The Dr. James Munch (Professor of Pharmacology from Princeton) was the closest departmental associate and probably also the best friend of Harry Aslinger. He was promoted as the no. 1 expert on marijuana’s effects on health throughout the 1930s and 40s. Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman interviewed Munch over the phone in 1978 and recorded their conversation. Sloman was determined to know Munch’s opinion on Anslingers’s jazz crusade.
This interview is really amazing in the way it displays a certain inability to grasp the real nature of Jazz at this period. Munch has the sincerity to answer to the question “Were Jazz musicians actively promoting the use of marijuana?”. Actually, if he had said “Yes” he would be categorized as a backward extremist. His strategy was to line up the bad influences of Jazz musicians on the young Americans with an interest for the american teen-agers, the education etc…
Here is the complete interview :
Dr. Munch:
Because the chief effect as far as they (Anslinger, FBN) were concerned was that it lengthens the sense of time, and therefore they could get more grace beats into their music than they could if they simply followed the written copy.
Munch has completely lost Sloman, right out of the gate.
In other words, if you’re a musician, you’re going to play the thing the way it’s printed on a sheet. But if you’re using marijuana, you’re going to work in about twice as much music between the first note and the second note. That’s what made jazz musicians. The idea that they could jazz things up, liven them up, you see.
Sloman felt his head spinning. He felt that he had been at the bottom of an ink
well for 200 years. With a Herculean effort he managed the next question:
-So what’s wrong with that? I mean, I don’t see why Anslinger went after these people.?
-They were spreading it around at sources, because they were looked up to by a good many of the teenagers as being idols.
Sloman lied:
-Oh, I see
Munch continue:
–In other words, their example must be all right, or the jazz musicians wouldn’t do it. Teen-agers, who were no different then than they are today, though that if they did it, then it was all right for us to do it. What we’re trying to do is not so much to grab individual teen-agers as to go after the source from which it has been obtained. I told you that before.
Sloman asked:
-Were the musicians actively promoting the use of marijuana?
Munch admitted:
-Not directly, At least most of them didn’t. but the fact was that youngsters found out they were using, so therefore they decided that they were going to use.
-They wanted to try it, like imitation, huh?
Munch dismissed the subject again:
-Yeah. Teen-agers…. etc
Sloman asked:
-I’ve talked to some of the counsels from the old Bureau, and they thought that the marijuana thing was used as a political thing by Anslinger. In other words, to get more appropriations…
Munch protested:
-No, he was genuinely interested in the welfare of the people. He was the same way on cocaine, he was the same way on heroin…
Sloman interrupted:
-I bet he was…I bet he was…
References:
Caribbean HipCats 