On September 9, 1971, in a lengthy Oval Office conversation that was clearly about marijuana, Nixon said something that is an interesting admission for the king of the “Drug War.” Did he or didn’t he? He was speaking with Raymond P. Shafer, Jerome H. Jaffe, and Egil G. “Bud” Krogh, Jr.
In the meeting Nixon was informing Shafer that he wanted the Shafer Commission Report conclusion to be against marijuana so that the administration could meet Nixon’s goal of permanently classifying marijuana as a Schedule 1 narcotic substance.
For the full transcript, access the Web site of Common Sense for Drug Policy, CSDP.org/News/News/Nixon.htm.
Richard Nixon: “Read an amusing story, [unintelligible] was telling me…”
Raymond P. Shafer: “I have an amusing story too…”
Nixon: “Uh, it is uh, this is a father and son, got, got arrested
[unintelligible], his father says, you [unintelligible]. [unintelligible] a couple more weeks you know he says, our, says you know I’m working my garden and everything, father says ok, father says well, uh maybe the kid couldn’t [unintelligible] that day, go out and work in the garden. He found out that the little son of a bitch was growing marijuana, had to wait for the crop to come in. It’s an absolute true story. But, I, I, I believe having said all I have, I have a tremendous [unintelligible], I see these kids, and we’ve all, we’ve all, uh, grown up, and, there was smoking, there was alcohol, there’s a lot of other things people do, er, in the old days, etc., etc. I mean, there’s a, the uh, maybe, uh, uh, going to see Greta Garbo in the day, etc., etc. Don’t call me yellow, is that…”
Unknown person in room: “It was, ‘I Am Curious Yellow.’”
Nixon: “But anyway. It’s a [unintelligible] what we did, but, by golly, the thing to do now is to alert the country to the problem and say now, this far no farther, and I think that that’s what you want to do, is take a strong line.”