Word: laws
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There are vast differences in the effects of pop drugs. New research makes it clear that marijuana is "softer" and less perilous than the others, although for some people it does hold genuine psychological dangers. Pop drugs have provoked a defiance of the law unprecedented since Prohibition. The drug scene has stirred intense debate among scientists, doctors and politicians...
Present drug laws are inequitable as well as widely unenforceable. Most statutes do not distinguish hard narcotics from marijuana, or the pusher from the user. Arrests for marijuana law violations last year totaled 80,000; they increased tenfold between 1963 and 1968. Yet, for all the massive expenditures of police time and money, pot smoking is so widespread that there are roughly 25 times as many users as there are places to hold them in all the nation's prisons. The chances of being jailed for using pot are probably less than one in 1,000, NIMH's Dr. Cohen...
...because of bad grades. He was carrying 61 pounds of marijuana to friends in Atlanta. In court, the case was tried by Judge Archibald Aiken, four times Frank's age and a rigid traditionalist who loathes pot smokers and longhairs. Although Frank had never been in trouble with the law before and pleaded guilty, the judge gave him 25 years (five suspended) in the state pen and a $500 fine. Frank has been in Danville jail, waiting for his appeal to be processed, for the past seven months...
Social scientists note that punishment, to deter, must be immediate and impartial. During Prohibition, when enforcement of the Volstead Act was roughly comparable to that of the present drug laws, the nation's per-capita consumption of liquor actually increased 10%. The blunderbuss approach to marijuana creates widespread disrespect for all law among young people; perhaps worst of all, it makes it difficult for young people to believe adults' warnings about other drugs, and discourages the young who need medical help and advice from seeking...
Nixon's proposed law doubtless reflects his intuition that most of the country still considers marijuana a strict law-and-order issue that can be dealt with by police