William Bennett Quotes

There are great differences in the law enforcement policies throughout the country. Even when marijuana was illegal in every state, there were gret differences in the vigor with which this illegality was enforced. And local cities, towns and counties also are different. In the case of Pueblo marijuana was illegal in his childhood but the local authorities chose not to enforce those laws. Even within the same city or town there are often differential enforcement policies for different neighborhoods very ften. Also some communities have a strong libertarian viewpoint and there has been a reluctance to enforce lws relating to personal life choices.

This quotation brought him much ridicule. See {585947}. Clinton was of the swing era where there were very negative public views about the morality of using illicit drugs and the character of those who might have used it. So Clinton felt constrained to emphasize that it was only marijuana, the most popular and benign of the illicit drugs, and to emphasize the fact that he did not enjoy it. His successor, however George W. Bush, had been an alcoholic and a heavy cocaine user, but learning from the Clinton error, would never comment about it other than to say that it was wrong and he urged all to avoid drugs.

Despite all the scientific knowledge, Anslinger and his bureau constantly lied about the dangers of marijuana—even to physicians most of whom knew better. It was so blatant that most of the American public discounted anything the Bureau said and even discounted what government health agencies told the public. So the actual problems associated with marijuana found a jaded, suspicious public. It took years to overcome the Anslinger hyperbole. See {593333} and {593334}.

This remarkable observation turned out to be true even to this day where study after study demonstrates that the average teenager believes that drug use is much more prevalent that it really is.

Marijuana was and still is a health and social problem in that people who tend to use it---especially young people---tend not to focus on their friendships, their work and study obligations, their own development and welfare. However it is nowhere near the degree of deleterious problems of alcohol and other drugs like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. There is no record of anyone dying from an over dose or marijuana while alcohol and other drugs kill hundreds if not thousands a year. But none of those health emergencies compare with the flu which each year kills over 20,000 Americans who do not get inoculations or highway crashes which kill about 50,000. Yet Nixon did not characterize these as “national emergencies.”

La Guardia had seen some Federal officials claim that marijuana was a very dangerous drug leading to insanity, violence and murder if used. See {624434} and {590692} . However, none of the “dangers” had been verified by science and medicine/ La Guardia was the first public official who asked scientists to study the substance and let people know the real danger if any. The report was a major contracdiction to the federal propaganda that had been issued, and even continued to be after this study by the prestigious New York Academy of Medicine. It has been known for a long time that marijuana was relatively harmless when compared with other drugs such as heroin, cocaine, alcohol and tobacco. At the time the government officials had lied to the public grossly exaggerating the negative effects of marijuana. And scientific research was prohibited in most cases until the 21st century. And the evidence is now available that while marijuana does not have the very dangerous effect that was claimed, it is not benign either. Marijuana has an effect on the brain—especially of youth who are still developing—that is not totally understood. And there is a definite negative relationship between the extent of marihuana smoking student grades. Also we know now that marijuana impedes social development as well as intellectual. The causality is not clearly established however. It is possible that the poorer students and those less socially skilled have little success and use marijuana. With the exception of many adults who claim that marihuana helps them tolerate cancer drugs and other pain, there is no other benefit that has been found. Youngsters can think they are “cool” but that is about it on the plus side. On the negative side, marijuana is not the most dangerous drug one can take, but it is certainly not harmless.