Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1938. With a foreword by E. M. K. Geiling, and a chapter by Frank R. Gomila and M. C. Gomila Lambou. First edition. Octavo. Ix, 223pp.; eight leaves of glossy photo illustrations; bibliography; indexes. Black cloth boards, silver spine lettering; lacking the jacket. Scattered spots of soiling to front board. Bumping/pushing to spine ends. Light foxing around perimeters of interior glossy plates. Mild toning to textblock. A very good (+) copy.
First edition of this scholarly survey of the “hashish vice,” published a year after the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which restricted the sale of cannabis in the United States. Thoroughly researched (albeit slanted) chapters on the use of marijuana throughout history, its botanical and chemical make-up, etc., are counterbalanced by a continued insistence on the (bogus) link between marijuana and crime. Thus a significant early salvo in America’s decades-long marijuana-vilification campaign, whose underlying racial and economic prejudices are only finally being acknowledged today.
