During the Johnson administration the marijuana culture flourished. Thousands of military personnel serving in Southeast Asia became familiar with marijuana. Some brought packets of it home with them. Some shipped home bundles of choice cannabis in body bags. Others sent cannabis-stuffed gifts back to friends and loved ones back home. Across the U.S. and Canada there was an awakening of political activism, often with large groups of young people gathering for civil rights marches and war protests where marijuana was smoked. Others were dropping out and flocking to communes, such as in Taos, New Mexico. The communes, the rock-’n’-roll music, and the 1967 Summer of Love turned more people onto marijuana. Government actions to try to control it were a waste of money. Anyone who wanted it could get it. Yet, the arrests of those breaking the marijuana laws eclipsed those of more serious crimes. The marijuana laws were a failure from the start, and by the late 1960s it was glaringly apparent that the government was moving in the wrong direction. It should have been extremely obvious that placing pot-smoking young people in prison at the prime of their lives was not a good thing for society.
“The traffic in marijuana has increased sharply within the last three or four years. Many areas which were formerly almost free of drug abuse now report a small but persistent traffic, centering on the ‘hippie elements’ and college campuses. Our reports show that more than 40 percent of the new marijuana users reported to the Bureau in 1967 were under the age of 21 years.”
– Henry Giordano, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, testifying before Congress, 1968
In the 1960s an organization of political activists named “The Brotherhood of Eternal Love” was actively involved in smuggling cannabis into the U.S.
As the marijuana culture spread, the demand for it increased beyond what was being produced in domestic cultivation. The government was well aware that huge amounts of cannabis in various forms, including hashish and hashish oil, were being smuggled into the U.S. and Canada, including on military ships and airplanes returning from warmer climates.
In 1967, under pressure from the U.S., the United Nations ratified its Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs to outlaw marijuana throughout the world. Anslinger, although no longer in his position as the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics since Henry Giordano had taken his place during the Kennedy administration, attended a hearing to advise the Senate to sign onto the ratification, which they did. This created the United Nations Fund for Drug Control. Known as the International Drug Control Program, it allows for worldwide policing of the drug trade. That same year the Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs was amended by the Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
With each year more people were arrested and imprisoned on marijuana charges. But one could buy cancer-inducing cigarettes and cheap alcohol at the local supermarket. By the end of the decade laws against marijuana use among college students and war protestors were being used as a tool to arrest those who spoke out against the government. Some of the young people busted on marijuana charges were given the option of jail or joining the killing machine that was the military.
“Since the use of marijuana and other narcotics is widespread among members of the New Left, you should be alert to opportunities to have them arrested by local authorities on drug charges.”
– J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director, 1968 memo to all FBI field offices
The FBI and Federal Bureau of Narcotics used illegal phone taps, undercover agents, and paid informants to fight marijuana use and/or to work against those who spoke against the government. They also negotiated with those they arrested to turn in their friends and associates in exchange for shortened sentences or softer charges. Files were kept on some of the most popular musicians and celebrities of the day. Anyone speaking at a war protest or involved in the civil rights movement was suspect.
If a young person traveled to certain countries on the “Hippy Trail” where cannabis was commonly grown and used, such as Afghanistan, India, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey, they could also be subject to government attention. Airport searches were becoming increasingly common when travelers returned from those countries.
The U.S. government also attempted, but failed, to destroy the hashish market by paying millions of dollars to the Afghanistan government to eliminate cannabis farms. With countries in that region of the world increasing their reliance on income from exporting cannabis and hashish, it was virtually impossible to crush the production of cannabis. But the U.S. kept using its policing of the drug trade as rational to formulate foreign policy and relations with other countries. This was often done with the goal of gaining access to resources.
While the government increased its involvement in trying to eradicate cannabis cultivation in other countries, it also was spending greater resources in labor, equipment, and cash in an attempt to get rid of the domestic cultivation, sales, and use of cannabis.
All of the government’s domestic and international efforts did not stop cannabis from becoming the most common illicit substance being used throughout the world.
