Murderous Marijuana

The 1937 film Marijuana, Assassin of Youth follows in the tradition of the previous exploitation films we have talked about, including the "good girl gone bad" plotline and the rip-off of the Reefer Madness plot and themes. In fact, Reefer Madness actress Dorothy Short appears in this film was well. The film was written and directed by Elmer Clifton, who also wrote and directed westerns and worked with famous early directed D.W. Griffith and even appeared in Griffith's infamous Birth of a Nation.

The story begins when matron Elizabeth Barry is killed in a car crash by a driver who is smoking marijuana. Reporter Artie Brighton (Arthur Gardner) goes undercover as a soda jerk to get the scoop on who is running the marijuana ring in the small town. In a parallel storyline, good Joan Barry (Luana Walters) and her sister Marjorie (Dorothy Short) stand to inherit their aunt Elizabeth's fortune if they can fulfill a "morality clause" in the will. This leads their cousin, Linda Clayton (Fay McKenzie) and her husband Jack Howard (Michael Owen) to conspire to prove that Joan and Marjorie aren't moral girls at all. While Jack and Linda try to corrupt Joan and Marjorie with drugs and alcohol, it is up to Art to get the story and save the day before the marijuana problem in town gets even more out of hand.

Naturally, the pot in this movie leads to all sorts of implausible behaviors that don't really exists, such as pot being addictive, leading to murder, sexually promiscuous behavior, and causing smokers to call into comas and die. Of course, the propaganda in this film as widely believed at the time, due to the hysteria created in order to pass the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, and is still believed today by those who do not know better.

There are several rescources I have found that can help educate you about the film, exploitation films, the Marijuana Tax Act, and all of the hyseria and hubbub surrounding this area of time, leading us to treat drugs the way we do. A typical propanda story with the same name as the film can be found here, thanks to Redhouse Books, which was originally published in American Magazine in 1937. Cannabis.net has the famous drug tsar Henry J. Anslinger's article entitled, what else, Marijuana, Assassin of Youth, which can be read here and a simliar article can be found here, thanks to cannabisuk.com.

Here is a preview of the film that you can watch to further get what its all about