Daily News from New York, New York • 23

SUNDAY NEWS, SEPTEMBER 26, 1943 23 MAWt mJf i 1fa 7: iSiit Blamed the Weed Ethel (Bunny) Sohl (left) and Genevieve (Chippy) Owens will be remembered as New Jersey's famous Gun Girls, convicted 10 year ago in the slaying of a bus driver. Bunny blamed it all on marijuana. I destroyed in what amounted to the backyard of a Bronx police station. A highly, successful musician is about to harvest the first "crop" from his nearby New Jersey farm. Two years ago a mile-long patch was discovered along the banks of Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.

Considering the availability and common properties of the weed, and disregarding for the moment the question of its dangers to mind and body, it is obvious that' the stuff is far too expensive. A Hollywood police expert examining sticks allegedly found in Mitchum's possession assayed the tea as a very ordinary grade worth no more than $1 each. A dollar for a stick is about average price in New York. Possibly because the "heat" on narcotic dealers and users is hotter in Hollywood, the prices out there are 4 I i v. 'MURDER AT miLE 106' In ihe Raw A Lardy plant, marijuana (row almost ererywhere.

This patch was discovered growing wild in the heart of a Long; Island community and uprooted under supervision of police. This nine-foot plant waa found in Astoria; usual growth is- only three feet. rests often turn up smokers of both sexes, the belief has grown among non-smokers as well as smokers that the weed has an aphrodisiac quality. Following the arrest of Mitchumy. a male friend and two pretty girls, Dr.

Albert L. Lehninger, biochemistry professor at the University of Chicago, stated that the weed often makes smokers "very romantic." This theory, however, contradicts the findings of a committee of doc tors and scientists who made a four-year study of-marijuana in New York. This committee touna that marijuana has no specific stimulant effect in regard to sexual desires. Expert medical opinion dis agrees as to almost all the potentialities of the weed. Even the findings of the late Mayor LaGuardia's committee of scientists, perhaps the first and most extensive study of the effects of marijuana, were attacked by other medical authori ties.

Four years ago the Mayor committee tabulated its findings and, apparently worried and surprised, quickly pointed out that the survey was not made public to en courage the use of the weed. The Mayor committee couia find no direct connection between the smokiner of marijuana and the commission of crime. The American Medical Society promptly blasted the findings as supernciai ana claimed evidence that weed and prime are handmaidens. The Mayor committee concluded that tea 'is not habit forming. Other medical authorities claim otherwise, while still other scien tists eontend that the point nasn i been proven either way.

The committee found that most smokers are of a friendly, sociable character. Yet Bunny boni ana Genevieve (Chivvy) Owens, New Jersey slayers of a bus driver. blamed their career of crime on the sinister Mary Jane. The Mayor's committee also concluded that marijuana smokers are not inferior in intelligence to non-smokers and that smokers sur fer no bad physical or mental ef fects. Most private doctors experienced in the treatment of narcotic addicts sharply question the latter finding.

As to intelligence, its probable that many drunkards are not of inferior intelligence ex ceDt where whiskv is Experts investigating the weed independentlj of the Mayor's com. mittee hav had a much more ex citing time with the stuff. There is, for example, the frightening experience of Prof. James Clyde Munch of Temple University. Ten years ago Prof.

Munch took his first belt at a mess of the "golden grass" for purely investigative reasons and almost immediately had a delusion of jumping into an ordinary ink bottle on his desk. "I was there 200 years," the Professor confessed. "Before jumping into the ink bottle I seemed to have great blue wings and for a long while was flying around the entire world I mean the entire globe. I was scared to death when I got out of the ink bottle after 200 years and looked at my watch. Exactly three minutes had elapsed since my last puff." Public Health Expert Notes Quieting Effect Aeains'; the Munch report must be entered the 1947 findings of Dr.

D. Eeichert, former head of the U. S. Public Health Service Hospital for narcotic addicts at Lexington, Ky. Writing in the maga zine, Federal frooation, ur.

Eeichert stated: "The weight of evidence is that even the unstable, potentially violent person is quieted rather than stimulated to action." However, five sticks of tea were hardly a soothing potion to James M. Hepbron, managing director of the Criminal Justice Commission of Baltimore. Md. Commissioner Henbron blew his ton while vestigating the weed but first wisely assigned a bodyguard to stand by with a blackjack. Writes Heobron: "As I smoked my fifth reefer my mind was workine with machine like activity.

