Nixon's (Raymond) Schafer Commission recommended decriminalization. Schafer was a conservative former gov. of PA, so Nixon thought he'd bought off the commission. oops. Here's that report:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm
From the final comments:
The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective. We have attempted to balance individual freedom on one hand and the obligation of the state to consider the wider social good on the other. We believe our recommended scheme will permit society to exercise its control and influence in ways most useful and efficient, meanwhile reserving to the individual American his sense of privacy, his sense of individuality, and, within the context of ail interacting and interdependent society, his options to select his own life style, values, goals and opportunities.
The Commission sincerely hopes that the tone of cautious restraint sounded in this Report will be perpetuated in the debate which will follow it. For those who feel we have not proceeded far enough, we are reminded of Thomas Jefferson's advice to George Washington that "Delay is preferable to error." For those who argue we have gone too far, we note Roscoe Pound's statement, "The law must be stable, but it must not stand still."
We have carefully analyzed the interrelationship between marihuana the drug, marihuana use as a behavior, and marihuana as a social problem. Recognizing the extensive degree of misinformation about marihuana as a drug, we have tried to demythologize it. Viewing the use of marihuana in its wider social context, we have tried to desymbolize it.
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. The existing social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social harm engendered by the use of the drug. To replace it, we have attempted to design a suitable social policy, which we believe is fair, cautious and attuned to the social realities of our time.
Nixon ignored those recommendations. As revealed in his comments from his tapes, Nixon blamed cannabis use on Jews, psychiatrists, commies and homosexuals. Apparently paranoia isn't limited to some people who use cannabis.
In 1982 an 18-member committee of the National Academy of Sciences who had studied the drug laws for four years unanimously advocated decriminalizing marijuana, and eventually legalizing and regulating it, only to have Reagan’s science adviser, Dr. Frank Press, repudiate their report and successfully pressure the media not to publicize it. (This was during the time Reagan was outright lying his ass off claiming that suffocating monkeys with smoke indicated that cannabis caused brain damage.)
In 1988, Drug Enforcement Administration Judge Francis Young noted: "In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care." (This was during hearings into the use of marijuana as medicine.)
Prescription drugs deemed safe by the FDA kill up to 27,000 per year. Aspirin kills up to 1,000 Americans per year. Zero deaths have been attributed to cannabis ingestion. Ever.
It is impossible to overdose on cannabis for a couple of reasons... a "lethal" does would require someone to smoke or eat more than a pound of it within a hour or so - impossible. Also, cannabinoid receptors in the brain are sparsely located in this autonomous nervous system region - the region that controls for heart and lung function. The reason barbiturates kill is because they depress heart and lung function to the point that someone stops breathing, or their heart stops pumping. This is impossible with cannabis.
(This is just general information about the relative safety of cannabis in relation to a host of other substances that are legal and considered viable for medical or other use in this nation.)
