]

Blitzed: how the Nazi’s conquest of Europe got a chemical boost


“We were sitting in our vehicles, covered in dust, exhausted, wired.”

Killer quote, books been on my list to read for a while now.

Leading up to the Olympics in 1936, Hitler wanted the German athletes to win big to show the superior genetics of the aryan race. He enlisted Germany's top scientist to come up with a pill to surpass America's 'Bennies' or Benzedrine to give his athletes the edge.

German scientist presented Hitler with a methamphetamine pill named Pervitin.

Germany's methamphetamine pills named Pervitin


Hitler loved the pills and immediately ordered the production of 100 million pervitin pills, 60 million of them distributed to the military.

In this video from the 1936 Olympic Games, you can clearly see Hitler under the effects of the drug.


Hitler tweaking at the 1936 Olympic Games

Early in WW2 (around 1940) Romanian King Micheal and his mother Queen Helen meet with Hitler. King Micheal remembered the meeting,

"In the train to Florence Queen Helen was wearing an orchid that Hitler had offered her. He had also given her a small jar of pervitin tablets, a wonderful anti-depressant without which he had said he could not live"

Tank battle in front of Cologne Cathedral on March 6, 1945 in Cologne, Germany. Sign reads "Sight seers! Keep out! Beyond this point you draw fire on our fighting men. He risks he life 24 hours a day. Do you??"

 

[billycw]

Gathering the Ganja Crop, Naogaon, India – February 16, 1894



Chapta Ganja AKA Flat Ganja

The British Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission done in 1893-1895, is a wealth of information on how ganja was grown, processed, smoked, sold and traded within India before the turn of the century.

Techniques passed down through centuries of growing cannabis, some untouched to this day.

Two processes caught my eye right off, the first is a technique for creating a finished smoke able product, Chapta Ganja aka Flat Ganja.

Basically the process creates a mat or brick of ganja to smoke devoid of many of the seeds and some stems removed... The process also creates foot charas from the treading, yum...

Included is the process of making 'Round Ganja'.

Preparing Flat Ganja, Naogaon, India Febuary 16, 1894

 

[billycw]

Continued part 2 or 2



The Treading Floor

The second interesting process (some of which is used in flat ganja) is Treading...

This process is to remove bud from stem at the same time as removing seeds. This process was used in many areas for smoke able product, foot charas and bhang powder...

In this process a party literally dances on the cannabis... Sometimes the process is done wet(forming products like flat ganja) sometimes dry(forming product like bhang powder).

Talk about a crazy harvest party... Just like modern harvest, music is important.

Treading Ganja, Ahmednagar, India November 27, 1893

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

Uhh... gross? lol
My how times have changed.