Poet and outspoken antidrug law activist Alan Ginsberg knew what it was like to be harassed by the government. Exercising his freedom of speech through his books, and at speaking engagements on college campuses, at bookstores, and in the media brought him to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which kept a file on him. Once when returning to the States he was strip-searched and even the lint of his pockets was examined with a magnifying glass to see if any illegal substances could be found. People who associated with him were also subjected to the watchful eye of both the FBI and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
When Black Panther member Lee Otis Johnson was arrested after sharing a joint with an undercover agent in Houston in 1967, he was convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison. A federal district appeals court dismissed the sentence after ruling that the charges were politically motivated.
“Drug use signifies the total end of the Protestant ethic: screw work, we want to know ourselves. But of course the goal is to free oneself from American society’s sick notion of work, success, reward, and status and to find oneself through one’s own discipline, hard work, and introspection.”
– Jerry Rubin, co-founder with Abbie Hoffman of the Youth International Party (Yippies) that put a real live Landrace boar named Pig (real name: Pigasus from the Hog Farm hippie commune) on the ’68 Democratic primary ballot. Hoffman once ran for mayor of Berkeley where he organized peace marches; wore an American Revolutionary War uniform when he appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; led an antiwar march on the Pentagon; and, along with Hoffman and Tom Hayden, was part of the Chicago Seven who protested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. This led to the Chicago Conspiracy Trial of 1969, which, in a government act against those who protested the administration, tried the group on trumped-up conspiracy charges. After a circus-like trial, five of them were convicted, but the ruling was eventually overturned on appeal. I was present in November 1994 when Rubin jaywalked across Wilshire Blvd. to get to his Westwood apartment building. A load of airline flight attendants were getting off a bus in front of a hotel, which may have distracted some drivers. One car swerved, but another hit Rubin. It was a terrible sound. Everyone was surprised that he was still alive. He was rushed to UCLA Medical Center, underwent many hours of surgery, but died two weeks later.
The youth of the country were becoming increasingly active in working to protest the government’s military actions in Southeast Asia, and the abuse of their own rights and lives. More people became aware of marijuana with some smoking it simply in protest of what they saw as a corrupt government. And more people became disillusioned by the White House administration and the war machine that was the Pentagon. In October 1967 a group of protesters gathered outside of the Pentagon in an attempt to focus their mind energy on eliminating the evil from the U.S. military. And on New Years Day 1968, in the New York apartment of Steal This Book author Abbie Hoffman, a group of people gathered to smoke weed and organize the Youth International Party (YIP) with its members becoming known as yippies.
Marijuana use among U.S. citizens at home was reflective of those who were attending foreign universities, traveling in other countries, living abroad, or fighting the war in Vietnam. The whole world was becoming aware of marijuana. Songs, films, and other forms of art expressed this awareness. As the popularity of cannabis spread, more people started growing it inside the U.S. borders, often with seeds imported from other parts of the world, including those brought home by soldiers and military personnel returning from Vietnam and other countries.
Then there was also a young man named Thomas King Forcade (intentionally sounds like façade). He was born Kenneth Gary Goodson and served a short stint in the Air Force in 1965, but had some fake or real incident with mental health issues and was dishonorably discharged. After graduating with a business degree from the University of Utah, Forcade moved to a commune in Tucson. At some point he had been involved in smuggling marijuana from Mexico. After the law raided the commune, Goodson changed his name to Forcade, became politically involved, and began publishing an underground journal named Orpheus, which he put together while living in a school bus. He eventually moved to New York and helped to form the Underground Press Syndicate, an association of alternative publications that were starting across the country to report on issues and events not covered in the corporate press.
Then, Richard Nixon became president in 1969 and the fight for personal freedom and the manipulation of foreign policies intensified as Nixon declared his goal to eliminate drug use from society. He authorized U.S. embassies to increase their focus on the international drug trade and allocated more money for certain countries to subsidize farmers to grow food rather than cannabis, poppies, and coca.
The Nixon administration also investigated antiestablishment organizations and publications associated with the Liberation News Service, which supplied articles to alternative publications in the Underground Press Syndicate.
During a one-month period at the end of 1969 the Nixon administration authorized Operation Intercept to intensify drug searches of vehicles entering the U.S./Mexico border gates. It was known that a large amount of Mexican-grown marijuana was entering the U.S. The well-publicized and wasteful plan was canceled after little marijuana was found and the Mexican government failed to cooperate.
