Would this kind of legal regulation increase the use of marihuana?

It might, at least for a time, but then again, it might not. The thrill of doing something illegal would be gone. How much this pushes kids into trying pot is completely unknown, though doubtless it is a factor. The evils associated with illegal marihuana would disappear, and these must be balanced against the use of the drug itself. Removing criminal penalties for use of marihuana and also permitting legal distribution of the drug does not constitute advocacy of its use.

The real hope of the future is in education. The problem of marihuana must be faced honestly if education is to be meaningful. If the facts presented are true and free from prejudice, intelligent young people will believe them, and many will act upon them.

If alcohol is legal, why not marihuana?

There are plenty of reasons for changing the marihuana laws without even bringing up the comparative dangers of these two drugs.

Alcohol is a dangerous drug in the hands of abusers. Society tried to make alcohol illegal. The experiment was a dismal failure. The evils of the law were great, but perhaps no greater than the evils of the marihuana law. Marihuana may be even less dangerous than alcohol. Both drugs are harmful when abused, and neither drug is good for young teen-agers.

Hasn't the President recently taken some action against drug use? President Nixon is acutely aware of the problem. At his instigation, Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, which reduces, but does not eliminate, the penalties for first-time possession of marihuana. For subsequent offenses, the penalties are increased. While this law is a step in the right direction, it is nevertheless a tiny step. The drug is still illegal, and users of the drug are classed as criminals.

Section 601 of the law authorized the President to set up the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse. The first task of this commission is to submit a comprehensive report on marihuana, which is to include recommendations to the President on all aspects of the drug, including new legislation. The report is due to come out this month. The second task is a report on drug abuse generally. It is due March of 1973.

In May, 1971, when the commission was holding its first hearings, Mr. Nixon said that, should the commission recommend the legalization of marihuana, he would feel free to ignore their recommendation.

Three series of hearings were held, one in Washington, D.C., one in San Francisco, and one in Chicago. The first hearing was marked by a good deal of sarcasm from some members of the commission toward witnesses who stated that the dangerous qualities of the drug had been exaggerated.

As time went on, there was a perceptible change in attitude on the part of some of the commission members. The commission was told by so many knowledgeable experts, and told so frequently, that the havoc created by the laws exceeded any harm inherent in the drug, that attitudes changed. What will the commission recommend?

It seems highly probable that the least the commission can recommend is that all the states reduce to a misdemeanor the offense of possessing marihuana, thus bringing state laws into conformity with federal law.

It may be this is as far as the commission will go since it is essentially a conservative group; however, it is possible that the commission will recommend eliminating all jail sentences for possession of marihuana.

If the commission should issue a majority report recommending the decriminalization of marihuana, this would be an enormous step forward. The members of the commission are intelligent people who, like many of the older generation of Americans, have reacted with horror to "dope." Many admit their attitude has been based more on emotion than knowledge. If the members of the commission can become convinced by facts and change their attitudes, perhaps the American electorate can also be convinced.

But decriminalization of the possession of marihuana, while an important step in the right direction, is not the whole answer. As long as the drug remains illegal, the black market with all its inherent evils will continue to flourish. What can we do about heroin?

Unlike marihuana, heroin is capable of ruining the life of almost everyone who uses it. Heroin is sneaky. Almost immediately after the first injection, the user feels a blissful state of peace envelop him. His worries and tensions dis

solve as if by magic. After a while he goes to sleep and dreams vivid, colorful, gorgeous dreams.

When he wakes up, the spell is gone; the world is as ugly and drab as ever. The old worries come back. Why not try it again?

If the user stops with one or even a few doses, he will not get hooked. But the temptation is usually beyond his will to resist. “Just one more time” he feels will be okay. Before long, his body becomes so adjusted to the drug that he cannot function normally without it. The new fix fails to give him any of the hoped-for bliss. All it does is relieve the bad feelings of withdrawal.

As time goes on, the victim needs larger doses of his drug just to ward off withdrawal. He may get to the point where he needs three, four, or five fixes each day just to feel halfway normal.

His whole life becomes absorbed in getting his drug. He can seldom find a job that will pay enough, and he is unable to perform on the job, largely because of his preoccupation with getting his next fix. Ultimately most addicts are forced into crime.

Where does all the heroin come from?

Heroin is smuggled into this country in kilo lots (2.2 pounds). One kilo of pure heroin (1 million milligrams) yields 200,000 bags, each containing 5 milligrams of heroin plus 90 milligrams of powdered milk, sugar, or quinine. This is the usual single dose of the drug.

The actual price of heroin varies enormously, depending on the supply. In 1968 the usual price of a kilo of pure heroin was $8,000. (Recently a price of $40,000 was quoted.) The 5 mg. bags usually sell for $5 apiece, but the price can be doubled or trebled.

The profits in dealing in heroin are astronomical. The top importers make from 200 percent to 300 percent on their investment; the street peddler in a good location and with good connections can net $500 a day.

The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, realizing that it is impossible to stop the smuggling of heroin, is now trying to reduce the amount of opium poppies grown. An extensive program to persuade Turkish farmers to stop growing poppies and grow other crops is now reduced in importance by the awareness of the Bureau of the poppy fields in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

A federal agent said off the record, "I don't think we can ever stop anything as big as the heroin traffic. The Customs people seize more and more junk every year, the narcotic agents get more and more drug handlers, but no one who knows anything about this thinks we are making headway. The only solution is to stop the demand."

Then what can be done?

1. Cure all addicts.-The Narcotic Addicts Rehabilitation Act is based on this approach. Its successful accomplishment, however, is many years and many dollars in the future, if ever. The recent use of methadone for the treatment of heroin addiction is proving helpful, but even with methadone the elimination of all heroin addicts in the foreseeable future does not seem likely.

