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Newsgroups: rec.drugs.cannabis,alt.drugs,alt.drugs.pot,alt.hemp,talk.politics.drugs,alt.law-enforcement
Subject: Consumers Union Recommendations on Marijuana Policy (1972)
Date: 5 Dec 1996 00:15:56 GMT

                     LICIT AND ILLICIT DRUGS
               Consumers Union of the United States
                 1972, Boston: Little, Brown & Co.


In 1972, the Consumers Union, publishers of the popular "Consumer 
Reports," produced a 623-page report entitled "Licit and Illicit Drugs."  
The report discussed the history, uses, and abuses of narcotics, 
stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, marijuana, caffeine, nicotine, 
and alcohol.  The report included a section on drug policy 
recommendations.  Their seven recommendations concerning marijuana (pp. 
535-539) are presented below.


1.  Consumers Union recommends the immediate repeal of all federal laws 
governing the growing, processing, transportation, sale, possession, and 
use of marijuana.

2.  Consumers Union recommends that each of the fifty states similarly 
repeal its existing marijuana laws and pass new laws legalizing the 
cultivation, processing, and orderly marketing of marijuana -- subject 
to appropriate regulations.

3.  Consumers Union therefore recommends that a national marijuana 
commission be established to help provide the states with needed 
research information, to monitor the various plans evolved by the 
states, and to build, eventually, the best features of those plans into 
federal marijuana legislation.

4.  Consumers Union recommends that state and federal taxes on marijuana 
be kept moderate, and that tax proceeds be devoted primarily to drug 
research, drug education, and other measures specifically designed to 
minimize the damage done by alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, heroin, and 
other drugs.

5.  Consumers Union recommends an immediate end of imprisonment as a 
punishment for marijuana possession and for furnishing marijuana to 
friends.

6.  Consumers Union recommends, pending legalization of marijuana, that 
marijuana possession and sharing be immediately made civil violations 
rather than criminal acts.

7.  Consumers Union recommends that those now serving prison terms for 
possession of or sharing marijuana be set free, and that such marijuana 
offenses be expunged from all legal records.


In a prophetic conclusion, the editors of the reports note that:

"Before long, the generation now in its teens and twenties will be in 
its thirties and forties.  Judges, prosecutors, and even narcotics 
agents, along with legislators and teachers, will be drawn from the 
pot-smoking and acid-dropping generation... We hope that when the next 
generation takes over, this Consumers Union Report will still remain 
useful -- as a guide to how mankind has used and misused drugs in the 
past, and as a warning against repeating the errors society is making 
today" (p. 540).


-- Gordon ñ:-|