40 Years Ago Today, Feds Denied The Truth About Pot -- Now It's Obama's Chance To Act

A congressional commission on US drug policy did something extraordinary 40 years ago: it told the truth about marijuana.

Forty years ago today, the members of a congressionally mandated commission on US drug policy did something extraordinary: they told the truth about marijuana.

On March 22, 1972 the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, chaired by former Pennsylvania governor Raymond P. Shafer, recommended that Congress amend federal law so that the use and possession of cannabis would no longer be a criminal offense. State legislatures, the commission added, should do likewise.

“[T]he criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use,”concluded the 13-member commission, which included nine hand-picked appointees of then-president Richard Nixon, “It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance.

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