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Enforcement 1940 🇺🇸 United States · New York

Mezz Mezzrow, jazz's best-known marijuana seller, is jailed in New York

The clarinettist Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow was so well known for selling marijuana to musicians that "mezz" became slang for the drug. In 1940 he was arrested with sixty joints at the entrance to a jazz club at the New York World's Fair and jailed for intent to sell. Inside, he told the guards he was Black and was moved to the prison's segregated Black section.^[1]

In the cultural atlas

People · American jazz clarinettist · 1899–1972Mezz MezzrowA Chicago clarinettist who became better known for the marijuana he sold to the jazz world than for his playing, so much so that "mezz" became a word for it. Louis Armstrong was among his customers.

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References

Wikipedia — Mezz Mezzrow archived

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