What Operation Intercept did do is that it raised the price of marijuana because the growers, importers, suppliers, and others in the marijuana business saw what kind of risks they were up against. It also got young people to drink more alcohol, because it was cheaper and easier to get, and it increased the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths caused by young drivers. Statistically, people who are drive under the influence of alcohol cause a great number more traffic accidents than those who are only under the influence of marijuana.
“As you know, there is a Commission that is supposed to make recommendations to me about this subject; in this instance, however, I have such strong views that I will express them. I am against legalizing marijuana. Even if the Commission does recommend that it be legalized. I will not follow that recommendation.”
– Richard Nixon, New York Times, May 1971
As the government intensified its domestic drug enforcement it chose peculiar targets – often people and organizations that spoke out against the White House administration.
In a meeting on May 26, 1971, Nixon made these rather revealing comments to Bob Haldeman:
“Now, this is one thing I want. I want a goddamn strong statement on marijuana. Can I get that out of this sonofabitching, uh, Domestic Council?”
Haldeman: “Sure.”
Nixon: “I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them. I see another thing in the news summary this morning about it. You know it’s a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it’s because most of them are psychiatrists, you know, there’s so many, all the greatest psychiatrists are Jewish. By God we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss, I want to find a way of putting more on that.”
When the feds raided the Phoenix offices of the Underground Press Syndicate they failed to find drugs, but located and took the subscription lists and other files – which some people believed was the real goal of the raid.
When the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography held meetings in Washington in May of 1970, Forcade made an appearance and accused the members of the commission as being “walking antiques.” He presented a letter listing 45 publications that had been the focus of the administration’s intimidation tactics to shut down alternative newspapers that Forcade referred to as the “new-conscious media.” He told the commission, “The only obscenity is censorship.” And he threw a custard pie at a congressman.
The Nixon administration kept on with its war on the underground press, on drugs, and on those associating or suspected of associating with groups or people that spoke out against the War on Drugs, the war in Vietnam, or that were working to educate the public about the inner workings of the government. Alternative presses continued to be subjected to office raids, intimidation, and having their equipment and publications destroyed. Artists and musicians continued to produce works protesting the government, advancing the antiestablishment movement. And more and more people kept being charged with breaking marijuana laws and being sentenced to prison.
To further expand its War on Drugs, the Nixon administration created the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement as well as the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. And they used the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to intimidate and otherwise cause problems for alternative news publications and groups, organizations, and people, such as Vietnam Veterans Against the War, that worked to educate the public about the government’s tactics and that worked to encourage young people to vote.
The cultivation of hemp, which is not a drug and can’t get you high, was temporarily labeled as a Schedule 1 substance under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act that was passed by Congress in 1970. The Act classified hemp as an illegal substance with no medical value. The Act also removed mandatory sentences for marijuana possession, making it a misdemeanor. It created a five-level classification for drugs in line with a drug’s perceived medical value and potential for abuse.
This ban on hemp came at a time when Richard Nixon was being advised by various scientists to legalize hemp and marijuana because the laws banning them were a tremendous waste of money and based on ludicrous claims. He obviously ignored the advice. He wanted marijuana permanently banned as a Schedule 1 substance.
On June 17, 1971 Nixon, declared his War on Drugs before Congress.
The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act established the national Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. This became known as the Shafer Commission, named after its chairman, former Pennsylvania governor Raymond Shafer. Hoping to get a report that agreed with his stance on marijuana, Nixon and his advisors picked nine of the 13 commissioners.
What is interesting is that in 1971 Nixon appointed Shafer to chair the congressionally mandated National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse specifically because Shafer was a conservative. To help formulate the outcome of the expected conclusions of the report, the Nixon administration also appointed a dean of a law school; a retired Chicago police captain; two senators, and two congressmen from each of the Republican and Democratic parties; and four doctors, including the head of a mental health hospital.
In Oval Office meetings, Nixon was exacting in his instruction to Shafer that the final report should be conclusively against marijuana.
What Nixon wanted wasn’t always what Nixon ended up getting.
The Shafer Commission undertook a massive project that involved dozens of research projects. They considered all previous research and claims about marijuana while also conducting new research. The report was released in several stages covering various aspects of U.S. drug laws and viewpoints of many professionals. It pointed out the myths and mistruths about marijuana. Among its conclusions was that “Marihuana’s relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it.”
