Special of the week; Issue 14-1969

And we are the national educational radio network presents special of the week. Dr Alfred R. Linda Smith of Indiana University professor of sociology is one of the nation's leading authorities on drug addiction. Dr. Linda Smith is the author of two major books on the drug problem opiate addiction and the addict and the law. He recently spoke to a student group at Indiana University on the topic alcohol and marijuana. The generation gap Dr. Linda Smith somebody just gave me. A copy of The London Times for the 12th of January. And in it there is an article. By Lady Wooten. He was the head of a committee appointed by the British government to look into the drug problem in England and they looked it looked at it and recommended that.

The maximum penalty for marijuana offenses be reduced possession be reduced from 10 years to two years. They have always had only a maximum penalty of 10 years which they almost never use. She is explaining. Her point of view when the point of view of the committee. And she says by bringing down the penalties so much we rather wanted to make it clear to the courts judges and magistrates that we don't regard imprisonment as an appropriate penalty for simple cases of young young people experimenting with pot. Or people who are smoking with discretion. I am disturbed that so many people particularly youngsters are going to prison for possession. Then another quote We made many comparisons between

cannabis or marijuana and alcohol in a way I think it is very like alcohol because it is and is mood changing because it appears not to do as far as we can see serious physiological damage if taken in moderation. But probably is dangerous if taken in excess of course that's almost everything we think it is probably not more dangerous than alcohol and possibly less. But after all alcohol has got a pretty sordid story and it would be a pity to add another one. With respect to the comparison between alcohol and pot let me say first I'd I don't know whether there's any argument about this or not. But it is quite clear that alcohol

creates as president at present creates more problems than social evil than all of these other drugs combined to induct not just marijuana. Well as you know when you put together and the way one way of illustrating the point is to refer to the arrest figures which the Uniform Crime Reports present as the FBI tabulates them every year every year. Over half of the arrests reported are for crimes connected with with alcohol. One of the interesting things is to note that since alcohol isn't illegal the things that people are arrested for in connection with alcohol are generally things which they do which annoy or threaten or injure others. For example

like driving under the influence like public intoxication drunk and disorderly and a variety of other crimes and then there are quite a few crimes where alcohol isn't mentioned for example homicide or ghillie there been a variety of studies here which suggest that somewhere between 50 and 70 percent of the homicides in the United States involve a criminal who is drunk or under the influence. And very often they also involve a victim who is under the influence of liquor. True. No one of the points I was going to call attention to was that with respect to the difference between the crimes of marijuana users and alcohol users remembering our one is legal and the other is illegal. Generally it's very hard to catch that pot smoker.

It's quite a problem getting evidence and finding out who they are. Or catching them in possession. And you note that the crimes for which they are was they are charged and for which they are convicted are invariably those possession and distribution not as with alcohol. I think you know it's estimated we have from five to five to six million alcohol addicts in United States. And I think you know that marijuana is not addicting. Now that what that means is something specific. It means that in the case of. Alcohol and like the barbiturates and like heroin and the opiates when you take alcohol in sufficient quantities for a long period of time and you become physically dependent on the

drug so that when it is withdrawn you go into withdrawal distress. And in the case of alcohol what it is delirium tremens and withdrawal distress. There are a lot of things connected with alcohol addiction and alcohol is we might say physically addictive. Marijuana is not. Now there is no question there is no argument about that. There is some argument that is raised I think principally by people who want to obfuscate obscure the situation who say that there is some psychological dependence. No that's true. There are people who get used to a variety of things say including marijuana and so they want to have it every day. Brat. That's that's true. There's a certain percentage you do. But in this in the use of the word addicting the proper use of the word. It's not

an addicting drug. Now with respect to. The switching from one habit to another if you have the alcohol habit you're an alcoholic. Any switch you make would be an improvement. Virtually there is no worse at it probably including even the heroin habit. Other things being equal take an alcoholic and switch him to morphine or heroin and hold other things equal. He probably lived longer and has a better chance of being a productive citizen. Morphine or heroin or non alcohol so they but in and in. In addition to that the alcohol users do in fact switch. Alcohol users switch to heroin and

they also switched to marijuana. Now how many marijuana smokers go on to heroin. I mean people have been talking about that. They say we must punish the marijuana smoker because they say 900 marijuana smokers three or four of them may go on to heroin. So we must punish all of the hundred for walk three or four of the hundred may conceivably do in the future. That's a little troublesome to most people. And also when you become a heroin addict the cording to the doctrine of the Supreme Court and the law of the land you are a sick person. You have a disease and consequently you can't be punished for that disease. That's a Supreme Court doctrine that goes back to 1900 24. So this switching business.