Wild ideas streamed in on me. Anything I wanted to do was all right and I wanted to tear off my clothes and dance in the snow. Then my watcniui iriena with the blackjack quickly stepped forward In rebuttal, tests made by city doctors at Welfare Island hospitals could find "no discernible evidence of any permanent deleterious effects either mental or physical." These tests also indicated that smoking marijuana almost invariably induced smokers to become more friendly and sociable. So much for the conflict In expert testimony. Of the facts accepted by both sides, it is at least known that marijuana comes from the leaves, flower andor seed of the common hemp vine.

The common hemp vine is very common indeed and almost indestructible. It will grow almost anywhere. Until very recently, at least, It was growing in a window box of a theatrical hotel. A fine, rugged crop of the weed was not long ago discovered in Central Park. Some hardy shoots of the plant were on a higher level.

price of weed everywhere has steadily ad id vanced over the years. Only a ftlb years ago it eould be had on contest any Harlem street corner fof. 10 rents a stick. There is, today, a trend towarJ cutting the product, just as. tha bootleggers of old used to cut whisky.

Unscrupulous weed ped dlers mix pure marijuana with of all things! old-fashioned catnipf To the amateur the difference it not noticeable. But the real weed head can detect the difference witH the first puff. Marijuana cuttinj makes bitter enmities in the tea set. Whatever its qualities, almost everybody is agreed on one thinj. Even veteran smokers will admit that marijuana has nothing to offet worth the risk that it entails.

If you're going to jail, better to jail for something wortnwhil Kenneth Fritzler from Kimbafl, was madly in love with Wiegner told of the day of th shooting. She said that aftef Wiegner came out of the woods and told her of the killing, he mad her take off her sweater and tied her wrist with it so she couldn't run away from him. He handed her the gun and told her to shoot him. Then he kissed her several times, but she insisted he had never made any effort molest her otherwise. He said his interest in her was fatherly sinc "someone had to take care of her," She Took the Money.

The girl herself took the money from a lipper pocket on her father's trouser leg. She seemed undisturbed at the idea of his death by the time she was picked up Nebraska, and remained calm, at times quite cheerful. A homesteader along the highway told of having come upon tha party bogged down in a soft spot. He said he invited them into his house for a meal and then helped get the ca: out of the mud. It was his impression that there was bad feeling betweA McComas and Wiegner, who seemed impatient to get going.

After the hearing, Wiepncr was ordered flown to Oakalla Prison at Prince George to await trial. When Louise was leaving the building, he called to her from his cell window, telling her he loved her and asking her to do everything eha could to help him. She so promised. She was taken to Hythe, in the custody of welfare officers to await appearance as a witness. The bod: of McComas was flown to Dayto for burial.

(Continued from page S) was considered quite a hand with guns.) When he saw McComas dead, he said, he and the girl became frightened and decided to leave. He said they later found McComas' wallet, containing $1,300, in the car. The Nebraska authorities held the two without charge, while querying Canada. Dog Finds Body. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police started out to hunt for the body at the place where Wiegner said it would be found.

They had little success until John Soderstrom of Anchorage, on his way home after a visit in the States, came by with his Labrador retriever. Inspector Gordon Duncan asked Soderstrom to let the dog have a run, and they quickly found McComas. The bodv was about 200 feet from the road. It had been man gled by wolves but was readily identifiable by the features and by Sapers in the clothing. McComas' rother later flew up and made a positive identification.

The discovery of tne corpse was fnllfvwe1 hv thn issuance of a mur der warrant for Wiegner. Cana-i i a xt-1 uian police new uuwri iu jteuiaana o-nA innlr him nnti tliA onrl hack to Puce Coupe, B. where Wiegner was given a nearing ana an inquest was held. Acting as his own lawyer, he steadfastly maintained that the shooting was an accident. He demanded that the charge be dismissed on the ground thnt murder had not been proved.

"What did I stand to gain from it 7" he asked. Louise who, said Prosecutor posite. Four years ago Dr. C. Knight Aldrkh of the U.

S. Pub-lie Health Service used the standard Seashore Test for measuring musical ability on IS musicians, serving prison sentences for violation of the Marijuana Tax Act. Each test blasted the notion that gage-laden musician plays better' than when he's empty. "Several of the subjects thought they were playing better when actually their ability score was definitely lower," Dr. Aldrich found.

Tea Pads Are Heavily Guarded So much for marijuana as an aid to artistic effort. Evidence on the weed when taken in large quantity for purely narcotic effect seems to be equally disappointing. OEAVY weed smokers addicts who use it in quantity and abstain from all other narcotics- frequent what is known to the trade as tea pads. A tea pad is a private apartment, dimly and carefully guarded, where smokers of both sexes jom to get it on. Since marijuana raids and ar.