“… The policy-makers [who made marijuana and hemp farming illegal in 1937] knew very little about the effects or social impact of the [marijuana] drug; many of their hypotheses were speculative and, in large measure, incorrect.”
– Shafer Commission Report: Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding: The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse: Chapter V: marihuana and social policy: A Social Control Policy for Marihuana: Discouragement or Neutrality: 2. Continuing Scientific Uncertainty Precludes Finality; Commissioned by President Richard M. Nixon, March 1972
Boy, was Nixon in for a surprise when the commission did just the opposite of what he wanted: Instead of sticking up for him and recommending stronger drug laws, the commission recommended decriminalizing marijuana!
Apparently dissatisfied with the conclusions of a report that his own administration commissioned, Nixon rejected the findings of the commission. He had advance word that the report was not going to back his agenda and he was prepared to work against its conclusions.
The Shafer Commission Report not only concluded that marijuana should be decriminalized for personal use, but also said that the selling or other exchange of small amounts should also be decriminalized. It concluded “marihuana use is not such a grave problem that individuals who smoke marihuana, or possess it for that purpose, should be subject to criminal procedures.” The report concluded that about 40 percent of U.S. citizens aged 18 to 25 had used cannabis. It stated, “Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety.” Rather than blaming marijuana for dangers to health, the report stated, “a careful search of literature and testimony by health officials has not revealed a single human fatality in the U.S. proven to have resulted solely from the use of marijuana.” The Commission compared the situation to alcohol Prohibition. Dr. James Carey of the University of California wrote, “There is increasing evidence that we are approaching a situation similar to that at the time when the Volstead [alcohol Prohibition] Act was repealed [on December 5, 1933].”
When Nixon was provided with the painstakingly researched report he said he tossed the study into the trash without reading it. The report was in opposition to Nixon’s stance that marijuana “criminals” needed to be treated more harshly. “Enforce the law. You’ve got to scare them,” is how Nixon put it in conversations recorded in the Oval Office.
Nixon called the commission “a bunch of do-gooders” who were “soft on marijuana.” On March 21, 1972, the day before early versions of the report were released (the final report was released in 1973), Nixon made his now-famous statement: “We need, and I use the word ‘all-out war,’ on all fronts.”
In October 1973 Arab countries became greatly displeased with how the U.S. supported Israel with weaponry during the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria. The Arab countries retaliated by refusing to export their petroleum to the U.S. and its European allies. This became known as the “OPEC oil embargo,” with OPEC meaning the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In the U.S., the price of a gallon of gasoline quickly rose to $1.50 per gallon. Long lines formed at gas stations. Automobiles in that era often got less than 15 miles per gallon, and most of America had become overly reliant on their automobiles.
1973 was also the year that the Nixon administration increased funding to arrest those breaking the marijuana laws. As the war abroad continued, Nixon got the government to go to war with its own citizens. In support of the Nixon administration, New York’s Governor Nelson Rockefeller got the state to enact the strongest drug laws in the country. As arrests went up, so did the price of drugs. And as the price went up, so too did the number of organized crime organizations wanting to get in on the money, on protecting their territory, and on importing larger and larger quantities of drugs.
By 1974, the budget of the newly-created Drug Enforcement Agency was $719,000,000. The costs of the drug war also involved more officers, more people in court, and more people having to be sent to prisons – and this meant building more prisons.
To put it lightly, Nixon and Rockefeller, and the rest of them, were a bit disconnected from reality, and especially from the reality of what most of America was experiencing, what they considered to be important, and what they considered to be solutions to the real problems of facing the nation. What the Republican leadership was doing wasn’t helping the country, or the citizens, but was working against them at a time when things were already stressful.
“And let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. God damn it, they root them [homosexuals] out, they don’t let them around at all. You know what I mean? I don’t know what they do with them. Now, we are allowing this in this country when we show [unintelligible]. Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can allow, not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they’re trying to destroy us.”
– Oval Office conversation 498-5, meeting with Nixon, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman, May 13, 1971, between 10:30am and 12:30pm; transcript available at the Web site Common Sense for Drug Policy, CSDP.org/Research/NixonPot.txt. The conversation goes on with Bob Haldeman leaving the room. George Shultz enters with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Then Nixon goes on to express more bizarre viewpoints about marijuana.
