The "Shafer" Commission conducted the most extensive and comprehensive examination of marijuana ever performed by the US government. More than 50 projects were funded, "ranging from a study of the effects of marihuana on man to a field survey of enforcement of the marihuana laws in six metropolitan jurisdictions . . ."
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Among the Commissions findings were:
* "No significant physical, biochemical, or mental abnormalities could be attributed solely to their marihuana smoking."
* "No verification is found of a causal relationship between marihuana use and subsequent heroin use."
* "In sum, the weight of the evidence is that marihuana does not cause violent or aggressive behavior; if anything marihuana serves to inhibit the expression of such behavior."
* "Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety."
* "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."
The Commission concluded that, "Society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal [use] is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective… Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem."
President Nixon called Governor Shafer on the carpet and pressured him to change the Commission's conclusion saying, "You see, the thing that is so terribly important here is that it not appear that the Commission's frankly just a bunch of do-gooders." Governor Shafer declined to change his conclusions, and Nixon declined to appoint him to a pending federal judgeship.
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White House tapes reveal that Nixon's opinions about marijuana were based on his personal prejudices rather than the evidence. He can be heard to make statements such as: "That's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists... By God, we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss..."
Oy. Thanks. Dick.
Nixon's war has been expensive; it has been a failure; and it has caused great damage to the fabric of America society. The harm has been particularly felt by its young people who suffer up to 80% of the marijuana arrests and who are disproportionately African American and Latino.
Several times I had to fight for my life while enforcing the law, and three of my law enforcement friends were murdered in the line of duty. I am not naive. I have walked through too much blood and have seen too much pain and suffering during my career. Everything I have learned during almost 50 years in the justice system compels a conclusion that the criminalization of marijuana was a fraud on the American people from the very inception of the war on drugs.
A handy tool of oppression is what it is, first against Latinos, and then the youth in the '60s when they became a thorn in the establishment/Nixon's side. Its time has passed but there's too much inertia of power and profit to let it die.
The War On Marijuana will need to be stoned to death.
Oops, I was trying to make a play on words there but it was a bad choice of words - as an advocate of a reality-based view of marihuana (I've always loved that arcane misspelling!), besides just being a godless commie liberal socialist Nazi from California, I can now be usefully misconstrued as an advocate of imposing Sharia law. Heh.
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