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Show Drive on 'Reefer Ring Is Getting Amazing Results Large Army of Marijuana Addicts Spurs Officials To Fight Gang. CHICAGO. Faced with an ever-increasing ever-increasing army of marijuana addicts, ad-dicts, U. S. narcotic authorities have launched a nation-wide drive against the crime - inciting 4assassin of youth," and immediate results have been spectacular. In New York a federal grand jury has indicted six persons, three of them women, as members of a nation-wide "reefer ring" with a $1,-000,000-a-year turnover, says the Chicago Chi-cago Herald-American. In Beverly Hills, aristocratic Los Angles suburb, police swooped down on a midnight apartment party, confiscated con-fiscated enough "reefers" or marijuana mari-juana cigarets to put 20 people in a trance and arrested a Hollywood stunt actor and a young movie starlet star-let guest. Later, they picked up a 19-year-old dentist's assistant, a dance band drummer, and girl singer all on charges of dalliance with the "dream weed." A grand jury inquiry was launched after the dentist's assistant, assist-ant, Miss Norma Jean Graybeal, 19, told of using a 16-year-old high school boy as her aid in peddling "reefers" to teen-age addicts. Declaring that the vice is rampant among adolescents, Miss Graybeal said: "Most of the kids start using the stuff about the same way I did. They get thrill crazy, and they start jitterbugging and staying out nights. Pretty soon some kid in the crowd brings some of the 'smokes' and then you're off. How They Work It. "If you don't smoke some of it, the other kids think you're a jerk. You buy it from the person in your own crowd who is your contact. In every juvenile crowd there's at least one person who knows where to buy the stuff. "I've seen two people go so crazy from marijuana they had to be locked up. One, a boy, 19 years old, is in a hospital for the insane now, and the other, a man of 28, is in jail." In recognition of her aid to authorities. au-thorities. Miss Graybeal was let off with 90 days in jail for possession of narcotics. Also taken into custody and questioned ques-tioned in the drive were Ruel Taylor, Tay-lor, stunt actor; Lorna Gray, screen starlet; Ila Ellen Tims, 25, professional profes-sional singer, and Robert Paul Hughes, dance band drummer. Miss Gray was released after Taylor Tay-lor had assumed responsibility for the "reefers" in his apartment. In the course of the inquiry, police discovered marijuana growing grow-ing in the Victory garden of a public school. Shows Increase. According to Elmer L. Irey, coordinator co-ordinator of U. S. treasury enforcement enforce-ment agencies, marijuana addiction showed a considerable increase during dur-ing 1944. The focal point of the traffic, he declared, seems to be New York City. No sooner is one gang there stamped out than another springs up. The conspirators, con-spirators, he added, are well financed and apparently have . national and international affiliations. Meanwhile, federal agents continued contin-ued seeking a man said to be the "master mind" of the nation-wide syndicate whose alleged members are under indictment in New York City. Information obtained in the investigation inves-tigation by U. S. Attorney John F. X. McGohey's office in New York points to a well organized ring of "reefer" peddlers operating in large cities. The main supply of the drug is believed be-lieved to have been cut off through the discovery of a farm near Chaffee, Mo. There, according to McGohey, Robert Williams, and his wife, Elda, grew the weed for distribution dis-tribution by others of the syndicate. |