Marijuana Prohibition Quotes
Although only a minority of Americans advocated legalization of Marijuana at the time, Nixon brought his notorious anti-Semitic point of view to bear on a situation where the overwhelming majority of Marijuana legalizers were Christian. There were Jews as well – in particular some prominent Jews such as Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Milton Friedman who recommended against marijuana use, but argued against government making it illegal. This was a position held by most Libertarians, many liberals, and many conservatives like Friedman.
President Barack Obama had the week before, made a speech observing the fact that marijuana was less dangerous then alcohol.
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.”
