Penalties and Programs

While the A.M.A. was staging its medical symposium on marijuana, President Nixon announced a national drive against narcotics and other drugs rated dangerous. Nixon asked Congress to impose stiff penalties for violations, and to make federal drug-abuse law more consistent. Now the penalty for sale of marijuana is two to ten years in prison for a first offender, while sale of the far more dangerous LSD carries only a maximum one-year term. The Administration asked Congress to set from five to 20 years as the penalty for sale of both drugs. It will also propose a uniform law for the 50 states.

The mere possession of marijuana is not presently a federal offense. Nixon would remedy that by making it a federal offense to possess or transfer marijuana without a state license--which is unobtainable.

Many medical and legal authorities had hoped that the marijuana penalties would be reduced for two reasons: 1) they are so harsh as to make the law unenforceable, and 2) there is still no conclusive proof that the drug is harmful. The professionals were disappointed. The only softening of the penal code proposed by the Administration was to give federal judges the option of putting a first offender on probation, after which, in case of good behavior, his record could be expunged.

Forbidden Fruit. Psychiatrists and other physicians who favor a different approach consider attempts to enforce prohibition of marijuana to be self-defeating; such efforts, they argue, give the drug the appeal of forbidden fruit. They believe, moreover, that the imposition of penalties for possession, or even use, makes criminals of ordinary young people who are carried away by a simple urge for experimentation. These are moderate reformers, who do not advocate abolition of laws against importation or sale of marijuana, and who offer no defense whatever for LSD or other "hard" drugs.

The Administration's educational program also evoked some doubts. Nixon said he had directed three Government agencies "to compile a balanced and objective educational program to bring the facts to every American--especially our young people." But in light of the generation gap in attitudes toward drugs, preachments from elders are likely to have little effect upon youth. On one issue, however, the President might have been speaking for his professional critics. "Proper evaluation and solution of the drug problem has been severely handicapped by a dearth of scientific information--and the prevalence of ignorance and misinformation." To gain the necessary new knowledge, the President said he had directed the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to expand its research efforts. That was clearly a desirable, although still tentative, first step.

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