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March 18, 2014
Richard Nixon's (Almost) Perfect Crime 1
An essential tenet of Richard Nixon's Controlled Substances Act is that "marijuana", as a designated Schedule One "substance" cannot possibly be medicine because it wasn't recognized as such by "American Medicine" in 1970. Thus the first question that should have been raised about the CSA is by what authority could Nixon and Mitchell, a pair of lawyers, presume to speak authoritatively on behalf of "American Medicine?" Sadly, no one in Congress or in the Medical profession had the presence of mind to ask that question. The closest anyone came was when the anonymous House drafting committee prevailed upon Nixon to appoint the Shafer Commission. Two years later, when it unexpectedly ignored Nixon's wishes by suggesting timidly that pot be "decriminalized" and "studied" the Shafer report was completely ignored by a President who had just been returned to office by an historic landslide and thus able to brush it aside. During the first two years of his second term, a triumphant Nixon was able to create the DEA (1973) and NIDA (1974) as his perpetually self-interested surrogates to prosecute "drug crime" and protect the intellectual flanks of his execrable law.In that respect, the Trickster was far more successful than with any of his other presidential responsibilities, including his own job, from which he was forced to resign for (of all things) lying.
For me personally, it's particularly irritating that the two agencies he created to enforce and lobby for his invidious law are still active and federally funded. It's particularly galling that the White House is now occupied by a nominally black lawyer who was smart enough to be elected to the Harvard Law Review, but hasn't tumbled to the benefits he derived from his own adolescent use of cannabis.
By the way, the Cannabis Culture link on Nixon's sins is generally accurate, but contains one factual error. RMN was not appointed to anything by either Senator McCarthy. He won his red-baiting spurs as a member of of the infamous HUAC.
More, later.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at March 18, 2014 08:50 PM