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California Should Pay Its People in Pot

California's state finances have gone to pot, and that's what it should use to pay its employees. Right now the state... more

JackHerer
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Walking the Last Free Mile with Eddy Lepp

Today Eddy Lepp called me at about 10:30 a.m. and said they were getting ready to pass through Pismo Beach. I hopped into my car... more

JackHerer
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'It's time' right the wrongs of Richard Nixon - 'The Blue Ribbon report Richard Nixon chose to bury'

Richard Nixon left office in shame, but his shameful policy remained. The war on cannabis has remained and harmed us in so many ways. It is time for change! It's time to change Richard Nixon's war on cannabis hemp. Facts matter!

After Richard Nixon flattened the Democrats as soft on crime in the '68 election, the President-elect faced a dilemma. There's not much the White House can do to impact crime. The thugs people are afraid of — burglars, robbers, rapists, murderers — are the business of state courts. Then somebody mentioned drugs.1*

In a textbook example of fear manipulation, Nixon warned the country that a plague of unimaginable proportions was about to engulf the nation. “The problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency,” he said. 2 To fight the pushers on their own terms, he would need emergency powers — preventive detention, unorthodox strike forces, more freedom to search, wire tap, and arrest.

For scientific support, he appointed former Republican Pennsylvania Governor Ray Shafer to head a National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. He told Gov. Shafer to treat marijuana just like heroin despite the "obvious differences between marijuana and other drugs."3 He was even more direct withchief of staff Bob Haldeman. "I want a Goddamn strong statement about marijuana...that just tears the ass out of them."4

But after months of testimony from academics, medical experts, lawmen and health professionals, the facts overwhelmed the myths. The report was devastating:“Marijuana use, in and of itself, is neither causative of, nor directly associated with crime...”5 It found no basis for the gateway theory. Alcohol, it said, was probably a greater danger, and the report concluded that personal use of marijuana should no longer be a crime.6

The President hit the roof. He complained to Haldeman, "...every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish."7 In the face of the shooting war in Vietnam the Shafer Commission was quickly forgotten but the consequences of that cover-up are with us still. Since the 1972 release of that official report recommending legalization, we have arrested more than 14 million Americans8 at a cost of over $100 billion9 and the use of marijuana is undiminished.10

* Visit http://www.csdp.org/publicservice/nixon06notes.htm for citations, including full text of the Shafer ReportRichard Nixon left office in shame, but his shameful policy remained. The war on cannabis has remained and harmed us in so many... more