Show 1 11 i i i t i It ft Seems To M Me 11 ny fly Joseph H n Huberts i RobertS ti i Marijuana COPYRIGHT 1977 1971 Contemporary Features Feature Syndicate Inc Some years ago Dr Timothy Leary Ix-ary a true martyr to his cause led a campaign to popularize the use of mind expanding hallucinatory drugs such as marijuana hashish and LSD Because he was a Harvard professor Leary gained the support of or many intellectuals and the respectful attention of the liberal press Leary and his vocal followers conducted public discussions of the benefits from experimenting experimenting ex ex- with hallucinatory drugs Using a Madison Avenue approach to selling a new product they stressed the dont don't knock if you tried theme They dismissed warnings warnings war war- of harmful effects of the drugs as old wives' wives tales or outright lies and said their opponents were establishment squares trying to prevent scientific progress and the freedom of youth They insinuated insinuated in in- there was a conspiracy to keep archaic laws on the books and harass the young idealists who were se seeking king a better world for everybody The na national media gave their views ample coverage and soon there was hardly a college student in America who had hadnot hadnot hadnot not heard of these drugs and been tempted to try them It became the in thing for young people and some not so young to suck a sugar cube doctored with LSD or smoke a joint of marijuana when socializing with friends Leary's learned arguments in favor of using acid or pot or the other called so-called organic drugs were quoted widely and generally accepted as facts rather than opinions Since pot or grass was relatively cheap easily obtained obtained obtained ob ob- and seemed to be fairly harmless the crusaders concentrated concentrated con con- on pushing marijuana as the the foot door issue Evidently they believed that once smoking grass was established as a socially acceptable legal harmless pastime public Jv resistance to the use me of hashish and LSD-and LSD perhaps in time even heroin and other ether hard drugs-could drugs be broken down Then the millennium for the radicals would be achieved They would have established a 11 drug culture in which everybody would be so spaced out most of or the lime time that nobody except the sober elite in charge would know what was going on or care Big Brother could move in and set setup setup setup up operations and the average citizen would not even know he was there Ah Ah brave new world The millennium may not have arrived yet but its it's well on the way The campaign to popularize marijuana has succeed in persuading some 26 million Americans including the sons of Ford orrl and Carter to try it at least once and there are now flOW about 8 million habitual users in the United States A current survey reveals that 8 percent of high school seniors admit to smoking pot on a daily basis 6 G percent admitted to daily use in 1975 and better than 59 percent of or the nations nation's youth admit to having tried an illegal drug of some sort Now the campaigners can argue that with everybody y smoking pot it is unfair to prosecute those who are caught possessing a small amount This argument based upon popular morality is as full of holes as a slice of Swiss cheese but more and more people are buying it ii The US U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration no longer makes marijuana a federal priority The U US U.S. S Department of Justice under Ford announced announced an an- that the crime of possession for personal use would no longer be prosecuted Since President Carter has said he favors decriminalization of marijuana it seems only a question of time before the whole business becomes legal Did Alice ever encounter a amore amore amore more ridiculous situation in Wonderland While the Surgeon General and other protectors of our health and morals are demanding we give up alcohol at aid ald d tobacco nobody in Big Government can find a athing athing athing thing wrong with Nith marijuana Ralph Nader where are you when we need you |