“Now, my position is flat-out on that. I am against legalizing marijuana. Now I’m against legalizing marijuana because, I know all the arguments about, well, marijuana is no worse than whiskey, or etc., etc., etc. But the point is, once you cross that line, from the straight society to the drug society – marijuana, then speed, then it’s LSD, then it’s heroin, etc., then you’re done. But the main point is – well, well, we conduct, well, this commission will come up with a number of recommendations…”
– Nixon saying to Richard Daley that the commission will come up with a number of recommendations that back Nixon’s views on marijuana.
Nixon’s stance resulted in marijuana arrests increasing by more than 128,000. The year after the Shafer Commission Report was released, approximately 420,700 persons were arrested on pot charges.
As a way to formally lobby legislatures to overhaul the U.S. marijuana laws, in 1971 an attorney named Keith Stroup formed the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He was assisted by a donation by Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner. NORML continues to this day.
One popular marijuana case during the Nixon administration involved the arrest of music promoter, poet, and White Panther party founder John Sinclair. He was arrested in Michigan for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. In July 1969 Sinclair was sentenced to ten years in prison.
Abbie Hoffman interrupted the Who rock band during their performance at Woodstock by grabbing the microphone to speak to the crowd about Sinclair. According to various takes on the event, Pete Townsend either accidentally bumped into Hoffman, which knocked him off the stage; used his guitar to push Hoffman from the stage; or hit him on the head, which made Hoffman tumble from the stage. Townsend later apologized for whatever happened and also spoke out against the imprisonment of Sinclair.
On December 10, 1971, a benefit concert named the Free John Now Rally was held at the Crisler arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over 15,000 people attended. Among those appearing on stage were people not so truly loved by the Nixon administration: Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono. The FBI and other branches of the government had been keeping files on all four of them. Together they sang a song written about and titled John Sinclair. Bob Seger and Stevie Wonder also performed at the rally.
The publicity worked. Three days later the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state’s cannabis laws were unconstitutional. Sinclair was then released from prison. While in prison he wrote the books Guitar Army and Music & Politics. He went on to become the editor of the Detroit Sun, to record music, and to write the book of poetry Va Tutto Bene (It’s All Good).
The city of Ann Arbor has created some of the most lenient cannabis laws in the U.S. In 1972 the city enacted a $5 fine for possession of less than two ounces of weed. The ordinance was repealed in June 1973 as more than one hundred spectators protested by lighting joints in city council chambers and the city’s mayor was smacked in the face with a pie. In April 1974 Ann Arbor voters reversed that decision and reinstated the $5 fine by amending the city charter. City police and prosecutors were restricted from referring pot charges to state or federal authorities. In 1990 the fine was increased to $25 and up to $100 or more depending on the offense.
The city of Ann Arbor hosts a “Hash Bash” on the first Saturday of April, an annual event that started in 1971 to protest Sinclair’s arrest.
By the summer of 1974 the Nixon administration was unraveling. This was because of a little incident that happened on the night of June 17, 1972. It was when five men broke into the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building. The men were working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President. This led to exposure of other illegal activities involving abuses of power, wiretapping, stealing of classified documents, plans to do other break-ins, and great efforts to cover up the mess. The ensuing investigations and hearings enlightened the masses to government corruption.
There were huge protests at the 1972 Republican National Convention held in Miami. The crowds were larger than the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The corporate news failed to report on the protests, and focused instead on the actual convention. Meanwhile, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program was used against those working to organize the protests. Tom Forcade was arrested on false charges of planning to bomb the Miami convention center. He was later cleared of the charges.
In July 1973 the Nixon administration used Executive Order and formed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) by combining the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention, and the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence.
While most of the DEA’s focus is on a domestic War on Drugs, its influence and activities are global. In 2007 the DEA had over 250 field offices in the U.S. and over 70 foreign offices in over 55 countries. It hasn’t stopped drug use, but has increased the price of drugs while also increasing prison populations throughout the world and fueling the organized crime elements of the drug trade.
In well-deserved international disgrace, Nixon left office on August 9, 1974.
Shafer remained in the opinion that marijuana should be decriminalized, including during his time serving as special counsel on the staff of Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller from August 1974 to January 1977.