2. Provide all heroin addicts with a cheap legal supply of the drug.—Such a plan would take the heroin addict off the street. How many addicts would pay for a fix they could get for nothing? With stocks of heroin piling up on the pushers' hands, the importers and middlemen would soon find no market. Ultimately, the black market would wither away. This might even make the drug so unavailable that fewer and fewer new recruits would be enticed into the ranks of heroin addicts.

However, there would be enormous difficulties with such a scheme.

Clinics would have to be set up in areas where addicts could get to them. Careful records would have to be kept so that an addict could not go to several clinics and get additional amounts of drugs.

Addicts would have to be carefully screened. First, to make sure they really were addicts and, second, to find out how much drug they had been taking. Regular urine tests would help to determine the fact of addiction and the amount of drug necessary to maintain the addict in reasonable comfort.

Every dose of heroin wou'd have to be administered in the clinic to make sure the addict did not try to sell it on the outside.

3. Combination of heroin-maintenance and methadone-maintenance treatment. It is possible to combine the clinics. Heroin could be given to addicts at the same clinic where methadone was being used for maintenance treatment. The presence of ex-heroin addicts making a better go of life in a methadone

maintenance program might induce other heroin addicts to make a serious try at abandoning heroin. However, no heroin addict who preferred to stay on heroin would be denied the drug, as it is such addicts who constitute the demand that maintains the black market.

Where would the clinics get their supply of heroin?

The government, or whatever agency operated the clinics, would import heroin legally or even offer to buy all the heroin in the country up to a certain date. Dealers convinced that their market was about to dry up might be willing to unload their supplies safely.

If the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs is correct in estimating that 2,000 kilos of heroin are smuggled into this country every year, it would cost the government a mere $16 million to buy it all (at an estimated rate of $8,000 per kilo).

Ultimately, when sales were made legal, agents from the organization that ran the American clinics could buy raw opium directly from farmers, process it into morphine, and then into heroin. By such an arrangement, not only would the American black market disappear but also the foreign market would come under legal control.

There would be monumental problems and costs. But the costs would not be as great as those of the present army of narcotics agents, Customs officials, police, jails, prisons, and courts who are so unsuccessfuly trying to cope with the situation.

Has supplying drugs to addicts ever been tried?
Yes, it has.

Great Britain had a problem with morphine abuse back in the early years of this century just as the United States had. In 1920 Britain passed the Dangerous Drug Laws which permitted addicts to obtain drugs from their doctors. The British considered drug addicts sick people who should be under medical

care.

No black market developed in Britain because it was not needed to supply the addict with his drug. Nor did the British addict need to engage in crime to obtain money for his drug.

But hasn't the British system had problems?

Beginning in the early 1960s, British youth also took up the drug culture. British involvement with heroin, however, has always been minuscule compared with America. In 1960 Britain had 94 registered addicts in the entire country. By 1965 this number had increased to 521.

A commission found that some physicians were grossly overprescribing, and a few unscrupulous doctors were actually selling heroin prescriptions. Britain passed a new law.

The basic British philosophy that drug addicts were sick people in need of medical attention, not criminals in need of punishment, was not altered. Physicians were forbidden to prescribe heroin without a special license. Very few licenses were granted; special clinics were set up, instead, where heroin addicts could obtain their drug. It took a few years to get going, but in 1969 the Home Office indicated that for the first time the number of new heroin addicts had decreased.

The Home Office reports as "addicts" those individuals addicted to morphine, heroin, cocaine, pithidene, and methadone. In 1939, the total number in Britain was 2,881. Most of these were heroin addicts, but it is of significance to note that almost 500 were methadone addicts.

There is still a drug problem in Great Britain. But the basic British idea that drug addiction is a disease has resulted in confining this disease to a very small number of people. It has also prevented almost completely the development of a black market in drugs. Crime in Britain is not related to drug use.

Compared to the heroin situation in the United States, the British experience is remarkable. At its very worst, Britain had less than 3,000 hard drug addicts. In the city of New York alone, there are a minimum of 100,000 heroin addicts, and there is every indication that the number is increasing. Why doesn't the U.S. use a system like the British?

Largely because the punitive approach to drug addiction has been ingrained in the American attitude. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs opposes the British system. They have proclaimed it a failure. The Bureau ignores the fact that the British system operated successfully for 40 years. They cite the

rapid percentage increase in heroin addiction which descended upon Britain along with the new youth culture. The Bureau fails to mention the extremely small number of people involved, even though the percentage increase was great and they have ignored the recent decrease in the total number of addicts. What alternatives are being suggested?

President Nixon's concern over the heroin problem, which he now describes as a "national emergency," has been caused by the shocking extent of heroin addiction among G.I.'s in Vietnam. The President has created the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, which reports directly to him. This agency will coordinate all federal activities concerning drugs. It will work in the present legal framework but with greatly increased appropriations. All indications are, however, that it will follow the punitive approach of the present fight on narcotics, a fight which we have been losing for many years.

What does the future hold?

Slowly, a body of public opinion is growing up in this country that looks beyond the federal bureaucracy for its information. Thoughtful people, among them professors of law, sociology, medicine, economics, some public officials, a few members of Congress, and some judges, are urging basic changes in the drug laws. As the sons and daughters of public officials are being arrested on drug charges, as some of them are being made very ill or even killed by overpotent or impure drugs, these men and women are taking a new look at the problem. Many are coming to the conclusion that our present approach will never solve the problems. The time has come for this body of public opinion to find adequate expression in public policy. It is to be hoped that the final report of the Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse will reflect this growing change in the public attitude toward the drug dilemma.