The Potshot That Backfired

Science agency rejects its own study on easing marujuana laws

Like other Washington organizations, the independent National Academy of Sciences often makes a big fuss when one of its panels of experts issues an important report. The N.A.S. president attaches a letter praising the panel's work, and the press is summoned to the academy's auditorium to meet some of the experts and film them for the evening newscasts. That is not the way things went at the N.A.S. last month, however. When the Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior turned in its study of marijuana laws, the N.A.S. president flatly disavowed its recommendations, and the academy brushed it aside in the apparent hope it would fade away for lack of attention. No press conference, no press release, no public announcement at all. The reason: the committee urged that the possession or private use of small amounts of marijuana should no longer be a crime.

The 18-person panel did not endorse the smoking of cannabis. Indeed, the experts backed another N.A.S. report (released with much fanfare last February) that found enough evidence of the drug's physical and emotional dangers to justify "serious national concern." But the committee's assignment was to look at the fiscal and social costs of enforcing criminal laws against marijuana use. And it found those costs too high. Tough laws do not appear to deter marijuana use, said the committee, noting that in states without such statutes there seems to have been no "appreciable" increase in pot smoking. In addition, those states have lower costs of enforcement. California, for example, now spends only a quarter of what it used to and concentrates on the pursuit of dealers and large-scale distributors. The committee also cited the contempt that many young people have for the law because it imposes such different sanctions on the use of alcohol and pot. Says the report: "Alienation from the rule of law in democratic society may be the most serious cost of current marijuana laws."

None of that persuaded Frank Press, a geophysicist who was Jimmy Carter's science adviser before his 1981 election as N.A.S. president. In his covering letter to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the federal agency that in 1978 requested and funded the study, Press contended that the committee had "insufficient" data and was rendering "a judgment so value laden that it should have been left to the political process." NIDA Director Dr. William Pollin was "not pleased" either. Pointing to recent surveys that indicate high school seniors are turning away from pot, he said it would be "a terrible mistake and a public health tragedy [to do] anything that suggests a greater societal acceptance of the use of marijuana, particularly by young people."

The report may have ignored the temper of the times. Ten years ago the public was moving toward the idea of lighter punishment for marijuana users. A 1972 study by the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse concluded that criminal sanctions were failing and counterproductive. Over the next six years, eleven states decriminalized pot possession for individual use,* while many others decreased penalties or loosened up their enforcement. President Carter backed a softening of federal laws. But by the late '70s the mood began to swing back. With an estimated 60% of high school seniors having tried pot, and the drug making inroads at elementary schools, frightened parents dissuaded legislators from further liberalization. In step with this sentiment, the Reagan Administration's firm antidrug stance includes pot. Says Dr. Carlton Turner, the President's chief narcotics policy adviser: "There are 60,000 people under the age of 18 in this country who require some kind of treatment for marijuana each year."

Whatever the public climate, committee members stood by their conclusions last week. Said Stanford Law Professor John Kaplan: "Frankly, I don't think we're being treated very well." Argued Stanford Psychologist Richard Thompson: "The report was very fairminded. We are concerned with the long-term harmful effects of marijuana use. But we are also concerned about the possible harm that can be done to kids by throwing them in jail with hardened criminals." In fact, the report had originally gone even further, suggesting that legalization might eventually emerge as the best approach to pot. An N.A.S. review panel and the committee agreed, however, to water down that observation. The only solace for the committee may be that the official potshot at the report has brought it attention it might not otherwise have received--a self-defeating result that is somewhat analogous to the committee's view that prohibitions on marijuana use are self-defeating for U.S. society.

* "Citations and small fines have replaced arrests and incarceration in Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon, which in aggregate have one-third of the U.S. population.

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