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...gangbuster, Attorney General John Mitchell, cannot accept the anomaly whereby a second conviction for selling marijuana carries four times the potential maximum penalty as manslaughter or some types of sabotage. Nor can Mitchell's legal mind easily tolerate a law that threatens the same punishment to a casual user of marijuana as it does to a wholesale pot peddler. After some initial hesitation, the Justice Department is attempting to make the statutes more rational...
...researchers point out; with every mood-changing drug known to man, there is a proportion of people who can use it without suffering harmful side effects or a habit, and of those who cannot. Just as some drinkers become convivial or aggressive and others morose and withdrawn, drug users get as much of their kick from their surroundings and the set of their own psyches as from the chemicals they use. The danger of heavy dependence, the crucial problem with most pop drugs, also depends largely on the personality of the user...
HEROIN, also known as "scag" or "smack," is still the most hazardous. A true narcotic, relieving pain as well as producing sleep, it is the strongest of the opiates. These also include morphine and codeine, which doctors very often prescribe as painkillers in carefully measured doses. Heroin users, who administer their own doses, seek the white powder because it makes them feel physically warm and peaceful and raises their self-esteem and confidence. Large doses can sufficiently slow bodily functions to cause death; more commonly, heroin users develop abscessed veins and hepatitis from dirty needles, are undernourished and prone...
...psychosis that many doctors feel is more similar to schizophrenia than any of the psychotic symptoms brought on by other dangerous drugs. While a person is "up" on speed, his body runs down, making him easy prey to disease. Although amphetamines generally are not considered physically addictive, when a user comes down ("crashes") he is so tired and depressed that he is tempted to start again. His body builds up a tolerance...
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...