The Doctor Who Made Temple Proud

While researching a column yesterday, I found this excellent piece on the history of recreational drug use in America. And a decent chunk of the story concerns a doctor from Temple University.

Where, oh where, in this story, are we going to find an expert witness? Here it comes — sure enough — the guy from Temple University — the guy with the dogs. I promise you, you are not going to believe this.

In the most famous of these trials, what happened was two women jumped on a Newark, New Jersey bus and shot and killed and robbed the bus driver. They put on the marijuana insanity defense. The defense called the pharmacologist, and of course, you know how to do this now, you put the expert on, you say “Doctor, did you do all of this experimentation and so on?” You qualify your expert. “Did you write all about it?” “Yes, and I did the dogs” and now he is an expert. Now you ask him what? You ask the doctor “What have you done with the drug?” And he said, and I quote, “I’ve experimented with the dogs, I have written something about it and” — are you ready — “I have used the drug myself.”

What do you ask him next? “Doctor, when you used the drug, what happened?”

With all the press present at this flamboyant murder trial in Newark New Jersey, in 1938, the pharmacologist said, and I quote, in response to the question “When you used the drug, what happened?”, his exact response was: “After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat.”

Who knew Batboy was from Philadelphia? This article also contains this quote from said doctor: “I wouldn’t know, I am not a dog psychologist.”

Like A Bat Out Of Northeast Philly

The latest, greatest report by our town’s own own Carl Monday, Harry Hairston, is none other than the invasion of bats in one Northeast Philly neighborhood.

The bats, neighbors say, are from the home of one man, who has bats in his attic and hasn’t gotten them taken care of — because he wants to do it humanely. The neighbors cannot enjoy that rarified Northeast Philly air after 8:30 p.m., they say, because they get attacked by bats. They contacted the city, only to find out that the city doesn’t have any bat policy.

It could be worse, though, the neighbors say. They could be attacked by lesbian Batgirl instead.

Bats Attack Philly Neighborhood [NBC 10]
Batwoman To Return As Lesbian [AP/NBC 10]
Are you like me? Did you say, “Wait, Batgirl wasn’t a lesbian before?”