See if there are say from 5 to 10 million people in the United States and nobody knows how many there are who use marijuana. If 3 or 4 percent switched to heroin that's probably a large percentage. If that happens then we should begin to see you know college graduates some college professors and whatnot showing up in the statistics on heroin addict. But nothing like that is happening to us some to the slight extent yet. And I think it is true that the more an individual uses marijuana the more he is likely to be involved in what the sociologists call a subculture in which other drugs are being used in the more likely used to use other drugs. But in this subculture there is also a prejudice against parents and against the hypodermic needle to that that so that there's only a small number particularly in middle class circles. I

know I mentioned that. Or I should mention that when the federal government took action against marijuana on the federal level in 1937 it was said that marijuana produced insanity would lead to slaughter on the highways and to a great deal of violent crime. All of the things that alcohol does much better and with respect to mental hospitals I think is around 15 percent of the admissions are for alcoholism and now and then it is true also that pot smokers get into trouble psychologically. But there's no there are no figures at all on admission rates and it seems doubtful if anybody has ever become insane because of using it.

There is a favorite argument that the hashish which is used in the Middle and Far East is much more powerful than marijuana. It's the resin of the plant that it produces insanity but hashish or hash as it's familiarly called now is being increasingly used in the United States and is the principal form marijuana used in Britain. And the astonishing thing is that reports of insanity from the United States and Britain are mainly absent. Sometimes there's a question you know whether the individual is unstable uses the drug because he's in trouble or gets in trouble because he uses the drug. You can see there are a lot of people who are troubled and disturbed who turn to drugs for help. There's no question of that. There are others no doubt who get into trouble because of the drug.

Then on the matter of criminality there was a survey of the inmates of the penal institutions of one state in which it is indicated that something over 98 percent of them drunk and that about 30 percent of them had a major alcohol problem in their lives. Now if you had those figures given to you in isolation you would say aha we have the cause occur. The trouble is that people outside prison also drink. So nobody really thinks of alcohol as the cause of crime or even as an important cause of crime is hardly ever mentioned and of course very often we don't even think of alcohol as a drug busts of the older generation. When we pass judgment you know on the other generation. Now the physical harms of our cause is that

the there are abundantly documented in literally thousands and tens of thousands of documents of scientific studies in a multitude of Night Witches over long periods of years. There's no question about her that alcohol can do. There are light you know as disease characteristic disease cirrhosis of the liver the very kinds of psychosis which are characteristically associated with a course of psychosis delirium tremens whatnot. So there's no there's no question about that. Now in the case of marijuana and the case of marijuana the thing that we are told by the people who advocate punishment as we know have it is give us time give us time. We haven't found anything much yet but give us time and we may.

But in the meantime with alcohol the findings are already is. So this is kind of the inconsistency or not I would classify the dangers of pot. In three categories and I would say that the greatest danger is that the legal penalties and the prosecution and I would say that criminal prosecution has worse effects that on the individual and on the society than any drug including heroin or anything else that you carry care to think of other second possibility which worries parents and no doubt rightly at times is that the smoking of pot often is linked with the changing associations and may lead to what is called you know bad social bad associations.

It may for example lead a young person to come into contact. With. Real criminals hard criminals. For example in getting a supply although that is that is diminishing to some extent because I understand that a great in a great many of the colleges universities the students do their own do their own smuggling and distributing. They make contacts perhaps with some criminal types in Mexico. But that doesn't that doesn't really really count for much. But there was that sort of thing anyway. The associations of the child may change markedly when he starts to move into these pot smoking circles and the more you becomes involved the more likely it is that he may use other and more dangerous drugs.

For example the unfed in that I think they are among the most dangerous of these so-called hallucinogenic drugs. And the third danger and I'm naming them I think in the order of seriousness is a hang up on the drug itself which means the individual who uses it accessibly all the time. That's a want to be under the influence of a time use of it excessively. Leave that leave that open now. Actually as I have suggested from what I've said the most powerful drug pushers in the world are probably the liquor and tobacco interests. You know it's ironic and young people are perfectly aware of this.

More aware than the older generation. You have states in which it's illegal to sell cigarettes to minors and you have vending machines where they're purchased. You maybe have a little tag there would say it's illegal to sell in state to sell cigarettes to minors and that's all there is not some of those same states have provide for the death penalty or selling or giving marijuana to a young person. Now let me mention some of the some of the penalties are selecting at random some choice examples in Louisiana where this man Shar was tried for conspiring to kill JFK. The penalty he would have faced if he'd been convicted was a minimum of one year maximum of 20 years and he would have been eligible for parole.

