Orchestra's "cigarettes"

[BobR]

On a Benny broadcast ( I don't have exact date but maybe September,'40), Jack says he is feeling peppy thanks to Vitamin B1 and also because of the cigarettes provided by some of the members of the orchestra. It gets a huge laugh from the orchestra. Does this refer to some kind of illict drug?

[kurt]

That would be your basic marijuana joke, yes.

[guest]

by the 50's, while nowhere near as specifically as today, negative effects of smoking were widely realized...no doubt particularly by those who were in the biz,even indirectly

[LLeff]

(And I'm not talking about Don's pot...)

I was rather taken by surprise by a line in an early 1937 show where Jack and the gang are over at Phil's house where his mother and sister are staying. Jack asks about the wonderful smell coming from the kitchen, and Mrs. Harris says, "My POT roast." Big laugh.

Chalk it up to my own naivete if you will, but I had to have Hal Stone explain to me that it was really a reference to marijuana.