Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 20:46:59 -0800 (PST)
From: "Anti-Prohibition Lg." <[aal 01] at [teleport.com]>
To: [AAL 01] at [teleport.com]
Subject: Harvard Prof. Resigns Addiction Ctr. to Protest Drug Czar Award (fwd)
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Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet)
Rapid Response Team
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Please copy and distribute.
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(12/10/96)
A controversy was recently provoked when the Norman E. Zinberg
Center for Addiction Studies, an institution of Harvard Medical
School and Cambridge Hospital, announced that its 1997 Zinberg
Lecture Award would go to retired General Barry McCaffrey,
Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the
"drug czar").
Dr. Zinberg was very much opposed to the criminalization
approach for which McCaffrey stands, and even served on the
Board of Directors of the National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws (NORML). The Washington-based Drug Policy
Foundation, which promotes drug policy reform, has also named
one of its annual awards after Zinberg.
Late last month, the Zinberg Center's choice of McCaffrey as an
awardee was brought to the attention of drug policy reformers
on DRCTalk, one of DRCNet's online discussion groups. Since
then, long-time reform advocates who knew and worked with
Norman Zinberg have expressed outrage at the McCaffrey
selection, saying that "Norman would roll over his grave" if he
knew about it. Reformers regard McCaffrey's talk about
shifting funds to treatent as mere lip service, and consider
his opposition to needle exchange and his vehement opposition
to medical marijuana as unconscionable and diametrically
opposed to the principles for which Norman Zinberg stood.
Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a long-time professor at the Harvard
Medical School, takes this issue so seriously that last week he
decided to resign his faculty appointment at the Zinberg Center
in protest. Dr. Grinspoon's letter is attached to this
posting. Coincidentally, Grinspoon's letter was submitted on
December 5, the 63rd anniversary of the passage of the 21st
amendment, which repealed federal Alcohol Prohibition.
The Zinberg Lecture Award will take place on March 7 at the
Boston Park Plaza. Interested parties can obtain a form to
attend the event from the Cambridge Hospital Department of
Continuing Education at (617) 864-6165. Stay tuned to DRCNet
for information on the protest that is being planned.
====================
December 5, 1996
Howard J. Shaffer, Ph.D.
Director, Division on Addictions
Harvard Medical School
Norman E. Zinberg Center for Addiction Studies
1493 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
Dear Howard:
As you know from our phone conversations, I am distressed
about your choice of General Barry McCaffrey as the recipient
of the Norman E. Zinberg Award of the Division on Addictions of
the Harvard Medical School. I am sure both of us want to be
faithful to our understanding of what Norman stood for, but we
have different ideas how he would have viewed this decision.
In our conversations you've suggested that I was objecting
to the award because of McCaffrey's controversial political
positions. You pointed out that you had invited other
controversial speakers, including Thomas Szasz and myself, and
you told me that you had to defend these choices against
critics. I agree with you that Norman would have had no
objection to a controversial speaker, and the General has a
right to speak in any forum that requests his presence. But in
this case he is not just giving a speech: he is receiving an
award that implies scholarly achievement in a field in which he
has no record of scholarship. He is not a scholar but a
political appointee who commands great power, and in my view,
has been using that power to do harm. If he is controversial,
it is largely for two reasons: his rejection of medical
marihuana, which he calls a "hoax", and his opposition to
needle exchange programs. By working to block access to
medical marihuana and clean needles for addicts, he is
exacerbating the problem he was appointed to solve.
Furthermore, although I once had higher hopes for him, it is
clear to me now that he is not even open to discussion of these
issues; he refuses to talk with people who take different
views. Norman Zinberg would not have wanted a prize named
after him awarded to such a person. By giving McCaffrey the
award, you put Norman's name and the prestige of Harvard
Medical School in the service of a political agenda that I
consider unfortunate.
Because I feel so strongly about this, I must dissociate
myself from the Norman E. Zinberg Center. Therefore I am
tendering my resignation as a faculty member and asking to be
released from my commitment to give a lecture on February 11,
1997.
Sincerely yours,
Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
LG/pa
cc: Dorothy Zinberg
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