Louisiana has a law on marijuana which specifies that if a 21 year old or anyone over 21 sells or gives marijuana to anyone under 21 the penalty shall be death. And if not death then the jury in its going exercise mercy in which case the minimum penalty is 30 years of hard labor in prison and the maximum 99 years in prison with no probation parole or suspension of life. Now in Indiana we're not too far behind. Second a second marijuana offense selling offense the minimum is 20 years and the maximum is life

without probation parole or suspension. That's a second selling type or giving or furnishing or supply type offense. In addition Indiana the I think the state police announced this a short time ago there is a federal law which provides for a hundred dollar an ounce tax on illegal marijuana. Now this is where I think the generation gap comes in because all of these laws and these DT's things which I've been mentioning here are aimed primarily overwhelmingly at young people. YOUNG PEOPLE and I sometimes wonder and I don't know whether they're there figures on that. But if you look at everything included and compared the older generation with

the younger generations and or just took the parents of pot smokers and determined how many dangerous drugs the parents use and compared with how many dangerous drugs the youngsters use and disregarded legality and illegality. I think sometimes the younger the younger generation might use fewer drugs and suffer less than the older generation. Now one of the questions I have is where do these Where does this push for these penalties come from and why this extraordinary reaction. You you heard some of these these penalties and kinds we have. Why do the legislators do that. Well for one thing of course is perfectly clear. They don't consult the people to whom the law applied as you'd think they might consult young people but say

OK they won't consult the pot smokers. Maybe they should. I think they should. How about consulting young people who aren't pot smokers. How about consulting anybody in the generation to whom the laws apply to whom these penalties apply where they don't. I think that to a very large extent this drive for punitive legislation comes from Washington DC and is copied by the states and often from officials who would like probably to discuss these sentences appropriate for young people who like pot over their highballs and cocktails. Now one of the things that we're told by these officials and one of the things that young people are told

by the older generation is that they should obey all laws. Good bad or indifferent. But they have no right to pick and choose which laws they're they're going to say that if they don't like some laws they're told that they should write their congressman. But if you look at the older generation. You find that the older generation doesn't do what it advises. It doesn't do what it urges the UN to do that during prohibition for example. It was the older generation that floated the law along with everybody else. And as for the official rules you notice that even the law enforcement officials pick and choose what laws they're going to back. Consider for example the widespread I'm tied to does almost say wholesale illegal use

of wiretaps and bugging sometimes by the highest officials in the land. And there are many other examples of that. Sometimes I wonder if the. Seems to me maybe as our government our big government grows bigger. If these officials don't begin to think of themselves not as servants of the people but as rulers. And forget about ruling by the consent of the governed instead attempt to rule by authoritarian pronouncements backed by back right threats now governing people governing without the consent of the government is a difficult and maybe even impossible art even in the US. I think even in a

totalitarian society. There's another gap and that might be called the poverty gap because up until 10 years ago or so pop was used principally by people in the slum by the young people in the slums and from the Negro ghettos. And these were the principal people who went to prison. And there wasn't much fuss made what much fuss abate about that the marijuana has in all its long history been used with some exceptions few exceptions mainly by poor people. That's because the stuff I support grows everywhere and it's so cheap you know. So the marijuana program up to about 10 years ago might have been described as a program to preserve the virtue of the poor. Though the young are generally particularly those smokers naturally

and their sympathizers and that includes quite a lot of the younger generation generally critical of the marijuana laws and so they tend to withdraw their support of these laws and withdraw their support of the law makers. The law enforcement law enforcement law enforcers and there's this lack of cooperation. For example they as you can see if you are asked to turn over your kid or your neighbor's kid to some official who can send him to prison for say 50 years without the benefit of parole or any release for 50 years expired you are going to be a little reluctant to do that considering that what is done here. What is involved here is really simply a personal personal habit and almost everybody when you think

about it realizes that. We don't usually send people to the prison and jail for having bad personal habits. And you don't think of the jail in the prison as a good place to cure a person of a bad habit. As we generally reserve leave the prisons in the jails for people who are a threat or injurious or threatening injury or harming other persons. So actually in this in this great marijuana debate as it as it's called The discussion really ought to be on the harm done to others. Not not to self. Now I think it's easy for people to see that because that is a fundamental and integral part of the idea of personal liberty.

They do so as if our if our government starts to deal with all of our bad habit by sending us to prison for being victims of them then all you can say is God help us. We will be living in a totalitarian society. When that happens. So there is a basic principle involved here and that's why both adults who have to handle the offenders and the offenders themselves. I mean the pot offenders the smokers and the pushers have difficulty in thinking of themselves as criminals. So the laws and the penalties which I've described actually. Simply aren't aren't applied and that is not a recommendation for a law namely a criminal law which poses a threat which isn't carried

out and can't be carried out. As a matter of fact it's very much the situation is becoming very much like the days of the Volstead Act. The whole thing is becoming a joke. I listened to kind of a sour joke but a joke. I listened to life in the other night and there were a lot of cracks about marijuana like you know the grass is greener in Mexico and whatnot. This is a matter for the public. Joking and laughter and ridicule of the law's the law makers and the law enforcement enforcers and also hostility. And this is a dangerous and unhappy situation. Thank you.

Alcoholism and marijuana are the generation gap with Indiana University professor of sociology Dr. Alfred R. Linda Smith was produced by WFIU radio service of Indiana University Bloomington. This is NPR. The national educational radio network.